It became quite clear to me that, as a had suspected, you need a SERIOUSLY long lens to photograph birds. Still, sometimes you can manage to get pretty close, as I did here, and you can come away with a half-way decent shot. While it won’t win a prize, it’s certainly good enough to make it into our vacation album,
Kenya is chock full of DLTs (that would be deer-lke things), and one of my favorites is the water-buck, pictured here. Usually you’ll find these roaming around grassy plains and such, but I had never encountered one near or on the water. This fella was about knee deep in Lake Naivasha, where we also came across LOTS of hippos. What with the name water-buck and fact that he is actually hanging out in the lake, this has to be my favorite “environmental portrait” shots of one of these magnificent creatures. We were in a long-boat when I shot this with the D700 and Nikkor 70-200 2.8 VR set to 180mm. Sure was cool to get so close to this guy and have him look up at me in time for the shot, though the boat was also moving (slowly) when I shot this.
I could watch African elephants for hours. The way they look after each other is always amazing to experience in person, and the sounds they make when they communicate with one another is indescribably beautiful to listen to. We saw many elephants during our trip to Kenya, both in the wild, as well as at The David Sheldick Wildlife Trust in Nairobi. I watched several of the baby elephants play with each other, as well as with their caretakers, for a good longtime, capturing some really amazing moments. I’ll probably post some more from that shoot in the future.
One thing you see a lot of in Kenya are a bunch of ragged old trucks still winding their way along the dirt roads and highways of the country, long past their prime. Here is one we found just inside the Samburu National Reserve. I’m pretty sure this one ain’t goin’ nowhere real soon!
Our eldest, the young lady in the middle with the green shirt, LOVES, LOVES, LOVES cheetahs! In fact, it is her favorite animal, and always has been. So you can imagine how excited she was to have the chance to get up close and personal with this beauty! Her sister and my wife loved the opportunity to get some hands on time with this beautiful cat as well. And guess what? This kitty was purrrrrring the whole time; way cool!!
