Moonscapes and Silhouettes

In the last blog entry, I mentioned that while I at our Photo workshop, we were always back late to camp. The camp, I’m sure, does not like this much, but when you are out photographing good subjects, not even the great cuisine that Mashatu offers can tempt you back.

And this is exactly what happened on our last night there. We had spent the late afternoon light photographing wildebeest walking over the crest of a hill. The light was perfect and the wildebeest were glowing, making them look a lot prettier than they really are!

The full moon rises over the dramatic Mashatu landscape, peppered with huge Mashatu trees along the riverbed.

Part two
As the sun set, we drove up to the top of Disappointment Kopjie (hill) for our evening sundowner. The hills name is a misnomer to me, as this is when the action really started.
One client had a GPS, which told us that the full moon was to rise at exactly 18h29. We set up tripods and waited, patiently sipping our Gin and Tonics.
On the exact minute, the moon peeped over the Mashatu Landscape, again the cameras were clicking! As always it rose too fast and we were soon finished with it, but turning around, the silhouette of the vehicle and photographers made for a striking image. So we got turned our cameras to it… after that the stars were out, so we did a few trails and constellations…
As you can see, we got really stuck in. The African night entranced us and the cameras were hard at work, making all us photographers very happy!
Perhaps not the camp management though, we pulled in at 21h00… 1.5 hours late!

Turning around from photographing the moon, this is what we were greeted with. Drinks were dropped in haste and tripods set up for a dramatic silhouette.