Attack of the rhino bride

About a month ago I rolled the dice on Air Namibia hoping they could take me all the way to Cape Town safely, I had to go see about about a girl. I also had to go see about shooting some African wildlife (the good kind of shooting, with a camera) which was a new experience for me and something I was looking forward to a lot.

Something I've never understood is people who specialise in one type of photography but are inept at another type. The more I shoot different subjects the more I'm convinced it's all fundamentally the same, compose your photo in an interesting way with a nice balance to it, use foreground interest and leading lines to draw the viewers eye into the shot, make sure the eye is in focus (whether you're shooting a bride or a rhino), try to place things on the rule of thirds (if practical) and try to capture a unique moment rather then simply recording what you saw. Of course making sure the light is right goes without saying.

Interesting Composition

Zebras are very likeable animals, they pose well for photos, have awesome markings on their fur and don't taste half bad with a nice bottle of merlot. I've got 2 photos here which demonstrate my point about interesting composition. The first one is a nice enough photo, the light is good, the markings look great but it's ultimately just a zebra standing in a field, it doesn't tell a story, the animal's not engaging with the camera, and it's ultimately a forgettable image. This next one I think has far more going for it. For starters the Zebra is looking down the barrel of the lens, it's got a few more zebras in the background which aren't distracting (as they're out of focus) but they give the image a bit more context, and you can also see his little mo-hawk. I've put the horizon a little close to the edge of the frame for my liking, but apart from that I quite like it. Although looking back at that first shot it's growing on me too! I guess you'll have to make up your own mind.






Foreground Interest

The day after arrival Yvonne and I headed up table mountain in Cape Town (cricket fans would recognise this as the mountain behind the Newlands ground). Several hours after joining the queue we made it to the top, the electricity crisis meant the cable car was operating at half pace using their back up supply. Once we finally reached the top we realised we'd picked a great day for the trip. The views were stunning, the light lovely and the clouds were whispy and low (we were looking down on them). I decided the best way to capture the scene was with my Sigma 10-20 lens, but after shooting off a few frames I realised the shots lacked something, there was nothing in the shot to draw the eye to and while it was a beautiful scene the photo didn't really capture it. At this point I commissioned my faithful model to act as a bit of foreground interest which helped balance things compositionally but also made the viewer wish they were there. (I think my main motivation when taking travel photos is to make the viewer jealous they're not there. I'm not sure if this is a good photographic technique or a bad ego driven character trait!)

From Stellenbosch and Capetown

Rule of Thirds

As the time passed on top of the mountain a band of clouds rolled in and created a totally different perspective on things. The beach views had been replaced by a blanket of white, and the resulting photos turned out nicely. This shot is a pretty good example of putting things on the rule of thirds and balancing the image nicely, the peak of Lion's Head sits nicely on upper right third, and the cable car is near enough to the opposite third. As soon as I took this shot I knew it would work perfectly in B & W.

From Stellenbosch and Capetown

Leading Lines

Yvonne's folks live on a beautiful winery so we'd often head there towards to end of the day and take her dog for a walk through the vineyards. We stumbled upon a big pile of wood not too far from the house which screamed "Take my photo" so I did. I experimented with different angles and apertures and shutter speed (getting Yvonne to walk past at varying paces to capture some motion blur) and I think this was probably my favourite. Not convinced I absolutely nailed it but it's a nice example of using leading lines to draw the eye into a photo.

From Stellenbosch and Capetown

Focus on the Eye

I remember Dad telling me years ago that when shooting people you always need to make sure the eye is in focus. You get this right and the rest doesn't matter. I decided to apply this advice to animals (an indeed anything which has an eye - should I ever encounter a hurricane I'll know what to do). This shot is also works due to the texture of the rhino's skin which is interesting enough in its own right.

From Vleesbaai and Bottlierskop

Capturing Moments

A dog walking through a vineyard in lovely late afternoon light, sure, a nice photo, but a dog shaking his head wildly in the same vineyard with the same lovely late afternoon light? Now we're talking. I shot this one of Fiela (spelling's probably wrong, can't wrap my head round Afrikaans) after seeing her do a similar head shaking thing moments earlier but failing to capture it properly. I registered my disappointment to Yvonne who said "I can make her do it again, I just have to pull on the back of neck like this". Before this next shake I was able to set the camera up as I wanted (10-20 lens set to 14mm, high speed burst mode so I could hold my finger on the shutter and see 6.5 frames for every second) and get down nice and close to capture it from an unusual angle which I like to call squirrel's eye view (or dassie's eye view if you're from SA). There were about 4 frames that worked nicely but this was probably my fave due to the ears at the angles and the teeth poking out.

From Stellenbosch and Capetown

Finally my favourite photo from the trip. We went on a tour through one of the townships in Cape Town, in interesting experience to say the least. I'm a bit tired after writing all this (and because my jerk next door neighbours were playing loud music till 2am just 1 thin wall away from my head last night) so I won't go into details of what townships are, but if you're interested I'm sure google will fill you in. Anyway, we were being shown around a church / community centre when I spotted these kids peering in through the door, it was split second moment that ended almost as quickly as it started, but I managed to get the camera out in time to shoot 2 frames, one of which was rubbish but the other of which looked like this.

From Stellenbosch and Capetown

I might take this opportunity to give another shout out to google's Picasa software, it's free and it's brilliant for any budding photographers. I use Lightroom for most of stuff, but I've just downloaded the latest Picasa update and discovered I can make videos of it! I obviously had to give this a go, and wasn't surprised to find it was all too easy. Anyway, I uploaded it to Youtube and this is how it's turned out. (this is only 1 of my 2 albums from the trip, if you're interested you can follow the links on any of the photos about to check out the complete gallery at my Picasa site).