We’re just getting ready to hit the road again – racing to finish late feature articles, tidying up loose ends in the office, processing last minute pictures and dragging down our ‘Africa’ crate from the shelf in the hall cupboard for our forthcoming trip to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park and South Africa’s North West province.
The ‘Africa’ crate contains odd, but essential, non-photographic bits of kit that have proved extremely handy over the years. It’s the stuff that makes us feel instantly at home when it’s unpacked in the bush.
Quite a lot of the bits and bobs in there are linked to food (a passion second only to photographing wildlife for us both): an old cheese grater with plastic bits nibbled by jackals, a cracked plastic sieve which is still surprisingly useful, a cheap ice lolly mould with re-usable plastic sticks, and the torn, and thrice-mended, blue batik sarong we’ve used forever to cover our camera gear on game drives – our own personal security blanket.
The ice lolly mould? Bought from the tardis-like Banana Box general store in St Lucia in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province one time, the lollies it produces are now a must have on any summer visit to the Kalahari. After Steve’s iced instant coffee that is. There are moulds for six of them and one can of ‘Minute Maid’ fruit drink bought from the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park camp shop splits miraculously to fill all six holes. Pop in the freezer et viola! For occasions when you’re in chalets rather than camping, of course, and not in Twee Rivieren, the main camp, as the shop there already sells ice cream. I can’t think of a better way to cool down ahead of a cold Castle lager at dusk.
I’m getting sidetracked. Suffice to say we’re going through our preparation rituals ahead of another visit to our favourite South African national park and its reminding us of all the things that still give us goosebumps about photographing there. These are…
1. The Curve Ball
Blackbacked jackal chasing doves
Our best pictures from a visit won’t be the ones we’ve pre-visualised for months before arriving. It’s what turns up out of the blue that’s the really exciting thing. This is why no amount of pre-planning, detailed research or the careful drawing up of a shooting list can really prepare you for a visit to the Kalahari.
The top of your photographic wish list might very well be the black-maned lions the reserve is famous for, or its now quite visible leopards. A majestic lion framed classically between a bright blue sky and that rich red sand, a gemsbok silhouetted on the top of a calcrete ridge, the decisive moment of a cheetah hunt? Bring it on. But red letter days like this are rare.
What we love about this place is that it seems to be the Kgalagadi that decides what the special rewards for your patience and those ‘dry’ pictureless drives will be, not you. Leave your mind open, let the thirstland rhythms work their magic and let the unexpected tiptoe in…
2. The Unfolding Story
Cape fox cubs playing
The Kgalagadi is brilliant at story-telling. Perhaps its our old journalism training, but the never-ending, open, sandy terrain is a perfect blank page on which hundreds of animal tracks trace out the tales of the daily struggle for survival. With few roads, most of which follow the dry, fossil rivers where animals congregate during daylight hours, it’s possible to follow the footsteps (quite literally) of a subject you’ve photographed over several days. There are few places you can chart the different episodes and events in the inhabitants’ lives like this, whether it be the local lion pride, the silver fox family or the hyperactive meerkat colony. Observing them each morning and evening by their dens and burrows, and being drawn in and mesmerised by the various chapters in their natural histories, becomes more absorbing and addictive even than the wildlife photography itself…
3. The Wonderful Waterhole called Dalkeith
Cheetah drinking at Dalkeith
It looks like a large, badly made garden pond, fringed too neatly with bright stones that can wreck a composition and your exposure if you’re not careful. It can become a bit of a circus these days too when the park is busy – no more the quiet stake-outs of our early days when we’d often have the spot to ourselves. But it’s close enough to the track to make for arresting shots and still remains the site of some of our best, and most intimate, animal encounters and photographs. Three cheetahs drinking followed immediately, like a factory conveyor-belt, by a group of seven thirsty lions is just one memorable highlight. Dalkeith always seems to comes up trumps at some point on a visit.
4. Gold Dust
Great light mixed with swirling dust is a potent photographic combination. The Kalahari delivers both most days (although there’s often too much emphasis on the dust bit of this equation at times). These two magic ingredients make the place heaven for anyone with a keen eye and a camera…
Springbok running at dawn
5. Seasonal Surprises
Okay so the Kgalagadi doesn’t have seasons as such, it’s dry and dusty most of the year, but there are times, after heavy rains for example, that bring fresh opportunities for the visiting photographer in this haunting landscape. The sudden blooming of semi-desert, when the dunes break out in bright yellow devil’s thorn flowers almost overnight, or the formation of an intense neon rainbow in an angry, purple, threatening sky, open up new perspectives for photography in a place we were stupid enough to think we knew backwards…
Meerkat in Devil’s Thorn flowers
6. The Critters in Camp
Last, but not least. We can have as much enjoyment photographing the little creatures that have made their home in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park rest camps as we can training our lenses on the reserve’s famous big cats and magnificent birds of prey. We’ll take an obliging bunch of ground squirrels, a wily yellow mongoose or a bemused looking family of owls in a deserted camp any day over a mini traffic jam at a snoozing lion or a cheetah in deep shade out there in the park.
It’s refreshing to photograph out of your vehicle, to walk around and explore the outer reaches of the camp and to finally get down to eye-level with creatures that are relaxed and behave naturally in your presence because they’re used to people. Hang around with these guys long enough and you’ll be rewarded with interesting action and behaviour. It always seems to work for us…
Hand me down that crate!
Yellow mongoose with young