Friday, September 25, 2015

Greater Kruger Wildlife Photography Workshop, 18-20 September 2015, Trip Report


The female Leopard they almost missed. Photo by Simone Swart.
The past three years have seen me and Yolande spend a significant amount of time in nature reserves with clients. In descending order (time-wise) this was mainly in Rietvlei, Dinokeng, Mabalingwe and Pilanesberg nature reserves. Although visiting the Pilanesberg for multiple days always stirs up much excitement, no previous photographic guiding excursion had us as excited as we had been about this past weekend’s wildlife photographic workshop at Indlovu River Lodge.

Indlovu River Lodge is situated inside the pristine Karongwe Private Game Reserve and roughly between Hoedspruit and Tzaneen. They can be described as a luxury big five safari lodge with a focus on providing visitors with an intimate and private lodging experience. They have also adapted themselves to cater for the photographic safari market with a specialized photographic safari vehicle and two sunken photographic hides. No self-driving is allowed and good protocols are adhered to by lodges in terms of game drives.

The one thing that had everyone slightly concerned was the weather forecast. Overcast weather and some drizzle were predicted for much of the weekend. All participants were however willing to brave the weather and low light and none of us were left disappointed.

After initial greetings Yolande had the clients for a presentation on composition in wildlife photography (I had made sure to have my initial technical intro with the clients prior to the workshop). Hereafter, there was a quick lunch and then I was off with the clients for a first session in the mammal-photo-hide. This turned out somewhat disappointing with only an adult male Nyala and some birds quenching their thirst in front of us. The antelope that were nearby seems wary and it turned out that a stashed leopard kill very close to the hide was the reason. This also explained all the game viewer activity that we had been hearing close to the hide. 

Nyala bull sipping water taken from mammal-photo-hide.

We all soon forgot about any lack in luck around the camp fire and made sure to fatten up on the three course meal for the next day's activities. I did not taste the complimentary house red, but the complimentary white wine was really nice.

The next day was the cloud-break in terms of luck. Yolande left on a morning game drive with the clients at roughly 06h30 (later than usual due to overcast conditions). And what a game drive this proved to be. Three different leopards in one drive (a first for driver and tracker, Johnty and John) all of which provided descent photo opportunities, as well as Karongwe’s confiding adult female Cheetah on an Impala kill photographed on foot (leaving the game vehicle is allowed when John and Johnty deem it safe)! I’ll let the photos do the talking..

Leopards no. 1 - muscular brute.

Leopard no. 2 with few days old Bushbuck kill - still fresh enough for a Leopard.


Karongwe's adult female Cheetah feeding on her Impala kill.

The second afternoon drive was again lead by Yolande. The highlights of this was a large adult lioness leaving her place of rest just as the game vehicle got to her, a herd of Cape buffalo that weren’t all very excepting of the vehicle (..read mock-charge) and four very cute Black-backed jackal pups playing around their den.

Cape buffalos in River bed.

Baby Black-backed jackals at play.

In between drives we were spoilt with delicious food, had some time for relaxing and had photo evaluation sessions with each client. Before the second game drive Yolande had also done her second and final presentation on composition.

The final morning we opted for another drive and had decided to head to the areas where the majority of elephant had been roaming. Our quest for the elephants was unsuccessful from a photographic perspective, but we did see a few and it was nice to explore further regions of the reserve. The highlight of this drive was photographing hippos while lying flat on our bellies before coffee and rusks.

Hippopotamus photographed while lying flat on our bellies under the watchful eyes of our bush guides, John and Johnty.

After getting back all three participants final selection of top-five photos were made and edited, the workshop ended with a friendly show and tell of everyone’s top five photos.

Back in the city and we all have great photos, but I hope the super experiences of the weekend stay vivid in our memories until we one day depart..

Photos by Participants:

"Leopard no. 2" by Nicky Reid.

Baby Black-backed jackals by Nicky Reid.

Hippo pod by Nicky Reid.

Feeding Cheetah by Simone Swart.

Cape buffalo by Simone Swart.

Nyala bull quenching its thirst by Cornel van Zyl.

Burchell's zebra by Cornel van Zyl.

Wahlberg's Eagle by Cornel van Zyl.