May 152012
 

You stand in Zambia, on the shore of the broad Zambezi, gazing towards Zimbabwe from Zambia. It’s surprising you can feel so energized after a night being woken by such noisy neighbors – elephants trumpeting on the salt lick behind camp and lions rumbling across the river. They’re far away but sound as if they’re knocking on your tent flap.  As the flaming sun slowly emerges from below the horizon, lighting the smooth flowing waters in front of you, the peace is shattered by the grunting of a nearby hippo. Your canoes are ready to go, but they’ll have to wait a little longer as the smell of breakfast, bacon and scrambled eggs, wafts to your nostrils. After eating your fill the Zambezi will continue to provide surprise after surprise, bend after bend. It’s  going to be a good day.

Three blue canoes on the Zambezi riverside with an orange sun rising over the horizon leaving orange streaks on the water in Zambia.

If you fancy waking up to this scene, you can buy a print here.

May 122012
 

My Tripod Search

On my gear page I mention that I’m not fully satisfied with my current tripod and mentioned one set of legs I’m considering. I’m going to be expanding this section soon because the more I look round the more options I find. I’ve got a good idea of what I want. The legs max height needs to be about 5’3″. At this height, the tripod head plus the height of my camera should get the viewfinder to eye level for me. It also needs to be able to set up with the legs spread out flat so I can shoot from ground level. With this in mind I don’t want a center column, as they reduce stability when extended and make getting the camera to ground level difficult. With setup in mind, one thing I like about my Benro Angel is the twist locks on the legs. So, that’s something I’ll definitely be looking for in my replacement. Additionally, I want to go as light as possible so will be looking at buying carbon fiber. These parameters are pretty easy to fulfill, but I also want it to fit in a carry on. This is where things get tricky. Hopefully, I’ll find something suitable soon as I want to bring it to Iceland with me in June.

Today’s Photo: Victoria Falls and Batoka Gorge

After crawling out on a ledge for the photo posted here, I set up in a much safer position on the other side of the tree. I still can’t believe how unrestricted we were at the top of the falls. This day Shannon and I had gone back to the falls without a guide and just walked right along the edge in search of photos. We did have one scary moment though. On the way back to the parking lot, I’m pretty sure we encountered the biggest baboon in the world. It was terrifying and grunting. It definitely did not sound like it was in a good mood. We backed off and hid behind a bush as it crossed the path and disappeared.

View of Victoria Falls and Batoka Gorge in Zambia with giant tree branch reaching towards waterfall cascading down to green pool of water.

 Interested in buying a print? CLICK HERE

 

May 092012
 

I like this photo a lot. It’s not often I’ll open a post like that. The thing is, I’m not sure if it’s that this is that good a photo or if it’s more to do with the memory associated with it. We stopped here for our first lunch on the Lower Zambezi. This is actually on the Zimbabwe side of the river and is the first of two times I’ve set foot in the country (both within a day of each other). You can see where we actually set foot in Zimbabwe for the first time, down by where the canoes are beached. We’d spent about two hours paddling to reach this spot and it was pretty nerve-wracking. We weren’t used to the canoes and were still pretty paranoid about wild animals. It’s funny comparing those first couple hours with the next few days where we became perfectly comfortable floating down the river… for the most part.

When I took this, HDR was still quite new to me (I guess it still is) and I was fascinated with the textures I was able to portray. When I saw this tree I knew that I had to photograph it’s old wrinkled and cracked bark. I also liked the idea of capturing the canoes on the shoreline through the trees, which would be difficult with more traditional photography methods. After eating lunch everyone took a snooze. I thought this was interesting as we were completely exposed to any wild animals that should decide to stroll past. I became numb to this threat over the next five days, except for a couple of moments when I wasn’t in sight of the rest of the group (bathroom breaks mostly).

As the group snored around me,  which I decided was a natural wildlife deterrent, I set about taking the following photo, which I must have tried to process twenty times before. I hope you like it.

Old tree with cracked wrinkled bark and five blue canoes on the shoreline on the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe.

 

 

Apr 132012
 

In a previous post (Dip on a Rebel Elephant) I wrote about how Soniko and Chris’s elephant was a bit of a rebel. Here, early in the trip, you can see it stopping for an unplanned snack. I feel I should mention that Soniko and Chris didn’t plan on getting so cozy atop a munching herbivore. When the elephants were being assigned, there were three available for single riders. A man there with his two daughter’s jumped at the opportunity, quickly followed by Soniko and Chris. Unfortunately, one of the elephants decided that it didn’t feel like going for a walk so was left behind, putting Chris and Soniko on the worst behaved elephant they had. Sharing was probably a good thing, at least they could share some of the trauma they went through. This included charging through thorn bushes, swimming through crocodile infested water, and regular breaking into a trot as the handler tried to slow it down. All the while, they must have heard the sound of Shannon and I laughing off in the distance. All summed up though, they definitely had the most adventure.

Soniko had a knack for finding himself in the most exciting situations. It was interesting because, as he readily admits, he was the person in the group least interested in the more adrenaline filled aspects. Despite this, he got to sit closest to the open doors of a Huey Helicopter, in Cape Town, for a simulated combat ride. He was first to get thrown from our raft on the rapids of the Middle Zambezi. He was even the first to get involved in a staring match with an agitated silver-back gorilla in Rwanda (until he snuck behind Cameron as evidenced by this video… watch the navy blue legs move behind the khaki ones). That being said, he survived it all and definitely seemed to enjoy himself.

I’ve mentioned before that it’s not easy shooting while straddling a lumbering elephant. My three exposures for this shot weren’t even close to being lined up. As a result, this is an HDR image from a single RAW.

Three men sitting atop a large elephant as he takes a detour to eat from a tasty tree in Zambia.

Apr 022012
 

During the wet season water cascades over these cliffs. During the dry season you get to walk along them. It’s amazing how the water carves this chasm in the landscape. While down in the gorge rafting I felt like we were surrounded by mountains. As a result, when I went micro-lighting a couple of days later I was shocked to see just how flat the landscape is. It’s completely flat, all the way to the horizon, but for this fissure gouged out of the Earth’s surface. Also shocking is the zig-zag shape of the gorge as the waterfall has cut back on itself, forever retreating, the old face of the waterfall being left dry as a new face evolves.

I shot 7 exposures bracketed from -3 to +3 but decided that the two extremes were not adding any detail so I only used 5 exposures, bracketed from -2 to +2. After running the exposures through Photomatix I actually masked in a lot of the original photos to keep the shadows looking natural. I really like the details that have come out in the turbulent water below. You can get a closer look by clicking the image and selecting a larger size.

View of Batoka Gorge, Zambia with a rainbow between the gorge above the flowing river.

Mar 062012
 

Waking up before sunrise is pretty easy when you’re sleeping in a mesh tent surrounded by the sounds of wild animals through the night. Light moving across the flat landscape was a welcome sign.

“You’ll hear animals through the night. They’re going to sound very close, but sound travels a long way here.”

That was the last thing our guide said to us before the group separated into their respective tents. It had been raining, a hard rain as reported in an earlier post, so our fly sheets were on. They were heavy with an almost rubbery feel. It didn’t take long until people emerged in the darkness, flashlights in hand, to remove the stifling material. The fear of another downpour led to discussions on whether to leave it on, leave them half on or take them completely off. My tent mate and I settled on taking it all the way off, but laying it down carefully so it could be pulled up rapidly if need be.

Following this we turned to the darkness. A quick waft of the flashlight revealed a disturbing number of glinting eyes – presumably hippos. Hippos that were already on land and probably only 50 meters from us – they looked back, not moving. I guess they were content to munch away on the long grass surrounding us. With this revelation we returned to our tents. Now, nothing but a thin mesh separated us from the elements, and the wild animals. To be honest, this is exactly what I was after. Why sleep in the bush if you’re just going to lock yourself away? Also, it was much cooler this way.

Just as I dozed off to sleep I was startled by the trumpeting of an elephant. It sounded like it had to be on the same island as us but I repeated the mantra “they sound closer than they are” and drifted off to sleep. I was woken regularly through the night by every noise you feel like a night in the African bush should provide. I heard hyenas, lions, more elephant trumpets, and hippos grunting. This was always punctuated by an eerie silence that you knew would be broken at any moment.

My tent-mate, however, was fortunate enough to be awake for our closest encounter. Having been on an elephant back safari just days before he was finely tuned to recognize the sound of elephant dung hitting the ground. He woke up to feel the ground moving and quickly recognized the thudding. It didn’t take long for him to conclude that an elephant was crapping right next to our tent. I asked if he’d turned on his light to take a look, but the closeness rendered him incapable of moving.

We awoke to a red sky, having survived the night, and exchanged the stories of sounds I’ve just recanted here. Then we hopped out to check the area. Sure enough, there was fresh dung right next to our tent.

Following this discovery I set about capturing the sun rise. I’ve got a lot of photos of this scene from the night before. I’m not happy with any of them. This morning, I took only one photo of this scene, and I’m thrilled by it. I find that I’m always happiest with photos I’ve had to wait to take. For this one, I identified where I thought that sun would be coming up, framed up the picture and waited. I waited for quite a while and the sky was pretty blue all the way across. I began to wonder if I’d misjudged the location of the sunrise and somehow missed it. Then the glow intensified and I knew it was about to peak over the horizon. 7 exposures later and I was packing up my gear.

Glorious star-burst sunrise peeking over the horizon on the Zambezi River in Zambia.

 

Mar 032012
 

After the sun sets, beginning your first evening on the banks of the lower Zambezi things get a little eerie.  You can see the bugs swirling in the light in front of you, and beyond you peer into the darkness that’s fallen over the still river. As you sit there, the silence is cut by the grunting of nearby hippos and your fellow guests tell you about the lions they saw just down the river.

We were staying in fancy en-suite tents for the night. Ours was right next to a haul-out area that was regularly used by hippos to get to land. The thought of encountering a hippo in the dark on our own was pretty terrifying. We walked everywhere with our flashlights and the one time I went to the tent and back on my own was pretty nerve-racking. It’s funny considering we were comfortable enough to steer our canoes directly at the giant beasts, confident that they’d move out of our way, just a few days later.

I’m not sure what inspired me to take this photo, but I think it’s pretty cool. It was pretty tricky to take as the deck wasn’t very stable too.  Every time people move the whole deck shook, ruining that frame.

Empty chair and table on the deck in the black of night lit by a lantern overlooking the Zambezi River in Zambia

Feb 292012
 

On our way to visit this village we saw the mud bricks used to build this structure baking in the sun. We went inside one for a demonstration on how grain is ground into flour. They’re actually a very clever design. The wall around the perimeter does not meet the thatched roof allowing for the breeze to roll through. This cools the inside while allowing any smoke produced in cooking to be quickly ventilated. The doorway was tiny and involved a bit of a contortion to get through.

Two round huts in a Lower Zambezi, Zambia village with thatched roofs with one with baked mud brick sides and the other stick sides.

Feb 062012
 

Jollyboys Hostel menu of activities includes a combo price for white water rafting and a booze cruise. It sounds like a fantastic idea and it really is. What’s not such a good idea is indulging in the booze cruise  the night before the rafting. Although, taking category 5 rapids head on is probably the best hangover cure in the world, unless you’re Cameron.

There are a lot of booze cruises going on in Bermuda and they’re great. But this one was a completely different concept all together. First of all, we were on a river. Second of all the water was chock full of hippos and crocodiles. On shore, you can see elephants and warthogs. It really is an incredible experience. The open bar doesn’t hurt. We paused to watch the sun dip below the horizon before heading back to dock, and I snapped this photo. It’s a  pretty basic sunset shot, which I wouldn’t normally take, but I thought the clouds were particularly interesting. I used my 14mm lens to compress the sky into the image.

 

Glorious sunset over the Upper Zambezi River in Zambia with really majestic clouds.

Feb 032012
 

It’s hard to leave Water Horse Safari’s Fly Camp on the Zambezi river after 3 nights there. It’s got the best showers in the world. You stand there with a chest height wall around you and solar warmed river water pouring over you. At the same time you’re spotting wildlife running past in the clearing ahead of you. They’ve got toilets, welcome after a night in the bush. They’ve got a table under a canopy and they have two-men mesh tents with comfy single beds in them. Square meals were prepared nightly and wine, poured from a bag, was available. Perfect.

Each morning we woke up to the sounds of grunting hippos and this view across to Zimbabwe. It doesn’t get much better than that.

 

View across to Zimbabwe from Water Horse Safari's Fly Camp on the Zambezi river in Zambia with blue canoes on shore, large tree and glorius sunrise.