Weely High Five #11

Ansel Adams said “Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have someone click the shutter.”

The above quote is something that epitomises how I sometimes feel and how I suppose many wildlife photographers feel at certain points when they are out in the field. In Africa’s wild places you find yourself surrounded by beauty, violence and a sense of expectation. There is never a dull moment.

Life here tends to balance itself out and the gentle grazing of an antelope is in stark contrast to the unbarred aggression of a lion killing a wildebeest. Even death in the wild seems to have a tranquil quality to it as nature’s story keeps repeating itself.

The richness and diversity out there means there is always a new image to capture. A new story to tell. If you have ever been on Safari you will know the feeling. Africa gets into your blood and keeps on calling you back.

It is difficult to explain it to someone who has never experienced the thrill of Africa but it’s almost as if you are surrounded by images waiting to happen all the time!! Amazing!

So with that, here goes with this week’s High Five.

Image 1 – Buffalo Fight by Grant Marcus

I think the thing that I liked about this picture is the angle of the two buffalos and the fact that you can see the eye perfectly on the closest one. The eyes make an animal come alive in the image and I think this is what caught my eye on this on.

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Image 2 – Buffalo Drinking by Grant Marcus

This image is definitely worth a look in a larger size. The repetition of the buffalo horns make it work. What would have made it even better is if the wind was not blowing and you could get the reflection of all the buffaloes bin the water as well. Nice use of repetition to create an interesting line in the image.

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Image 3 – Full Frame Flora by Warren David Diack

Africa has lots of small things to offer as well and one way of showing that is to fill the frame. This is a great example and the splashes of colour and little white tips in the middle draw your view to the centre of the image. Nice, sharp macro and well captured. Can’t wait for summer so we can all get back to capturing the world we sometimes miss. Insects, flowers, etc.

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Image 4 – Golden Wild Dog by Matt Jones

Great colors in this one. A very difficult image to try and meter for and sometimes one gets lucky with these ones. The dog looking back at you gives it a nice personal quality and the only thing I might have changed is to bump up the contrast a little bit – just to get a slightly more definite line around the edges but the images work very well as is.

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Image 5 – Rock Fig Roots by Craig Muller

A very interesting image which keeps your attention while you try and figure out what it actually is. I still think there are so many beautiful images out in nature that we sometimes drive or walk by and this shows what can be done when you keep your eyes open. The two earthy colors also work well together. This is another of those images that can lead us on to the discussion, which I am sure I will cover at some stage, of Wildlife & Nature photography moving into the realm of Fine Art photography. Well spotted scene and great resulting image.

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Image 6 – Peace Talks by Matt Jones


As mentioned previously Wildlife photography is not always about getting all the technical aspects perfectly correct, even though we strive for it all the time. The essence of what we do is to try and capture those ‘moments’ in nature that make us talk about it around the fire that evening or create an image that shows the true heart of nature. For me this is one of those. The image tells a story. Beautiful moment and my favourite this week!

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Leave a comment and tell me which is your favourite!

If you would like to view more of the latest images or purchase any of this week’s High Five images you can visit the Photo-Africa Stock Library.

To end of this week I thought I would include some images that Gavin emailed me. I do not know who took these images or where it was taken but it made me smile as the email was called “Africa is not for sissies”

There you go. Not something we see every day!

It has been quite a busy few weeks and I am only know starting to work through all my raw images of the last few weeks. I will hopefully be adding some of my new work to the Stock site soon but I will keep on updating the blog with interesting images and stories as they come up.

With the tyre-eating lions in mind I am going to leave you with a quote from Brian Jackman :

“Everything in Africa bites, but the Safari bug is the worst of all".

As always I look forward to hearing from you!

Until next time!

Gerry