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| 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.
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| 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..
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| Leopards no. 1 - muscular brute. |
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| Leopard no. 2 with few days old Bushbuck kill - still fresh enough for a Leopard. |
|
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| 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.
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| Cape buffalos in River bed. |
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| 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.
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| 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:
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| "Leopard no. 2" by Nicky Reid. |
