Framed Giraffe

Ndutu, Tanzania, Africa

When you are out on safari you would think that you’d be able to see a giraffe from miles away the same way you would see the Eiffel Tower in Paris long before you got to it. For some reason in Africa it seems the bigger the animal is, the stealthier they are. Driving through the trees of Ndutu we kept on getting surprised by these random giraffes popping out from every direction. We would sit there in silence and poof one would be 10 feet in front of us only to dash away after it got a quick glance at us. I felt like I was in some kind of arena as puppeteers in some safari control room was launching random giraffes in our direction, laughing at our surprise as they monitor us with secret tree cameras. Like an African hunger games except instead of fighting to the death I’m just trying to get a decent photo!

Anyways, these giraffes have a few things working for them that help keep them nice and quiet. Larger animals are simply a lot more graceful because they are so heavy, they tend to look like they are walking in slow motion because the shear mass of their limbs slows quick movements. Because they are so large they don’t have too many predators (mainly lions) this negates the need to run around in a constant panicked like state, and verbal communication is unnecessary .

Photographic Details: I often say, never centre your subject, but in this case I was able to frame this giraffe down with this tunnel of trees as she popped out. Framing is a great compositional tool, and if you can find something interesting to surround your subject in a centered subject isn’t so bad. She turned and stared at us for a few moments, then quickly made her way again. You can see how her front leg is poised to take off again, a really cool demonstration of body language is plainly depicted here.

Camera Settings: 1/250s f/2.8 ISO100 160mm

Giraffe and her daughter

On safari in the Serengeti, Tanzania This young giraffe will hang by her mother along with other females in a group. This is the identical pair that I photographed earlier. After this wild baby giraffe was finished ambling around the Serengeti she settled down under her mother for a moment. Already getting the zoomed out scenic shot under my belt ( http://wp.me/p1meFH-OA ) I had to photograph some detail shots now.

Photographic Details: My main focus was the baby giraffe, and given how good our minds are at putting things together I knew I didn’t have to have the whole mother and baby giraffe in the same shot. The point of the photo is to show the scale between the mother and the baby, in addition her position under her mother perfectly expresses how important of a shelter this mother is to her baby. The rest is up to the viewer, we’re good enough at guessing that the rest of the mother is beyond the frame to know she’s just not a headless four legged monster, keeping the focus squarely on the baby. I decided to crop this image square, it’s a nice shape and the extra background to the right I thought was unnecessary. With this image I used the exact same storytelling device I used with a baby elephant, clearly it’s a story that is seen in many animals all over africa http://wp.me/p1meFH-Ow

1/160s f/7.1 ISO100 400mm

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Baby Giraffe springs across the Serengeti

Serengeti, Tanzania, Africa Looking across the Serengeti we sat quietly looking at a group of a dozen giraffes, our guide indicated that these were females who usually group together for safety.

Suddenly a large giraffe bursts from the trees behind us and begins to make her way towards the herd. Another much smaller gangly figure awkwardly stumbles out into the open; for a moment my subconscious thought it made more sense to tell my brain that my tripod had sprung to life and jumped out of the back of the safari vehicle and ran across the Serengeti. Then I realized this energetic stick figure was a baby giraffe running around her mother and all over the grass like there was a party going on in her head that only she could hear. I’m used to seeing these large animals move like they are a slow motion movie, to see one of these things dart around, buck and jump so quickly was both startling and delightful.

Final Image, click to see larger:

Photographic Details: I wanted to capture a bit of motion with these animals moving faster than usual, I slowed my shutter speed down to 1/160th of a second in hopes of getting a little motion blur on their legs and tails without getting too much blur on the bodies. I actually have some much more artistic versions of these images that I will be sharing in the coming weeks but I liked the energy of this one as it really shows how much spunk the baby has, which made us all giggle in the safari vehicle as we watched this unfold in front of us.

This also happened so fast that I forgot to lower my aperture to let more light in, I ended up underexposing. However with the magic of shooting in RAW mode I have a little wiggle room, I was able to correct my mistake and get the detail back by changing the exposure after the fact in Lightroom, we all make mistakes but with the right settings we can compensate for them, See the original image to compare!

Canon EOS 7D: 1/160s f/9.0 ISO100 150mm (35mm eq:240mm)

Original Image before exposure adjustment

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Reticulated Giraffe reach

Sweetwaters game reserve, KenyaTaken on safari mere hours ago.

This subspecies of giraffe is known for it’s dark spots separated by cream coloured lines. As we drove up in our safari vehicle this giraffe stared at us blinking with her huge eyelashes then continued browsing on the acacia tree after determining we were of little importance.

Photographic Details: I wanted to get a more unique photo of this giraffe while still expressing the daily life of this graceful animal. I liked the curve of the neck while she reached out parallel to her body on the top of the small tree, the open mouth and purple tongue clearly illustrating she was munching away.

I cropped the bottom of the image and kept the sky in the top third of the image, the giraffe in the middle and the green foliage in the bottom, conforming with the rule of thirds for this composition.

Canon EOS 7D 1/320s f/7.1 ISO100 400mm (35mm eq:640mm)

Giraffe Silhouette

Masai Mara, Kenya, Africa The dramatic skies of the Masai Mara were surrounding us towards the sunset hours in Kenya. After a day of seeking out cheetahs, elephants and leopards we had time to observe this giraffe browsing along the hilltop amongst the iconic shape of the Euphobia tree.

Photographic Details: Silhouettes are some of the most illustrative and powerful compositional elements in a photographers repertoire. Throwing away the distraction of colour texture and exposure you are simply left with a figure that forces the viewer to concentrate on body language, posture, and shape. With the lack of detail the viewer’s imagination is put to work perhaps causing them to linger a little longer. In addition a silhouette photo like this provides a stark contrast in detail with the perfectly exposed sky (underexposed by two stops) all the textures and beauty in the cloud formation is preserved in a hyper real fashion.

There wasn’t as much colour as I liked so I employed some colour graduated filters. I think of these as “sunglasses for my camera” that provide a colourful gradient that can enhance or even introduce colours much like putting on a pair of rose coloured sunglasses.

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This is also available on my smugmug for print: http://kylefoto.smugmug.com/Animals/Africa/19644918_hpCKDK#1554516357_mBKRfCP