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49 images Created 31 Aug 2015

Botswana Green Season

After the first rains of the season, the 'Green Season' commences. It is the most colourful time of year with many young animals, lush green bush and the most dramatic cloud formations. Not surprisingly it is my preferred time to be out in the bush.
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  • Double rainbow at sunset over Kalahari landscape with shadow of photographer
    VGR_20090106_1275a.jpg
  • Leopard approaching
    VGR_20081223_0629I.jpg
  • Young cheetahs climbing a tree
    VGR_20081226_1985B.jpg
  • Immature Lanner falcons fighting.<br />
(Captured Experiences Competition 2010- 3rd Place Category Action & Behaviour)
    VGR_20081228_3203a.jpg
  • Fiery sky with rainbow streaks at sunset over Kalahari landscape.
    VGR_20090106_1359b.jpg
  • Portrait of spotted hyena sniffing the ground
    VGR_20081231_3732a.jpg
  • Giraffes at waterhole in kalahari landscape
    VGR_20090109_1410a.jpg
  • After good rains the clay soil of the Nossob River Valley retains puddles for longer, attracting the animals from far to quench their thirst.
    VGR_20100104_5391.jpg
  • Adult fox teaches young how to hunt for insects
    VGR_20100106_5717.jpg
  • Hunting lioness with focussed stare .
    VGR_20100106_6485a.jpg
  • Double Rainbow over Nossob River Valley.
    VGR_20100108_5890a.jpg
  • Two young male lions and one receptive female.
    VGR_20101221_4563.jpg
  • Baines' Baobabs and reflections
    VGR_20120129_0533a.jpg
  • Big bull elephants at a Nxai Pan water hole surrounded by plains game.
    VGR_20101231_3102.jpg
  • Greater flamingos at Kudiakam Pan
    VGR_20120129_6256.jpg
  • We were very privileged to witness the birth of a zebra foal during a Nxai Pan visit. The best image opportunities presented themselves after the actual birth when the mare was licking her young that was instinctively learning to balance on its four legs. Amazingly it could walk with ease within 15-20 minutes or so. Whilst all this was going on the lions were roaring only a few hundred meters away...<br />
<br />
Location: Nxai Pan NP, Botswana.<br />
Techs:<br />
Camera Model Canon EOS 1D Mark IV<br />
Shutter Speed 1/800 Sec.<br />
Aperture Value f/8<br />
ISO Speed 400<br />
Lens EF500mm f/4L IS USM + 1.4xTC, Beanbag<br />
Crop is 85% of original
    VGR_20120129_6532a.jpg
  • Herd of zebra in the rain under a colorful rainbow
    VGR_20120130_0595.jpg
  • A herd of Blue Wildebeest grazing in a pan under one of those immensely spectacular colourful Kalahari sunset skies.
    VGR_20120225_9223.jpg
  • Grazing springbok at sunset
    VGR_20120228_7960.jpg
  • Group of zebras including a foal drinking at a waterhole
    VGR_20120302_8398a.jpg
  • A herd of Giraffes silhouetted at sunset
    VGR_20120302_8563.jpg
  • n summer lightning storms commonly occur in the Kalahari. Photographing them however is not that easy and conditions simply have to be a bit in your favour. In this case we were lucky to find ourselves in such a situation whereby it helped that the storm was in the distance, that it was not raining where we were, nor that there was too much wind to complicate matters even more. The only thing that disturbed us and gave us a bit of a fright was an animal on the run passing closely by in the pitch dark night.<br />
<br />
Lightning bolts are never following one another frequently enough when you are trying to capture them and also in this case I already knew that the most spectacular image would be the result of several exposures blended together.<br />
This image was created out of 6 different exposures, all 30 seconds @ f/2.8, ISO 250 and 400 for the lightning bolts and ISO 2500 for the stars.
    VGR_20130202_7421Sa.jpg
  • Subadult male lion backlit by the first rays of sun light
    VGR_20130203_7686.jpg
  • Young male lion yawning whilst lying down
    VGR_20130203_8405a.jpg
  • Meerkat and baby st the entrance of their burrow.
    VGR_20130213_5360.jpg
  • Impala bachelor herd in nice soft backlighting with zebras in the background.
    VGR_20140213_8933.jpg
  • I recently commented to one of my photography buddies in reply to his remark that he wants interesting subjects to shoot, that since he is a good photographer he can create art with any animal subject, even a mouse! <br />
To illustrate my point here I remembered I was shooting some very ordinary and common ground squirrels in Khutse earlier this year. All the squirrels did was eat, but what made the scene was the abundance wild flowering Vlei Lilies. These beautiful flowers grow only for a couple of days so my timing, shortly after the first rains of the season, was perfect.
    VGR_20150102_4812b.tif
  • Zebras in beautiful back lighting
    VGR_20140213_9017.jpg
  • This is why I love the rainy season in Botswana so much; it offers the opportunity to see incredibly dramatic scenes such as these.<br />
<br />
A storm cloud formation with rainbow at sunset above a lone Mopipi Tree in the beautiful Moreswa Pan in the Kalahari's Khutse Game Reserve.
    VGR_20150103_5389d.tif
  • Gemsbok are uniquely beautiful antelope with their striking black & white facial markings and extremely long straight pointy horns. The entire scene of a herd of these graceful ungulates one early morning before sunrise in Khutse appealed to me, but what makes this image strong is the positioning of the three Gemsbok. Study the image, look at the positioning of these bold faces and how the horns point towards the same point and follow the markings along the body outlines and see how they all connect, perhaps than you see what I see. The setting full moon in the background is the proverbial 'icing on the cake.
    VGR_20150105_6070b.jpg
  • Meerkat with young in burrow
    VGR_20080103_1414.tif
  • Proud male leopard in his prime on the open plains of the Deception Valley.
    VGR_20140215_2122a.tif
  • This Tawny Eagle seemed to really dislike rain! Now, I am not too fond of it myself, but it can produce interesting images. Although technically not perfect due to a rather challenging lighting situation I still liked the end result.
    VGR_20120303_8797M.jpg
  • Dramatic storm cloud formation and rainbow at sunset Moreswe Pan in the Kalahari
    VGR_20150103_5393.tif
  • Double rainbow on the frontier of an incoming summer storm over the Nossob River Valley
    VGR_20100108_5876.jpg
  • Leopard tortoise drinking from a rainwater puddle in the Nossob Riverbed
    VGR_20100104_5337.jpg
  • On a recent scenic flight over the Okavango Delta I was hoping to get something unique, yet typically 'Okavango'. As we took off at sunrise I was cursing the clouds that were packing together in the east; this was not what I had hoped for. Luckliy, however, it was the fragmented clouds with the sun beaming through that created a very dramatic beautiful, typically 'Okavango' scene.
    VGR_20140218_4565S.tif
  • Baines' Baobabs in the wet season
    VGR_20120129_0464c.jpg
  • Water pool in the Okavango Delta with clouds reflected in the water surface.
    VGR_20080101_0641M.jpg
  • Intimate portrait of a grazing Zebra
    VGR_20080210_3023.jpg
  • Wild dogs running across the open salt pan in front of the famous Baines' Baobabs
    VGR_20140214_0359.jpg
  • snouted cobra in thornbush
    VGR_20071224_9638.tif
  • Gemsboks in Kalahari landscape with spectacular clouds
    VGR_20071226_0510.tif
  • Lonely springbok lamb in kalahari landscape
    VGR_20071225_0129.tif
  • Thunder storm with lightning bolts at sunset over Kalahari pan
    VGR_20090110_4997_NEW_1600x800_DIASE...jpg
  • Dramatic stormy sky over the grass-covered Makgadikgadi plains.
    VGR_20200219_3876.-HDR-Edit.jpg
  • Glorious pastel coloured sunset over the flooded Tale Pan in northern Botswana
    VGR_20170323_3966_1200x800_WHITEDIBO...jpg
  • Glorious sunset over the flooded Tale Pan in northern Botswana
    VGR_20170323_3895_HDR2.jpg
  • Dramatic stormy sky unleashing a local downpour over the grass-covered Makgadikgadi plains.
    VGR_20200219_3412a.jpg