Special 12 days Safari Including Sabi Sands- now sold out!

May 30 - June 10 I will be leading a special photographic safari that includes all of the private reserve action while at our exclusive tree house lodge and the big cat lodge. In addition we will be spending 2 nights at the famous Sabi Sands reserve for a total of 12 photography and wildlife packed days. This trip will be limited to 5 guests only.

$4,750 per person inclusive of airport transfers, lodging, food, and activities. Watch the website and Newsletter for announcement about when we will offer this special safari in 2013.

Join Our 10 Day Photographic Safari

There is still one space left on my 10 day safari April 17 - 26th or Sept 26 - Oct 5. Guests will stay at or tree house lodge and enjoy game drives on private reserves including the Thornybush big 5 reserve, other private reserves, and Kruger National Park. We also stay at a big cat lodge on a big 5 reserve packed with wildlife with special emphasis on big cats.

$3,900 per person inclusive of airport transfers, lodging, food, and activities. Prices increase to $4,200 for 2013.

Contact us now if you would like to join this great safari

Welcome to Our Corner of South Africa

Our safaris take place in Limpopo Province, South Africa's northern most province. Limpopo features vast expanses of bushveld and grasslands sweeping the landscape making this big 5 country. It is sanctuary to a large percentage of the county's wildlife with many game parks an animal sanctuaries. Temperatures are higher in the lowvld zone –the warmest winter temperatures in the counry. The terrain ranges from typical bushveld to more mountainous areas and there are stretches of forests and farmlands.

Timbavati Private Reserve

Many of our game drives will take place on the Timbavati Reserve and our tree house lodge borders with this big 5 preserve. Timbavati is one of the oldest private nature reserves in South Africa and adjoins the Kruger National Park with no fence for free movement of wildlife. It comprises 53,000 hectares of land and lies north of the Sabi Sands reserve. The character of the land is "savanna bushveld" with 6 different woodland types. Elephant, rhino, and plains game abound along with their attending predators. Wild dogs are also visitors to the area. Rarer antelopes such as roan, eland, and tsessebe have been slower to return to the area, but their numbers are increasing.

Sabi Sands Private Reserve

The Sabi Sands Reserve is adjacent to the Kruger National park, south of Timabavati and consists of various private game reserves. The fences between this privately owned land and Kruger were torn down years ago and these reserves enjoy fame as a premiere area to view wildlife especially leopards and lions. The area features Sand River valley running through it as it flows toward the Sabie river at the southern border. It is one of the most biodiverse wildlife populations in Africa.

Kruger National Park

Kruger National park covers almost 2 million hectares of beautiful unspoilt terrain and is home to the world's largest diversity of wildife in their natural environment. The south part of the park is treed with a few small hills and rocky outcrops. Centrally, grassland plains stretch for kilometers and as one travels further north, the surroundings are more sparse and arid and Mopani bush predominates. The wildlife species vary with the different eco zones.

Using Lightroom Metadata to Research Best Settings

With all of the integration tools, added image adjustment capabilities, and printing options going into Lightroom, it is easy to forget that LR is a database. Like all databases, it is only as good as the data is complete and detailed, but if you manage the detail you can create a powerful learning and efficiency tool.

For my large collections of images taken of a single subject at the same location (manatees, dolphins, lions). To enhance the data already connected to the image, I enforce the discipline of recording the location in detail (for example: north corner or in canal), the sky and lighting conditions, and for underwater – the visibility. I also rate each photo before I do any adjustments.

I have learned some surprising things such as most of my best manatee photographs happened between 9am and 9:30am. Using the Library Filter panel in LR, I can use it like a query tool to see a count of images taken with the conditions (entered as keywords) and combinations of the ISO, flash, rating, etc that I choose. While not the most flexible query tool, I can get valuable data about what settings make a great shot for that location and conditions.

When I have my manatee workshop next week I will be able to look at the time, weather, and water conditions and recommend settings to the guests based on what worked in the past. Of course you can use the histogram on the camera screen and your experience to do the same thing, but many times I can't take the time to analyze and adjust in the field (while cageless with sharks or at a lion hunt) Thus is the nature of wildlife and sports photography.

If you needed another reason to keep you photos organized and properly loaded, taking this "big picture" look at a collection of images of your favorite subject is very rewarding.

Read the extended version of this article on my blog www.PhotographAfrica.com

News from Underwater

My Underwater Photography Website

Adobe Releases Beta of Lightroom 4

What Adobe says about Lightroom 4: "Lightroom software provides a comprehensive set of digital photography tools, from powerfully simple one-click adjustments and features to cutting edge advanced controls. With Lightroom, you can organize, enhance, and showcase your images all from one fast and nimble application that's available on Macintosh and Windows® platforms.

New features added to LR4

Highlight and Shadow recovery tool

Photo book creation with templates

Location based organization with GPS data display

White balance brush –for adjustment to specific areas

Additional Local editing controls for noise reduction

Extended video support including organizational, viewing, and adjustment of clips

Soft proofing of prints

Email directly from Lightroom - I am so happy! Finally my "email this" button!

Every visit to South Africa is different and gives me new topics and beautiful images. I look forward to sharing them with you after our next adventures in 2012 - or better yet, come with us!