Mashatu Trip Report - Part 2

Part 2 of our Mashatu photo workshop trip report. The workshop was lead by Isak Pretorius. All text and images by Isak.

Game drive 5, Monday afternoon: The weather cleared and we were in for a sunny few days ahead. Not far from camp our first sighting was a leopard stalking impala. As if the leopard read a book on photography it provided us with perfect photographic moments, walking slowing towards us over big flat rocks with the sun perfectly over our shoulders, and golden light illuminating the eyes of the leopard. We could not ask for more. Unfortunately the impala caught sent of the leopard which spoiled the stalking attempt, so we moved on to landscape opportunities of big ana trees in a dry riverbed, and a colony of whitefronted bee-eaters. Our drive finished with star photography when we identified a beautiful shepherd's tree on an open plain. We had so much fun trying different angles and getting the exposure correct that Daniel had to radio in to camp that we were going to be and hour and a half late for dinner.

Game drive 6, Tuesday morning: After all the excitement of the previous evening we were all keen on taking it slow this morning. The euphorbia’s on top of the white cliffs in the Mujali river provided good opportunity to do early morning landscapes. Not far from that we stopped at a big pool in the riverbed where we spent the rest of the morning watching impala, baboon, and kudu coming to drink. The birdlife was also impressive with a black stork and pied kingfisher fishing in the pool and green pigeons coming down for a drink.

Game drive 7, Tuesday afternoon: I asked the group if there were any of the photographic opportunities we had which they’d like to do again and the unanimous answer was to go back to the bee-eaters. We headed straight for the bee-eaters colony and on the way there we stopped for more landscapes of big trees in dry riverbeds. This became a popular theme on our trip because everyone loved the creative opportunities that it provided. As promised we ended up at the bee-eater colony again, after which we had sundowner drinks before heading back to camp. On our way back we identified a tree for a star trail and could managed a twenty-minute exposure before the moon started to rise over the horizon.

Game drive 8, Wednesday morning: Trying to make the most of our last game drive we were desperate to find anything interesting to photograph. It was not long before we found a large herd of impala running, redbilled queleas, and two few-day-old crowned lapwing chicks and their parents. Soon after that we heard on the radio about some baboons harassing a leopard and we headed straight for it. On top of a hill we found our favourite leopard, the young male, lying in the shade of a bush being followed by about eight young male baboons. The baboons were all around him and very cautious in their attempts of mock-charging the leopard, probably just to drive him away far enough away from the rest of their troop. The young male baboons were quickly joined by more baboons, including a few big males with big teeth. The mock changes continued and although in the beginning the leopard did not look to care too much for them, he now started feeling more and more vulnerable and made a few charges at the baboons himself. The tension mounted and it was like a pressure cooker getting ready to explode. After another charge by one of the big male baboons the leopard made a run for it, and as soon as the leopard turned his back to the baboons and started running away, all hell broke loose. The whole lot of baboons ran after the leopard and was on his tale in a matter of seconds. Some of the baboons pulled the leopard’s tail and in a cloud of dust the leopard retreated to lying on his back, claws in the air and ready to defend himself. The baboons were all around him, jumping over him and attacking. This all happened in a matter of seconds. Then, the leopard saw a gap, got up and ran as fast as he could away from the baboons. The baboons stopped, turned around and went back to their troop, happy that the leopard was far enough away from their young ones. As a natural history moment this was something spectacular which none of us will ever forget.

After all this excitement we stopped for coffee at a baobab tree in a dry riverbed where we had a last chance to do some landscape photography. We headed back to camp for brunch before heading home.

Meeting as strangers and leaving as friends, the trip was a huge success where everyone learned a lot and got great shots. Mashatu delivered again and it’s a pleasure to work in an area that provides such good and unique opportunities.


Read part 1 of the Photo Workshop Report here.
See a video of a photo workshop held at Mashatu here.

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Mashatu Trip Report - Part 1

The name “Mashatu” originated from the local people describing the area’s Nyala berry trees and the danger of big snakes lurking in them. On the recent C4 Images and Safaris photographic workshop at Mashatu, I was wondering if this name didn’t have to do with leopards instead. The sightings we had of leopards were plentiful, exquisite and a privilege to see so much of their behaviour -something that I will remember this trip by... This tour was lead by Isak Pretorius. All text and images by Isak.

The group of photographers on our trip was very keen on exploring all genres of nature photography. It was a joy to work with them and we fed off each other’s energy doing everything from standard wildlife portraits, wide angle portraits, slow shutter speed motion blur, zoom blur, landscapes, backlit, flash photography, star photography and star trails. Of course it makes life very easy when a reserve like Mashatu offer these opportunities in bucket loads and we have a guide like Daniel who is just as keen about us “getting the shots”. The highlight of our trip was an incident between a leopard and baboons and although it was a great photographic opportunity it was probably a “once in a lifetime” natural history moment that we will never forget. Read more about this in the breakdown of our game drives below.

Game drive 1, Saturday afternoon: A bit of drizzle could not dampen our enthusiasm and at 3:30pm we were off on our first game drive. Not far into the drive we stumbled upon a familiar face. It was the young male leopard we had seen earlier in the year, famous for the incident where he had been inquisitive about a porcupine. He is probably the most beautiful leopard I’ve seen – perfect skin, and getting quite muscular now, with loads of character. He did not disappoint! We found him on the bank of the Nyaswe River grooming himself and getting into the most interesting positions physically – something the most flexible athlete could not do. After the grooming session he walked around looking for impala and climed into a couple of trees to gain vantage point. This turned out to be a mistake as he had wondered into another big male leopard’s territory who spotted the intruder in one of the trees. The young male got chased away by the other bigger male and soon both of them disappeared over a hill. Not far from that we came across a female leopard with a freshly caught impala which was to big to get into a tree. She was sitting under a lead wood tree trying to eat some of the impala to reduce the weight to drag it into the tree. A few attempts to get the impala into the tree failed and then she lost the kill to the big male leopard that also tried to get it into the tree but failed. He then dragged the kill to a nearby bush and that was the end of an exciting first game drive.

Game drive 2, Sunday morning: We woke up with the sound of raindrops falling on dry leaves, but luckily photographers is a different species altogether and with raincoats on we left camp excited about the opportunities that rainy weather brings. We found some rain soaked impalas standing under a tree and made the most of ground hornbills and painted snipes in a dry riverbed before there was a break in the clouds. Our gamble with the weather paid off when we found the young male leopard in a Mashatu tree trying to stay dry. This ended off our game drive on a high note.

Game drive 3, Sunday afternoon: After the first of our afternoon workshops on digital workflow and Lightroom, and a piece of Magret’s famous lemon meringue pie, our afternoon drive commenced. Spring has sprung at Mashatu and the creative juices got flowing when we photographed newly sprouted mopane leaves backlit against the sun and the shadow of a hill. Other highlights of the game drive included following a large flock of redbilled queleas and a klipspringer. We were photographing the klipspringer in beautiful soft light when he started staring intensely in one direction and making alarm calls. Our guide, Daniel, had not finished his sentence telling us that this is typical behaviour when a klipspringer sees a predator, when down the hill came a leopard walking straight towards us and climbing into the tree next to us. The game drive finished with drinks at a sloping hill with a beautiful baobab tree where we did a star trail.

Game drive 4, Monday morning: At camp there was talk about a pride of lions in the Southern part of the reserve and that became our objective for the game drive. After photographing some of the usual stuff on our way there, we found the lions doing what they do best… lying around! A few portrait shots later we were off and stumbled upon a breeding herd of elephants. The elephants at Mashatu are the most tranquil elephants you'll find anywhere. We positioned ourselves a hundred meters or so away from, but right in the way of the moving herd. The elephants walked past us, only meters from the vehicle. This is photography bliss! We found several herds moving in an easterly direction and after getting all the standard shots it gave us the opportunity to try several different kind of shots as well… low angle wide shots, motion blur and zoom blur.

Read part 2 of the Photo Workshop feedback here.
Or view a video taken whilst on workshop in Mashatu here.

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National Geographic/Getaway Digital Photography Workshop

Shem Compion will take you through taking images with digital cameras, showing you the advantages of this medium in today's world. It will also discuss how to manage and organise your digital files so that you can find them when they need to be published. Lastly Shem will discuss how to get your images 'out there' for the world to see. Expect innovation, creativity and stimulating ideas about your images, web marketing and publishing.

Themes

* Digital cameras and how they changed the camera world
* Why you should be a better photographer with digital
* 5 stars for image management- workflow and editing
* Searching for gold- finding order amongst 50 000
* creating- showing the world your images
* Guerrilla marketing


When: 21 November 2009
Where: Muldersdrift, Johannesburg
Cost: R700 per person
Bookings: Tracy-Lee Behr
021 530 3379
tracy-lee@ramsaymedia.co.za

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Masai Mara Video

C4 Images and Safaris, together with Shem Compion and Greg du Toit lead a photo tour to the Masai Mara in Kenya for the annual wildebeest migration.
C4 Images and Safaris provides specialist photographic tours to excellent wildlife destinations, such as this photo safari to the Masai mara. Music by Kevin MacLeod.
Read more about our trip to the Masai Mara here.




See more of C4 Images and Safaris on YouTube on our Channel here.
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C4 Images and Safaris Masai Mara Tour 2009

The big news from C4 Images and Safaris’ is the success of another Masai Mara tour in Kenya. The Masai Mara, or Mara as it is known locally, is one of those places that makes you realise just how much nature can throw at you. It simply is the “Greatest wildlife show on earth”.

Consider this: We saw 2 river crossings, two lion prides of about 12 each (one with very small cubs), a herd of 250 buffalo, about 15 000 wildebeest and three cheetah brothers; all in the first afternoon…

This was just the start of it. At one stage the lion count was higher than the bird count! We quickly sorted that one out, but we ended up seeing 82 individual lions…

Over the next 5 days, highlights were: 5 river crossings, 6 cheetah hunts with 2 kills, leopard stalking on the open plains, finding large herds of zebra all on our own and parking amongst the thousands of animals allowing them to quietly mill around you; lion hunts, a black rhino bull right in camp, 9 different cheetah, lions playing for an hour, a river crossing right in front of camp and of course thousands of wildebeest roaming the plains.

These were just a few of the highlights- every day was so action packed that the mind got saturated with great sightings.

Our camp could not have been more perfectly placed. C4 Images and Safaris negotiated an entire camp right on the banks of the Mara River; conveniently placed near a crossing point. A real highlight was watching a wildebeest crossing right in front of our camp with no one else around. Being in the middle of the reserve, we didn’t have to race for gates- allowing us to work the light right until the last rays of sun had dipped.

Everything we do, we aim for it to be of benefit to the photographer. The Mara, and the camp we use allow us to do exactly that.

Keep listening for next years Mara trip. We have a few exciting new changes to add to an already excellent tour. Until then, we hope you enjoy some of the images taken on this years Mara tour.

View our Masai Mara video here.

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South Africa/Botswana Tour Report back - Part 2

Part two of our 2 week photo tour through South Africa and Botswana lead by professional photographer Villiers Steyn.

Olifants Camp

The weather tested our character at Olifants with a very humid 37 degrees Celcius on the first afternoon, followed with three windy, overcast days. Despite this we still had some incredible sightings in the park, including a mother spotted hyaena and two pups playing in the open right next to the vehicle, a day-old elephant calf stumbling across the road in front of us, a massive troop of baboons playing and drinking next to the vehicle, and two white rhino bulls resting at the side of the road. The Balule low-water bridge was especially productive for birding, producing photographs of wood sandpiper, wire-tailed swallow, brown-hooded kingfisher, grey go-away-bird, little bee-eater and African spoonbill, amongst others.

In camp birding was just as good, with opportunities to photograph scarlet-chested sunbird, grey-headed bush-shrike, red-winged starling, red-headed weaver, yellow-billed kite, black-backed puffback and chinspot battis, to name but a few. The resident tree squirrels were also playing model for the cameras!

Elephant Plains

The Sabi Sands never disappoints and produced excellent photographic opportunities for buffalo (and red-billed oxpeckers), elephant and leopard. The highlight, however, was the action around a hippo carcass next to a dam – it first attracted two spotted hyaenas before a horde of white-backed vultures descended on the carcass later in the day, providing excellent photographic opportunities in great light! Another memorable sighting was that of two nyala bulls doing a lateral display during which the white hair on the ridge of the back is lifted to make the animal appear larger. During the display the animals do a slow-motion ballet, walking in circles around each other.

Read the first part of the photo tour here.

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South Africa/Botswana Tour Report back

C4 Images and Safaris has just returned from another magnificent Photo tour. This two week tour through South Africa and Botswana was lead by professional photographer Villiers Steyn. Firstly we visited the ever popular Mashatu Game Reserve in Botswana, from there we went to Olifants Camp in the Kruger National Park and ended in Sabi Sands... Enjoy some of the images taken on the tour. Text and images by Villiers Styen.

Mashatu

Mashatu Game Reserve in Botswana’s Northern Tuli Game reserve was as reliable as ever, producing unforgettable sightings and photographic opportunities. Highlights included a breeding herd of approximately 70 elephants taking a mud bath, a pack of African wild dogs playing around the vehicle at sunset, six massive kudu bulls walking through the Majale River in front of us, and of course, a leopard on almost every drive! A few lucky ones were also able to get a head-photograph of the elusive aardwolf during the day as it stuck its head out of its den in the ground. Tent Camp’s bird bath was very quiet on the first day, but more than made up for it over the next two as we were able to photograph, amongst others, melba finch, blue waxbill, black-cheeked waxbill, lesser honeyguide, crested barbet and red-headed weaver.
Birding in the bush was equally productive and we were treated with excellent sightings of white-fronted bee-eaters, red-billed queleas and saddle-billed storks.

Read part two of the photo tour here.

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Elephant Charging Wild dogs

Wild dogs cause havoc wherever they go. Have a look at this video by Craig Jackson- the predator officer at Mashatu (Northern Tuli Predator Project), of elephants charging the wild dogs C4 Images and Safaris have come to know so well on our Photo Workshops there.
Electric stuff!


Find more videos like this on Northern Tuli Predator Project



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Mashatu Workshop, 6 - 10 August 2009

Well, if Mashatu had been giving us a good show over the last few workshops, she wasn’t about to give up… this workshop again provided fantastic viewing and photography- really top class sightings with some added bonuses too! But you will have to read on to see what that bonus was…

As always, Ill detail the workshop drive by drive
1. The first drive was by all accounts very quiet. We did find some elephants in the last evening light and got some stunning images of babies in the evening golden glow, but that was the extent of it. I wasn’t at all concerned. In fact I was quite happy, as things could only get better and I knew how good the mornings were here. So I was quietly confident. Of course, this is nature we are dealing with, so we enjoy the quiet days and work hard through the good ones. A highlight was seeing a martial eagle come down to drink. Stunning bird, stunning light and some very good images!

2. If any one was not awake by the time they got onto the vehicle, they were sure awake by the time the sun rose. We found a young male leopard near his kill. However, the real highlight was him grooming himself in stunning morning light out in the open on the bank of a riverbed. If there were no pixels used last evening, they sure were being used now… from there it was off to see three cheetahs. Of course we bumped into a herd of elephant and had to spend 30 minutes with them- made all the more beautiful by the low white clouds in the sky and the tiny baby that scurried across an open patch of ground allowing it to be covered in pixels- I would expect around 100 million in fact. The cheetah were very co operative and allowed a few nice portraits- but by now it was getting late and we headed back to camp with cards full and stomachs empty- it was after all 11h30 by the time we arrived back!

3. The wild dogs are still denning. C4 Images and Safaris organised that we were to be the one vehicle allowed to the den site. This is to minimise disturbance and the guides are under strict orders to follow certain protocol around the den site. This is very important to ensure that the den is not unduly disturbed. By this time the pups are out and lying around the den. 13 pups to be exact! We spent 90 minutes watching them sleep, get up, walk around and then flop down to sleep again. Just as we though nothing was going to happen that evening, the whole pack arrived and the quiet atmosphere turned into absolute chaos! 25 dogs running around you, next to you and away from you is somewhat overwhelming- try photographing it! It was absolute bliss. There was begging regurgitation, play, chase and action all around. The dogs then tried to go and hunt and the pups tried to follow. There was constant to and fro as the adults tried to get the pups into the den and the pups tried to go and follow the hunt… A real highlight and one that won’t be forgotten soon. By the time we were back at camp, everyone was knackered. Leopard at dawn, elephants, cheetah, wild dogs at den for 3 hours… it’s a hard life.

4. Morning wake up and we are back out there. Our intention is to work some smaller species rather than the big mammals. First up is a herd of 300 eland- perfect, who said anything about large mammals? At least we also got a beautiful steenbuck in mopane golden colours, a blacksmith lapwing bathing, some nice landscapes and then another small mammal in a herd of elephants. A full morning indeed.

5. The evening started where we left off, with more elephants feeding quietly. Some got so close we were using the wide-angle lenses- only in Mashatu! After dark we found the young male leopard again. He was up a tree, but grooming, meaning he would soon be up and about. We stayed with him and followed him on his evening meanderings until he drank and then headed off into the dark to hunt.

6. The morning was about more elephants crossing riverbeds, wide-angle shots of impala drinking and bee-eaters at the colony. We latched onto a few lions hunting. However, they gave up, but we noticed they were hungry, so planned to return…

7. Red billed quelea's back lit was the challenge for the afternoon and we were doing very well when we noticed how good the light was getting and decided to head to the lion. We arrived in that last 45 minutes of light, just as the glow starts and the lions wake up. We positioned ourselves perfectly- with a nice dark background and the lions in sunlight. Then the show began. The lions groomed and licked and yawned while we photographed happily away. Having an open setting and no thick grass proved such help here and it is one of the great advantages of Mashatu. (One of the reasons we keep holding our workshops here..)

8. Last morning- never nice, as every one is leaving. We drove through one of the most scenic parts of the reserve- white cliffs on the Mojale river- and it rewarded us well. The pools of water are still around from an exceptional rainy season. Saddle billed storks, herons, fish eagles and hamerkops were all fishing in the pools for trapped fish. We were happily photographing away, when all of a sudden baboons, kudu and impala surrounded us. It was a very tranquil scene of animals and birds all around us below these huge cliffs, and one that fittingly ended an exceptional photo workshop with C4 Images and Safaris.

Or view a video taken whilst on workshop in Mashatu here.

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Namibia - A desert Tour, Part 2

From Sesfontein, we headed east to the infamous Etosha. Staying at Okeakeujo, we never had to leave camp. The days went something like this:

• Wake up and photograph the pygmy falcons at first light
• 07h00 quickly check the waterhole (if it was quiet-which it often is early morning- then grab a quick breakfast, otherwise carry on photographing and try and get a meal in between photographing)
• Head to the waterhole after breakfast and start photographing as the animals come down. You can expect springbuck, kudu, zebra, gemsbuck and wildebeest any time of day.
• At 09h30 the sand grouse start to arrive in there hundreds and the coveys fly right over you head!

• Elephants usually are after that- arriving around 10h30
• By this time you are either exhausted or the light is too hard. Lunch usually sorts this out and for the afternoon you have more of the same.
• Giraffe and elephants are usually the afternoon visitors, amongst all the other game animals.
• After dinner, check up on the waterhole and watch the black rhino drinking!

Really a full day of photographing!
For the last two days we drove across the park to the eastern side where we worked a few waterholes and looked for a couple of mammal specials. These are the black-faced impala and damara dik dik- both which were seen and photographed beautifully.
Unfortunately this was the end of the tour- 13 nights had just flown by like that! The last morning saw us head south to the airport for good byes and farewells. The end of a very successful tour and one that will definitely be done again!

Luckily its only a few weeks till the South African tour when C4 Images and Safaris will lead many of the same faces in showing some different and new wonders. Till then!

You can see the more images that Shem, owner of C4 Images and Safaris took on this tour here:
Shem black and white collection
Shem colour collection
Blog on dunes

Read part one of the Namibia photo tour here.

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