I just returned from a trip to Kgalagadi with my wife. in the 5 days at Twee Rivieren and Nossob we had some amazing sightings and I was fortunate to have fantastic photographic opportunities. However, I write this post as a fellow photographer who have a passion for nature and photography. During this trip I had the fortunate opportunities to see how other photographers operate both great and on the other hand sad. I will leave the great part but need to mention some negatives. 1. I think there is a growing obsession with long lens and high speed photography. Sitting at a sighting of two male lions that never moved faster than a slow walk, the silence was continuously disturbed by rattling shatters running at 12 fps shooting in mid day heat over distances of 60 meters plus with 600mm lenses linked to 2x extenders. What about heat reflection and distortion? most of the times we were within 15 to 20 meter from the lions. I was with people who are not photographers who had to sit and listen to the rattling of shutters going on for hours on hours as photographers arrived, Rattled of 100s of images and leave for the next car to arrive and the big white lenses propping out of the car and the episode repeats itself. They not only spend time studying the animals behaviour or enjoying the sighting. Just shoot as many frames as possible and move off. 2. At another sighting with 3 lionesses with 4 cubs we had to sit and look at people shooting with long lenses using a flash in beautiful early morning light and later during the day. I counted in 1 min 40 shots with the flash at the cubs less than 10 meters away as per the image below. This became so disturbing to the other people that we kindly requested the person to stop using the flash. This led to obvious sarcastic remarks from the photographer. These actions are highly inconsiderate to other people who are there to enjoy the sightings. But some photographers only experience the sighting through their viewfinders, with ongoing rattling of shutters and flashes in bright sunshine. I do know that people use flash to counter the shade, but does it need to go on for hours and 40 flashes per minute? It is time we as photographers start to consider others as our means of doing and exercising our hobbies of some peoples jobs is becoming a major disturbance and irritation to other nature lovers. Lets be more considerate
Posted on: Sat, 08 Nov 2014 21:02:09 +0000
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