The Masai Mara - A photographer's paradise?

By Christine Lamberth

From the air the myriad of animals on the plains of the Mara can be seen. Then the wheels of the plane touch down on the dusty runway and the show begins. The short drive to the camp is filled with involuntary arm extensions as I compulsively reach for the camera bag and silently curse the fact that everything is so well packed. Animals abound on all sides and it takes brute willpower to drive on by.
Entim Camp is one of the southern-most camps in the Mara. The Mara River meanders by in full view of the tent and the whole camp. Lunch is served in an open Bedouin-like tent with a show of grazing animals on the other side of the river. This must surely be heaven.



Finally 4pm rolls on by and the first game drive is no longer anticipated, it has arrived. Not even 500m from the camp and the first animals curiously watch as the vehicle rolls on by. In the Mara animals standing staring are ignored as they do not offer any exciting prospects. There is enough time and enough animals for careful consideration of setting, lighting and composition. Rarely does one get this opportunity elsewhere. The open plains are easily accessible by vehicle and there is very little hampering a good sighting. It is only on the river banks that the bush presents an obstacle. However, a good driver can beat these odds in this environment and there is seldom an insurmountable challenge.

The sighting list reels off like a book of the animals of East Africa.



DAY ONE
Waterbuck, Impala, Warthogs, Leopard, Giraffe, Cheetah, Elephant, Buffalo, Topi, Cox Hartebeest, Thompson’s Gazelle, Banded Mongoose, Blackback Jackal, Bateared Fox, Olive Baboons, Wildebeest, Zebra and Spotted Hyena.

DAY TWO
Lion, Bateared Fox, Leopard x 3, Hippo, Southern Ground Hornbill, Elephants, Dwarf Mongoose, Spotted Hyena, Giraffe, Cox Hartebeest, Thompson’s Gazelle, Hippo, Zebra, Waterbuck and Impala.

DAY THREE
Hyena, Cheetah with 6 cubs, Lion pride, dead Buffalo, Spotted Hyena, Giraffe, Elephants, Banded Mongoose, Blackback Jackal, Thompson’s Gazelle, Dik-Dik, Topi, Grant’s Gazelle, mating Lions, 4 x Lionesses, Zebras, Cox Hartebeest, Waterbuck, Bushbuck, Buffalo, Vultures, Warthogs, Hippo.



DAY FOUR
Mating Lions, Topi, Cox Hartebeest, Buffalo, Zebra, Cheetah with 6 cubs, Ostrich, Bushbuck ram, Spotted Hyena, Thompson’s Gazelle, Grant’s Gazelle, Giraffe, Elephants, Warthogs, Hippo, Whiteheaded Vulture, Ruppels Griffon Vultures, Yellowbilled Oxpeckers, Pygmy Kingfisher, Black Rhino, Lion pride.



DAY FIVE
Thompson’s Gazelle, Cox Hartebeest, Topi, Buffalo, Impala, Eland, Cheetah, Waterbuck, Lion cubs, Tawny Eagle, Black Chested Snake Eagle, Lilac Breasted Roller, Ruppels Griffon Vultures, Red Billed Woodhoopoe, Olive Baboons, Spotted Hyena, Crested Crane, Hamerkop, Grant’s Gazelle, Ostrich, Zebra, Warthog, Elephants, Lion, Leopard, male Lion alliance, Lion mating pair, Giraffe,Southern Ground Hornbill, Bateleur.



DAY SIX
Thompson’s Gazelle, Topi, Giraffe, Hartebeest, Leopard, Lions on Hippo kill, Dik-Dik, Zebra, Buffalo, mating Lions, Vultures, Blackback Jackal, Impala, Marabou Stork, Spotted Hyena.



DAY SEVEN
Thompson’s Gazelle, Topi, Cox Hartebeest, Spotted Hyena, male Lion alliance, 2 pairs mating Lions, Blackback Jackal, Hooded Vulture, Marabou Stork, Ruppels Griffon Vultures, Zebra, Impala, 3 dead Zebras struck by lightning, Crested Cranes.



Drive after drive presents more opportunities than can be pursued. Each day there is a choice of locations and sightings and when the animals are lazing away under trees and there is little activity the plains of the Mara present landscape opportunities of note. The days are filled with frantic activity while camera equipment is put to the test.
At the end of the stay there cannot possibly be any sense of disappointment – just one day in the Mara is like a week anywhere else.

17-24 September Masai Mara Photo Tour

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Mashatu - A Place of Opportunities, By Christine Lamberth

The tyres of the car drumming on the tarred road surface beat out a rhythmic song that entrances the traveller and keeps his eyes glued to the horizon and the anticipation of something new. The fever builds and new experiences wait ahead to fuel the desire to keep hurtling forward in the search for unique moments.
The photographer is fortunate in that these moments can be captured not only in memory boxes but in a physical format that can be shared. Photography greats such as Cartier-Bresson and David Goldblatt were supremos in the art of the moment and it is indeed from their great example that a photographer can learn that the most mundane can become the bewitchingly captivating.



On the great plains of Africa the opportunities abound. Promises of encounters with the huge, the magnificent, the fast and the dangerous overpower the real magic of what lies in every corner just waiting to be seen. It is true that it takes time to peel back the layers, to search ever deeper, to learn more in order to appreciate what it is that reveals itself every day and it is this search that keeps the tyres on the road and the campfires burning on these great Plains.



The secret to unlocking this magic wonderland lies in the eye of the beholder and how much that eye can really see. On a trip to Mashatu over Easter of 2011 the leopards, who are normally so very visible, were playing hide-and-seek and they were winning. The elephants appeared to have taken off on a migration away from the Reserve and the usually abundantly teeming bush was hauntingly empty. Until, that is, when you looked a little closer, concentrated a little bit more and grabbed at every opportunity that came along.



We spent longer times at sightings and there was very little incentive to be off to another, perhaps better sighting. We were able to observe animal behaviour that previously would have been ignored. A very frustrating fact for a serious photographer is that twenty minutes spent at a sighting is, quite honestly, ridiculously short and the commercial aspect of the guaranteed sightings that bring the droves of tourists through the Reserves is hopelessly inadequate to capture meaningful images.



We could bask in the moment waiting patiently for a bird to fly from its perch, a cheetah to yawn or a squirrel to dart off to play because there was no dramatic sighting in the offing. The unfortunate demise of a giraffe brought in a huge flock of vultures and being the only vehicle remotely interested in this rather odiferous event we were privileged to sit for a few hours and photograph the birds coming in to land, the mean spirited pecking and hissing presented a whole host of action shots rarely captured. The posturing that various individuals in these groups display in an effort to demonstrate their supremacy provides opportunities that the lens simply devours.



The desire to capture something special always remains a challenge and even though the shutter keeps up its steady rhythm there remains a constant yearning to capture that elusively tantalising moment.
The unassailable fact that the Safari can be prolonged for many weeks afterwards lies in the arduous task of editing. Each day that I spend with the images afterwards brings me back to each moment as it happened and the more images there are on the flashcard the longer I can prolong the moment. My Safari’s last for weeks and weeks and even though I spend little time travelling and being there I am, really there, almost every day.







Christine Lamberth's Blog


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All Hail To Them l’ill Critturs - by Christine Lamberth

The question begs! Does anyone go on Safari to see the little guys. I have yet to hear someone alighting a Safari vehicle asking to see a shrew mouse, a dung beetle or a striped mongoose. Standard answers expected by Game Rangers are either of the large feline variety or perhaps those lumbering giants of the African Plains. Yet any guide to the animals of the world reveals an overwhelming number of little mammals that inhabit the earth.



How many Safari goers will have seen a honeybadger, a bat-eared fox, an African wildcat or even a hedgehog? Is there any tangible excitement when the opportunity to spend some time with a colony of ants presents itself?
On a recent photographic workshop with C4 Images at Mashatu Reserve in the Tuli Block in Botswana it is hide-and-seek time with the big boys and the challenges are laid down at every turn. Amazing results are testament to the sheer magic of the African bush.



The first opportunity presents itself with a family of banded mongoose (mungos mungo) whose focused intent to find food overwhelms the urge to run and hide in the presence of a vehicle. However, the challenge remains with the right position close enough to produce images free of foliage in front of eyes and ears. Essential to the exercise is a Game Ranger with the patience of Job and a starter that will put up with being turned on and off at short intervals. Both of these are present with Jake (aka Job) patiently checking that the distance and position are correct and a trusty old African stalwart the Toyota Landcruiser playing along.

After repeated starts and stops the images of curious eyes and frantic agitation in the vegetation are banked on the flash card as the sleek silvery troop disappears into the wooded area where we can’t follow.

A short drive a little further down through the woodland on the riverbank takes us to a once mighty tree that has fallen victim to the power of Mashatu’s largest inhabitants. As we approach a small family of ground squirrels (Xerus inauris) momentarily stop their activities to inspect the intruders. The vehicle rolls silently towards the prone stump now hollowed out to provide shelter and a home to one of the smallest inhabitants of the African Savannah.



We settle into quiet observation and the squirrels relax. As they become accustomed to our presence they continue with their antics that include eating, playing and grooming and the opportunities that present themselves to a photographer are quite breathtaking in their diversity. With the light remaining a soft glow in the normally harsh African skies the camera records a whole host of images that gently reveal the beauty and complexity of nature.



Another of Africa's more shy inhabitants becomes very visible. The blackback jackal (Canis mesomelas) appears from behind every possible bush. Their gritty determination to survive is apparent at a sighting where a dead giraffe is slowly being consumed by just about every scavenger in the reserve. They bravely stand up to their big brothers the spotted hyena, ignore the hissing of a hundred or more vultures to ensure that their allocation of the spoils is not wasted. Each day we see one or more of these brave little prairie dogs their gorgeous black flecked coats dotting the plains as they scuttle from one opportunity to the next. Even on our last drive where we head into the bush to see some more indolent, sleeping lions we find yet another couple of blackback jackals patiently waiting for the lions to leave so that they can move in for the scraps of the kill. We get so close that the lens of the camera almost seems too long.



In the absence of the adrenalin pumping action that a visit to the African bush can reveal the little critter has saved the day. In a world where time has become the master it is only when we set aside these modern persuasions and take the time to slow down and patiently become the observer that we are rewarded with wonderful memories and images that are imprinted forever and life is enriched by the experience.

Christine Lamberth Blog



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