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.

This article first appeared on C4 Images and Safaris Blog
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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.

This article first appeared on C4 Images and Safaris Blog

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Elephant crossing, (and camera crushing) at Mashatu Game Reserve, Botswana.

One of my favourite sayings harps back to the days of the A-team, when Hannibal, the leader of the motley bunch would say, with thick cigar in his mouth: “I love it when a plan comes together”.

This was how I anticipated my weeks of anticipation for my 8 days to be spent here at Mashatu where for the first 4 nights I was hosting a photo workshop with my company, C4 Images and Safaris where you can see what we saw and photographed here. Trust me, it was another cracker, not to be forgotten in a while, and that’s what I said after the May workshop… Nevertheless, the reason I was so excited was after the workshop, I stayed on to do some marketing work for Mashatu.

My excitement stemmed to the planning of a specific shot I wanted since my last visit 6 weeks ago. Mashatu’s elephant population is extremely relaxed. So much so, in that I was willing to put a wide angle lens low on the ground right next to their daily routes on the ‘elephant highway’ to get a scenic and wide image of these large animals.

Studying the elephant movements of Mashatu on my many visits here, I knew a scene exactly where in it would take place. Each time I had been here, I had seen herds of elephant crossing. Of course, as soon as I came prepared, nature and Murphy being as they are, all the elephants had changed tack, with their daily routes coming from a completely different angle. Oh the joy of working with wild subjects!

For 4 days I studied the movements of the elephant with the rangers. We concluded that there was no real exact daily movement like in the summer months. The elephants were moving widely into and out of the mopane veld- making predictions very difficult. In the end we decided to stick with any relaxed herd we could find and anticipate their movement to place the camera down. His worked very well, and I managed to get some great shots with different scenes. However, the image of a herd crossing the river still eluded me. Added to that the fact that the elephants weren’t staying long at the water sites, we were having a rough old time of things.

Day 8 arrived and still that one shot eluded me. Leaving camp we found a herd in mopane. This would be our last attempt at the desired image and so we stayed with the herd until they headed directly to the Mojale River. We drove ahead and anticipated where they would exit out the far side. A nervous and wet minute in water followed, as I set up the camera in a dead bush right on the side of the waters edge. Then the wait began. Where did the elephants come out? 100m upstream of the camera... With Bashi, my (elephant whispering) ranger enticing them closer with some soft words, the herd slowly moved down towards the camera. It was an agonisingly long 20 minutes as the herd moved right past the camera, totally ignoring the clicking. After a week of looking for good scenes and crossing points, I was getting my shots.
All I could think was “I love it when a plan comes together”!

Exactly then, a bull elephant walked out of the bush into the river and started smelling some of the female’s. He was sexually active and clearly had one thing on his mind- meaning his mood would not be very friendly. He walked past my camera and immediately heard the shutter. His trunk snaked forward into the bush and sniffed at the camera. By now I had turned from celebratory, to a nervous wreck. The elephant grabbed my camera, throwing it into the wet mud. It was like watching a man throwing a sweet into the ground.

It stopped clicking, obviously. And the elephant left it alone. We quickly drove closer and got the camera out of the mud. It had been buried half into some sandy mud- hard enough to hold my weight… Intense stuff! After a quick inspection, all worked, good work Nikon.

I did end up with my shots, but a lesson was learnt: Don’t start your celebrations before the last elephant has come along.
I guess that is why the A team had BA Baracus!

Exposure information:
Nikon D300 - 10.5mm fish eye lens
Exposure – f 8 Shutter Speed: 1/160sec
Exp. Comp. 0. EV
ISO - 400
Flash - none
Exposure mode– Aperture priority, Metering Mode– Matrix
File type– NEF (RAW)
Focal length: 10.5mm
Gorilla pod
Remote release.

Shem Compion

This essay first appeared on shemimages.com
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Leopard Portrait, Mashatu Game Reserve, Botswana

Its funny how things work out. I’ve always ascertained that the large cats are over photographed. In that vein, for my personal work, I try to keep away from them and focus on the smaller things.
Fortunately though, I do come across the big cats relatively often and have had the pleasure to witness and photograph some spectacular interactions. These are wonderful to photograph and see, but it is one part of the wildlife world where I know “everything has been covered”.

There is no denying that these large cats, and the leopard in particular, are very special creatures, and have a special charisma about them. It is also no wonder that they have dedicated followers, with safari goers and photographers alike stalking them out from behind every bush. Indeed, if a reserve or lodge has good, relaxed leopard or lion sightings, the “value” of the lodge increases greatly! The demand to see these cats reaches such a fever pitch that there is a term coined when people get leopards into their heads. Its called “spotted cat fever”, and I have a seen a few instances where people actually start hyperventilating whilst stalking a leopard in thick bush. I’ve also seen photographers trying to put their flash on backwards, so much was their excitement that they could not even perform a simple function in the anticipation of this spotted denizen of the forest!

Due to the fact that there are so many people out photographing these big cats, I do tend to give them the slip. That is unless they are actually doing something and are photographable… if not, I would rather be photographing insects backlit. Far more challenging and rewarding!

There are however the exceptions. I was privileged enough to be at one of the best leopard setups and sightings recently. I was leading a photo workshop up at Mashatu, in Botswana with C4 Images and Safaris. We had come across this young male leopard on the first night and knew he was very relaxed around vehicles. On the second evening, we heard that this same leopard had been discovered by the other photography vehicle, led by Isak Pretorius (our other photo guide). Luckily we were only a couple of minutes away and as we headed around a corner of the dry river bed, the scene opened up in front of us, just as it has before in all my dreams of the perfect set up.
The river ran east-west. The leopard was sleeping on top of a dead log, washed down by the recent floods, in the middle of the river. It was facing west, into the setting sun, the bank behind it was already in shadow, making it stand out and glow in the evening sunlight. There were no branches or other distractions to the scene. It was simple, clean, and by golly, damn beautiful. It is at these times that you take a breath, take a step back and just enjoy the pure beauty of such a scene. All the ideals of not taking pictures of large cats go out the window and the camera started working. This is a studio set up in the bush. Things could not get more beautiful or better set up! We all had spotted cat fever trying to get the best images. I actually realised how hard it was to do the scene justice, as it was so well set up.

It was then that the real action started. A porcupine walked into the scene… (I wont deal with that here- you can read more about on my blog.) But we had just witnessed such a stunning set up and it’s in times like these that you realise why there is never the “perfect shot” of any species of animal.
A leopard sighting like that one was a very refreshing slap in the face. Im all for the different animals and shots, but when a scene comes along like that, it makes you feel like a beginner again, shaky, excited and damn happy to be a part of such beauty!

Exposure information
Nikon D3 - 200-400mm lens
Exposure – f 4 Shutter Speed: 1/20sec
Exp. Comp. -0.3. EV
ISO - 1000
Flash - none
Exposure mode– Aperture priority, Metering Mode– Matrix
File type– NEF (RAW)
Focal length: 400mm
Beanbag support

Shem Compion

This essay first appeared on shemimges.com

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Wild Dog Ghost -Mashatu Game Reserve, Botswana

This may be the shortest essay yet, as this months image is one that “just occurred” through a bit of playful experimentation- even if the sighting was pure bliss.

I was hosting a photo workshop at Mashatu through my company C4 Images and Safaris and we had just spent the last hours of the day photographing a pack of African wild dogs in glorious sunlight. The scene was perfect, with the dogs awake, alert and at times very curious, walking to within a few feet of our vehicle- perhaps attracted to the sound of the clicking shutters, as all of us composed and photographed away.

After the sun had set, we watched the dog’s disappear into the mopane bush setting off on a fast trot. We drove off, content and happy and ready for a sundowner. It was here where we were chatting excitedly away about how stunning these dogs were to photograph when we noticed behind us, in an open plain some movement.

It was about 30 minutes after sun set, so the dusk was quite full, yet through it we saw 16 wild dogs trotting silently not 10 meters from us. They totally ignored us and trotted alertly past as we stood, stunned by the silence and the proximity of these charismatic creatures. I picked up my camera, aimed the lens and fired one frame. Being so dark, I knew the exposure would be long, so I just panned with the movement of the dog as it ran along.

This is the result. Probably not to everyone’s taste, but it brought back to me the same feeling as when I was there and the feeling of elation in seeing them so close and on foot. These ghosts of the dusk hour, shadowing through the bush portray to me a beautiful sense of movement and also reflect their conservation status, as they are critically endangered. To me it seemed a fitting metaphor.

It goes to show what playing around with a camera can produce- never a dull moment when you are prepared to push the boundaries and add another element to a scene.

Exposure information
Nikon D300 - 200-400mm
Exposure – f 4 Shutter Speed: 2 seconds
Exp. Comp. 0
ISO - 800
Flash - none
Exposure mode– Aperture priority, Metering Mode– Matrix
File type– NEF (RAW)
Focal length: 400mm
Handheld
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MASHATU PHOTOGRAPHY SAFARI - home of the giants

The majority of photographers are inspired by a specific subject like a view or an animal, and to a large extent such pictures are appealing because the subject itself is interesting as well as the way in which it is photographed. Most people who photograph animals and plants are nature lovers, and a Mashatu Photography Safari is not only an enviable arena for photographic artistry, publication of these spectacular images has heightened awareness of the extent and fragility of our natural heritage.

Mashatu lies between the Shashe and Limpopo Rivers, in the wedge of Botswana which lies between Zimbabwe and South Africa. Open plains and sandstone outcrops provide a home for the huge variety of animals,including the largest herd of elephant. Lion, cheetah and leopard are drawn here because of the grazers, and eland, impala, wildebeest,zebra, and greater kudu are amongst those that not only provide a ready meal for the predators, they provide great photographic opportunities on a Mashatu Photography Safari. Catching a special moment on film with these creatures is achieved primarily by being out there in the field and applying the correct technique.

A magnificent pair of Verreaux's Eagles and the majestic African Fish Eagle provide splendid opportunities to explore the unique bird habits, and our Mashatu Photography Safari is intended for both the serious amateur and the beginner who loves what this magical places offers.

On our idyllic Mashatu Photography Safari your accommodation will be insect-proofed tents, and although rustic in character, every facility is provided. Facilities, amongst others, include a purified water supply, plunge pool, and a hide overlooking a floodlit waterhole with campfire dinners where the camp staff will gladly attend to your every need!
The wildlife experience at Mashatu is personalised and the Mashatu experience has been considerably enhanced with the continuous development of adventure activities on offer. Let us at C4 Images and Safaris take you to where adventure and beauty combine.

This article first appeared on C4 Images and Safaris Read more!

Essays

A Landscape of Insect - Tswalu Kalahari Reserve, South Africa
Skimming the Light - Okavango Pan Handle, Botswana
Ocean Stars. Whale Trail, Southern Cape, de Hoop Nature Reserve
Bat eared Fox - Kgalagadi Tranfrontier Park, South Africa
Fiery necked Nightjar, Drotsky's Cabins, Okavango Delta, Botswana
Lesser Flamingos -Lake Nakuru, Kenya
White-Faced Ducks - Austen Roberts
Lion Chase - Deception Valley, Botswana
Black Bellied Bustard Display - Lebala, Botswana
Dune Scale - Dead Tree Pan, Namibia
Cattle Egret Flight - Ampijora, Madagascar
Wild Dog Ghost - Mashatu Game Reserve, Botswana
Leopard Portrait - Mashatu Game Reserve, Botswana
Elephant Crossing (and camera crushing) - Mashatu Game Reserve Botswana
Dusting Desert Elephant
Masai Mara, Cheetah Read more!