Blyde Canyon Time Lapse

I just spent 5 days photographing the most magnificent Blyde River Canyon in the east of South Africa.
If you travel there you will be struck by two things: The sheer magnificence of the canyon that takes your breath away every time you catch sight of it; and how temperamental the weather is.
I was there to add images to my landscape portfolio, but the the dramatic lighting and cloud build ups inspired me to capture the scene in a different format: with a time lapse. This vid shows how conditions can change in a short period of time, ensuring that landscape photography is not the relaxed genre most think of it as; and giving an indication to you how much potential the canyon has to offer!




Thanks to Albie and Freda for their hospitality and inside help of the area and Hougaard for the 04h00 wake up calls to get out hiking and photographing! Read more!

Celebrating Green

I love the green season. Its the time of rain, huge thunderstorms and beautiful skies, inclement and fast moving weather and new life out in the bush.
Places like Linyanti, Savuti and the Drakensberg all come alive in many shades of green, giving us a glimpse of the amount of new life that abounds in this season.
This is a celebration of wildlife in green.

Read more!

Vision Part 3: Is your inspiration killing your creativity?

You’re ready for a shoot; your camera’s ready, batteries charged and lenses polished. As you head out you wonder just what you are going to photograph today. The light is great, there is action in the air and you just know that some beautiful, photogenic scene will present itself for you to capture in all its glory.

Or will you? You are inspired, you have everything at the ready and life couldn’t get any better as a wildlife photographer.
But is your inspiration killing your creativity?


I’ve been the main culprit of being too inspired that I don’t see the wood for the trees. It actually gave me such a false impression that I believed it was true. Over the last few years I have traveled across southern Africa to many great and varied destinations. Here I photographed unique and endemic species, great sightings and of course animals in beautiful light.

Diversity prompted me think I was being creative. I got the shots, but I was sucked into the trap that creativity was found in diversity.
This was my inspiration, and it was flawed.

Creative thought is nurtured. It’s the main essence of developing a vision where you draw your own path. That is when your photography goes to a new level.

And when that happens, you wont need much inspiration...


Read more!

Vision - Part 2

If it feels great, follow your own path.

Ever felt hindered in your creative approach? Like you are doing the same thing over and over and the results are only marginally different?

Have you ever considered that most photographers follow a path set by others who have been there before?
Have you ever considered that the most creative photographers are whose who diverted from the path.
Have you ever considered that those self same Photographers were he ones who left their mark on our medium?

Next time you are out there photographing, take that leap of creative faith to where you have never been before.
If it feels great, follow it down your own path.
And leave your own mark.

Read more!

Vision - Part 1

Study your medium, learn from the masters, draw your own path.

It's so easy to replicate what has already been done- we can even do it better and make our selves look great. But we all know this is not what our game is about. There has never been a more exciting time to be a photographer. Technology has gifted us an almost unlimited approach to our subjects, but how many of us actually are using that to the max?

I was recently given a book of the most memorable images taken by the late Eric Hosking. In it there are photographs that most of us would covet in our portfolios.
Eric took them in 1933.

Here we sit, trying to replicate images that were taken on a plate camera, with most exposures at 1/20 sec. The point is that Eric had a vision and he used it to become the pre-eminent wildlife photographer of his generation (and with only one eye).

So the next time you prepare for a shoot, think about what your vision is, draw your own path.

Read more!