C4 Photo Vehicle

 

Designed and built by the same wildlife photographers who built the world famous underground photo hides at Mashatu, the C4 photo vehicle is a fully customised vehicle built exclusively for Mashatu Game Reserve. Its design and concept stem from wanting to give clients unparalleled access to the excellent wildlife of Mashatu and allow them to photograph uninhibited and unconstrained. Our many thousands of hours on safari vehicles have been the best research and combined with our photographic experience we have produced a specialist photo vehicle that is simply the ultimate experience in photographing from a vehicle.

C4 Photo Safaris has been hosting photo safaris across Africa since 2005. Over this time we have seen thousands of game drive vehicles, each one with its advantages and pitfalls. No one vehicle was ideal for photography, so we went forth and built the definitive photo vehicle that caters perfectly for wildlife photographers. Using our extensive experience of driving on vehicles in the field whilst taking photos, we used this knowledge to design a vehicle that is unique in its kind and that offers you unparalleled photographic ease, speed, stability and comfort. No element of design was left out. We designed this vehicle to be our perfect photographic vehicle and we demanded perfection based on our many years photographing in the field.  Only once it was good enough for us, did we allow it to be enjoyed and used by our clients.

C4 Photo Vehicle

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Month of the Mud Bath

To the wildlife of Mashatu yesterday was just another day in their lives. To me, it was the best day spent in the underground hide I have experienced thus far. As temperatures have begun soaring into the 30’s, the wildlife on Mashatu Game Reserve have had to adapt and make some changes to their everyday routines. These changes are bringing life to the waterhole of the C4 Underground Elephant Hide like never before. Hundreds of elephants have been pulling in from afar not only for a quick drink but also a mud bath. Alongside the elephants we have impala, warthog, kudu, eland, monkey’s and not to mention the birdlife – all co-existing together in harmony...for a change!

 

Here are a series of images from our jammed packed morning of hide activity, hope you enjoy pictures as much as we enjoyed our morning!

 

First herd of the morning arriving in full force

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Changing perspectives at Mashatu

It was with great excitement that we trekked north on our annual pilgrimage to C4's first Mashatu workshop for the year. Meeting all our guests at the Alldays coffee shop on our way to the camp has become an institution for those participating. It was great to see all the excited faces, mostly friends who have done trips with us before, but also some new faces that would soon become part of the C4 family. We confirmed that the weather forecast looked great for the next few days as we headed for the border into Botswana and the start of our five-day Mashatu photo workshop.

Mashatu Tent Camp is a lovely small camp nestled in a forest that makes you feel closer to nature and would be our home for the five day trip. It offers all the necessities and luxuries for a photographic weekend with wonderfully friendly helpful staff. Mike Dexter met us at the border. He is C4's hide expert and is permanently stationed at Mashatu. As a well-respected guide and photographer in his own right he was going to be my fellow host for this weekend.

I was telling the guests all about Margaret's famous lemon meringue pie at Mashatu Tent Camp that is considered to be the best in the world. With great disappointment we learned that it would only be served during Sunday high tea, which we would miss. We persuaded the kitchen staff to switch Saturday and Sunday menu's around to experience this decadent delight and in the end I was happy that everyone agreed... the best lemon meringue pie in the world!

After settling into our new home we got together for high tea and set off on our first drive. A call came about a cheetah with five cubs. Seeing a cheetah with such a big litter of cubs is quite rare. We've had a cheetah with six cubs in the Masai Mara in Kenya before, and I've heard of someone seeing a cheetah with seven cubs once, but this is extraordinary for Mashatu and we raced to the sighting with great anticipation. We were not disappointed and found them all in great late afternoon light. Shutters were clicking furiously and it was a fantastic way to start the workshop.

The next morning we stumbled upon two lionesses on a fresh zebra kill not far from camp. Everyone was enjoying the early morning photography. While sitting at the lion kill, at one stage I turned around facing the back of the vehicle to help a guest with camera settings. Suddenly, in a moment of disbelief I saw a wild dog out of the corner of my eye. I immediately stopped talking out of pure shock! A pack of wild dogs were trotting on the road where we came from and also stumbled onto the lions. The one lioness immediately got that expression of intense focus on her face, stood up and started chasing the wild dogs. They all moved at an incredible speed. Luckily the lioness did not have any other intentions except for chasing the dogs away from their kill and thus gave up the chase quickly. We followed the wild dogs over very rough terrain and were amazed at the speed and stamina they had trying to move out of the lions' reach.

The afternoon was spent photographing general game and a big herd of breeding elephants in the last light of day. Some of the baby elephants were very entertaining and one young brave baby came to smell our vehicle, but he shook his head in disgust as his trunk touched the metal bar on the side of the vehicle. We had planned to do star trials that night but our plan was interrupted by the sighting of a leopard cub and his mother playing and drinking water on our way back to camp. The guests were not much disappointed for missing the star trail that evening and luckily the forecast was for clear skies for the next evening as well.

When I arrived at Mashatu, Mike had been telling me about the great sightings at the elephant hide and showing me some of the pictures he's taken from within the hide. I was bursting with excitement to go to the hide. We organized with him to go to the hide during the next two morning game drives. The elephant hide was recently completed by C4 in the middle of the reserve at a place called 'Moddergat', close to the Mujali river. The hide is sunk into the ground next to a waterhole with two small openings, giving you an eye level view of the waterhole. The perspective is amazing. To see the animals from that angle creates a whole new dimension to wildlife photography. It looks spectacular - even the usually dull-looking turtle doves and grey go-away birds looks great from this new perspective when they come down to drink.

Both sessions we had in the hide were fantastic. Shutters were firing away furiously as we were entertained by all kinds of birds coming to drink, impala, warthog, elephants and even a leopard tortoise that we saw approaching from a distance. When a 25 strong breeding herd of elephants arrived it was breathtaking. They surrounded the waterhole and it felt as if you became part of the herd. Looking up at these majestic creates from ground level, standing meters away from you, was a surreal but humbling experience - one of my ultimate bush experiences ever. The photographic experience was overwhelming and when the herd left we were all shaking from adrenaline and excitement. I can now envisage all the potential photographs from this hide and wish I could stay there forever to capture all those shots. C4 has definitely hit a home run with this hide and the other three that are near completion.

The rest of the drives on our workshop seemed average in comparison to what we experienced at the hide but they were spectacular in their own right. Lots of leopards, including the three cubs that we had seen during our August workshop seven months ago and that are amazingly all still alive, two young male lions, breeding herds of elephants and all of the general game.

The format of our workshop weekend includes morning and evening game drives, tuition and advice on the vehicles, and photography instruction in the day between game drives. Definitely hard work that everyone is very keen for and just can't get enough of! Since all our guests are experienced photographers, most of whom have travelled with us before, our curriculum for the weekend included flash photography for wildlife, a demonstration and discussion on Lightroom and the changes in the new version 4, and image reviews. I was blown away by the quality of the images from our guests, once again confirming what a magical place Mashatu is and the quality and diversity it offers the wildlife photographer. Thanks Jake, Justice, Commando, Ona, Congo and the staff at Mashatu tent amp for an unforgettable experience.

Join one of C4's next Mashatu Workshops:
27 April - 1 May
14-18 June
22-26 November


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Masai Mara: A Showpiece

This year we ran four tours to the Masai Mara. The success of our formula from 2009 meant that the word spread fast, and this year, without changing much, we worked on the exact same formula of
• Small groups of photographers
• The best location in the Mara
• One photographer per bench seat
• The best pro wildlife photographers with exceptional experience of the Mara eco-system
• The best Masai driver guides working in the Mara



We left the rest to the Mara. I’m of the firm opinion that If I can deliver on the above points, then my clients will have the most memorable wildlife photography safari ever. For the Mara does not disappoint- ever. For sheer intensity of sightings, animal interaction, predator numbers and just actual numbers of animals, this wonderland is exactly that; a wonderland. And it delivers, day in and day out.
To describe everything we saw would be too much of a task. Rather let me talk of one particular day, which blended into the other 21 days I was there.



First up was a leopard hunting a Kirk’s dik dik. We had the leopard walking through the grass right next to us on top of the river bank. It then slipped into the lugga and stalked to within 10m of the Dik dik. We watched in anticipation, but just as we thought the strike was imminent, the overactive senses of the dik dik caught onto something and the game was up.



We drove on. I saw some ears through the top of the grass. We stopped to put the bins on them and I saw lion ears, running. Then the faint squeal of a warthog… And all of a sudden it was “pese pese!” (quick, quick) to the driver and “hold on” to the clients. We arrived as one lioness was wrestling the warthog to the ground. Noise filled the air with squeals and grunts of exertion. It was over in 20 seconds. It felt like a year. The cameras at least had their fill of action. Straight from there it was onto a cheetah kill. We photographed till the light was harsh and our stomach’s were calling. Driving onto breakfast we came across some more lions posing and calling through the long grass. OK breakfast really was calling now!



The afternoon was one of a kind. Not many people will ever get to witness this scene, as it was a combination of factors. I was not there, but the scenes I saw afterwards were of men and ladies who had come back from war. After some of us left camp in the early afternoon, 10-15000 wildebeest crossed camp right in front of the tents. Our clients had the whole crossing to themselves- with thousands and thousands of wildebeest surging across the Mara River in a noise and anxiety that is so overwhelming it affects your emotions to the core. By all accounts it was one of the most intense river crossings that anyone had seen, including our Guide, Greg du Toit, who has 7 seasons of the Mara under his belt...



To end the day, about another 10 000 crossed the river during the night. We woke to animals thrashing through the bushes in camp, hioking and snorting away.
That’s an example of just one day’s activity in the Mara. Here each day offers something you just cannot fathom is possible.



Of course it would not be possible without all our clients who trust C4 Images and Safaris to give them the best photographic tour into one of the most fascinating game viewing areas in the world. Also, to our camp staff- Mbogo, Johnathan, Lexy and crew- your service is a delight. Thank you.



Spending three weeks in the Mara gives one a special insight into how dynamic the area really is. It also gives one an appreciation for how special this eco system is, and how we must over the next few years fight to preserve it. The Mara faces more challenges than ever before. It will be a sad day for humanity if we cause this one last remaining large mammal spectacle, unhindered by man, to come to an end.
I ‘m not sure what I would say to my children when they ask “Why cant we see the migration?”




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Spreading Our Wings

Wildlife photography is something wonderful. It teaches you a specific discipline within a certain field, but it also opens up a whole new world to the photographer. C4 Images and Safaris have, until now, operated only within Africa and one of its islands, Madagascar. This is because our speciality is African wildlife and nature- all our guides are excellent and Professional Photographers, but also trained conservationists who have been active in the wildlife industry for a number of years.

Japan

This ensures that you, the client, receives the best Photography Tutoring as well as nature guiding- and as any Professional Nature Photographer will tell you, “A Nature Photographer is foremost a naturalist, and secondly a photographer”. You will see that most top Wildlife Photographers are trained in the biological sciences- Its not an absolute, but it’s definitely a common thread.

So we have become specialists in our fields here in Africa. But the photography industry is a vibrant and interesting group of individuals. With wildlife and photography being a common thread, photographers keenly discuss photography and wildlife “hotspots” around the world and soon exotic destinations like the Galapagos, the Antarctic, Madagascar and Japan become dream travel destinations for the photographer.
C4 Images and Safaris’ realise this as a common need, and so, in conjunction with good colleague and professional Japanese wildlife photographer, Go Yamagata, we have spread our wings into the northern hemisphere to the country of Japan.

This will be our first tour out of the continent of Africa and it proves to be a very exciting one!
Hokkaido, an island just north of Japan offers migrating birds, cranes, storks and swans a place of refuge from the harsh Russian winter. The images of them walking on the frozen lakes amongst rising mist always provide for stunning photography- as indicated by the fact that images from here almost always end up in top wildlife competitions. Then there are the Japanese Macaques, or snow monkeys that come from the forests to relax in the heated pools- the most endearing image of Japanese wildlife.

Zambia

We are also breaking in new tours to great destinations in Africa. Zambia’s south Luangwa valley and the tour to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro in the calving season are new tours that we are now running. These are both excellent wildlife areas with brilliant wildlife viewing. You can see more about the tours on the C4 Images and Safaris website.
We don’t rest on our laurels here at C4 Images and Safaris. We constantly strive to produce tours that provide the best Wildlife Photography in the most productive wildlife areas. If it means we have to go north to Japan, we will do so…!
Keep an ear out for more destinations. You might still here about the Antarctic from us!

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About the C4 Blog

C4 Images and Safaris is the inspiration of two award winning wildlife photographers, André Cloete and Shem Compion. Both are photographers who have an inherent love for nature and the outdoors. We are passionate about providing Photo tours and Safaris to the best wildlife destinations in Africa, and beyond.

The official line is that “We provide specialist photographic safaris and photo workshops for the nature and photography enthusiast” and we really love doing exactly, so much so that C4 Images and Safaris has established itself as one of the only specialist photographic tour operations in South Africa.

This Blog is to update you on our latest news, trips and photo safaris and photo workshops that we run. Its part of our passion to give you information, tips, techniques and general light hearted chat about what we get up to while at work…

Hope you enjoy!

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