A Detour to the Matabole Hide - By Kyle de Nobrega

After an early rise at 5am, it wasn’t long before we heard the distant sounds of Hyena and lions calling whilst having a well needed morning cup of coffee. The calling was different, it was intense and clearly not for territorial reasons.

We where planning on heading to the underground hide for the morning but we decided it worthwhile to bypass where the commotion was going on and see what was out there.

We followed the audible commotion for a while before we found what it was all about. A clan of Hyenas where challenging 2 young male lions over the remains of an impala ram kill, yet another victim of the Impala rut. There wasn’t much left and we were lucky enough to catch the last bit of action. The sun was just about to rise and we positioned ourselves according to the lions and hyena, and the approaching golden light. As classic Masahtu has it, there wasn’t a tree or shrub in our way and we had the 2 young males walk past us, shortly followed by 13 hyena unsatisfied with the scraps they were left.

After almost an hour of interaction, the rising sun set the tone of calmness once again. With adrenaline flowing in full force, we retreated to the hide to absorb what we had just witnessed. With a cup of coffee in hand we browsed through the images we had just got on our ‘short’ little detour to the hide.

The good old saying of ‘Mashatu always delivers’ never seems to fail.

 

 

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C4 Workshop, Mashatu Game Reseve - November 2014

With the onset of the rainy season and the first rains the weather proved to be challenging in terms of photography, but there is one very famous saying, “Mashatu always delivers”, and that it did indeed.

In anticipation for the bad weather, we all decided to head into the underground hide on our first morning with the hope of getting lucky before the rains. Luckily we had 3 different processions of elephants come down, who where elegantly dwarfed by the moody skies.

 

Elephants at the underground hide with moody skies

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Mashatu : Photo Workshop with C4 Images and Safari's - By Astrid and Juerg Bluemel

We were here before, little over a year ago. It was so absolutely fabulous that we had to come again, come and share it with friends. So we booked a photo workshop with C4 images, hoping to learn a little more and improve our photography, and we did ! Plus we made some new friends, had a great time, fantastic wildlife sightings and a very enjoyable stay at Mashatu Tented Camp.

Mashatu Tent Camp Tents
 

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C4 Images and Safari's September Workshop - Mashatu Game Reseve, By Kyle de Nobrega

During our last 4 day photography workshop hosted at Mashatu Game Reserve’s Tent Camp, we were treated to some incredible sightings with our guests that Andre Cloete and I co-hosted.

With the onset of summer, the weather was inconsistent which made it challenging for a few days with very overcast conditions. However, this worked in our favour for the multiple times we spent with the mother Cheetah and her four 3 month old cubs.  Without the worry of harsh light we all spent a number of drives following these 5 Cheetahs as they walked, stalked and played over the dusty baron areas which are so unique to Mashatu.

With our bank of luck being topped to the full, we where fortunate to get a glimpse of the 3 new large male lions that have moved into the area from the Tuli Circle region in Zimbabwe. Clearly life out in their usual territory is not like that for a lion at Mashatu as these 3 boys where not having any vehicle get within 50-60m from them. As if they where never here, the very next morning they somehow disappeared from the property giving us a glimpse of hope that they might one day finally reside in the reserve.

During the course of our 4 day workshop we where spoilt with no fewer than 5 differnet leopard sightings, and in true Mashatu style the sightings were of great quality.

Myself and Andre spent some time scouting out a new ‘star –trail’ site and we where delighted to hear about and discover that the largest Baobab on Mashatu was only within minutes from Tent Camp. With this monster of a tree being very rarely visited we spent a good portion of our last afternoon/evening trying our hand at some Milky Way and star trail shots.

Over the course of the 4 days, it wasn’t just about getting images for the stockpile but rather about enjoying the wilderness and being able to capture the incredible time we had out there together.

A huge thank you to everyone who was on the workshop!

Cheetah mother and her four 3month old cubs

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C4 Images & Safari Predator Tour guided by Go Yamagata.

Go Yamagata recently guided clients of C4 Images and Safaris on a privately booked Premier Premier tour at Mashatu and Mala Mala. The combination of Mashatu's open ruggedness- perfect for leopard- and Mala Mala's notoriety on the big cat front gave our clients access to the best there is to offer on a big cat photo experience such as this.

Here are some amazing examples of Go's talent as a photographer and guide and the photography opportunities the group had on their safari!

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Maasai Mara Photographic Safari - A Visual Diary by Heinrich van den Berg

During C4 Images and Safaris most recent photographic safari to the Maasai Mara Nature Reserve our clients where spoilt with incredible wildlife interaction, colourful landscapes, great hosts at Entim Camp and of course ample photographic opportunity.

 

The photographic group was hosted by two of our professionals guides Isak Pretorius and Heinrich van den Berg. Thank you to all who made the trip a huge success, and to Heinrich for this visual diary from the trip!



Mating lions greet one another

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Recent July Premier Predator Tour

C4 and Shem Compion recently hosted one of their favourite photo safaris in Southern Africa, a Premier predator Safari with a Kalahari extension.This means 4 nights in Mashatu, 4 nights in Mala Mala and then three nights in Tswalu Kalahari. All transfers are done by plane so that means you never miss a photo morning or evening session the entire duration of the safari!

What it also means is that our clients cover some very diverse landscapes across the country with all of them being excellent wildlife photography country.This is simply one of the best wildlife photography safaris you can do in Southern Africa with the highlights being the elephants and photo hides of Mashatu, Leopards and lions of Mala Mala and then the Meerkats of Tswalu.

It is no wonder that we only have a couple of places remaining in 2015.

These are:
Premier Predator Tour 22-30 April 2015
Premier Predator Tour 11-19 November 2015

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