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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Timing on Mother Zebra’s milk

Masai Mara, Kenya The zebra mother will generally have 1 foal a year, and can have one at any time. Even though the foal may begin eating grass after a few days it generally takes a year to wean them off of mothers milk. Given the similar size of these two and the rarity of twins my local guide said it’s likely this foal is from another mother.

Photographic details: I took many photos of this because I wanted to capture a few things and needed the right timing for everything to line up. The constant swish of the mothers tail often had it flying out of the frame; instead of the tail being flat and facing down I waited for it to swish up to the left to capture that interesting curl. At the same time photographers always want the eyes, here I have not only the mothers eye, but that of both the foals as well. Many photos were taken, but this is the only one that made the cut. I often pay attention to the rule of thirds, but this time with the way the mother and the foal fit in a ying and yang kind of way I have a fair bit of symmetry. Artistically speaking, when you have symmetry like this you have licence to start centering your subjects and you get to throw the rule of thirds away.

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Related: I've got 8 people signed on for my Kenya & Tanzania Photo Safari in January, there is guaranteed window room for everyone and I've got a few spots left! http://www.kylefoto.com/photographic-african-safaris/

Prints are available at smugmug: http://kylefoto.smugmug.com/Animals/Africa/19644918_hpCKDK#1555914888_M42JL7j