Archive for the 'Elephant' category

Back from a few days of photo trip to Nepal, I feel it is time to share with you some of this astonishing experience organized by Amawanda and guided by Alain Pons.

I am more or less a wildlife photographer attracted to the African wide-open spaces. But I had been attracted mostly by the presence of a seasoned pro photographer (Alain Pons) assisted by a very serious organization (I had been able to appreciate them in a previous trip to Kenya in 2008). I had also noticed that costs were relatively moderate (taking into account that this is a wildlife trip – which is often very expensive) including -we could check this later on location- a significant share reserved for local actions for development and nature protection in full coordination with the local structures and the local wildlife organizations.

The flight to Kathmandu was without surprise on Qatar, despite the long night stop in Doha airport where the only Duty Free shop cannot be considered as a commendable tourist spot (but they have a nice stock of alcohol or cigarettes for those who prefer to prepare themselves for later needs).

The Kathmandu-Bardia journey requires about 20 hours of bus or car. The stops provided in the program are a good way to break the inevitable monotony. A faster plane journey would be possible (it is included on the way back) but it would be a pity to avoid the view in the valleys and from the mountain roads out of Pokhara.

All along this journey, I will try to make a few recommendations about what a photographer might find more interesting to stop for.

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I am leaving France for a photo trip to Nepal. Why did my colleagues pay a part of that trip?

I’m just out of eBay where I bought a second-hand Minolta 1.4x lens converter to extend a little my tele-lenses when I put them on my Sony Alpha 700 and the old faithful Konica-Minolta Dynax Maxxum 7D.

I think it is going to support me when I go to Nepal (Bardia National Park) in next October. With Alain Pons and Amawanda.

Everything points at a stark increase of elephant poaching in Kenya after years of relative calm. More precisely, in the Tsavo National Park, in the 6 most recent weeks, rangers of the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) found 5 dead elephants whose tusks have been sawed.

This is a reminder that some habits which we thought mostly gone are not. Sales of ivory (includign the official ones) are on the rise and there would be some troubling links here. Nevertheless, the KWS rangers already arrested two men and seized AK-47 assault rifles with ammunitions, but it could well be only the tip of a rising iceberg.

Source: Futura-Sciences.

Andrew Chase designed a strange mechanical elephant. It works, it’s articulted. Weird!

Source: Baekdal.com.

Here is an interesting case (I think) of how I work on the photos I shot. Usually, I think of it as development of the digital image. Like for its argentic/analog counter-part, I have to work a little on the image to make it printable, but I also have to prepare a correct framing of the image and possibly more.

This is the photo of an elephant on the Musiara plains of the Masai Mara National Park in Kenya. Initially, I shot the horizontal photo below, in order to get a fairly good portrait of an elephant within a tight frame:

Elephant, portrait (Copyright 2008 Yves Roumazeilles)

It is a fairly correct image: A touch of colour in the background, enough information in both highlights and shadows, good focus plane, nice structure on the skin of the elephant, both eyes are visible and both tusks are inside the frame.

But after preparing/developping the trivial image (just minor levels correction, minimal unsharp mask), I thougt that it could be possible to try something else by re-framing the image:

Elephant, portrait (Copyright 2008 Yves Roumazeilles)

But while I was at it (and because of the nice work of light on the mud-covered skin of the animal), I also decided to try a black and white presentation (with desaturation by Photoshop and a little coloring of the image):

Elephant, portrait (Copyright 2008 Yves Roumazeilles)

What do you think about it? Which one is the best image?

Random encounter, a baby elephant, probably only two- or three-week old.

Bébé éléphant (Copyright 2008 Yves Roumazeilles)

This is merely the beginning of the publication of photos I shot in the Masai Mara National Reserve (Kenya) during a photo safari leaded by Alain Pons, French wildlife photographer. You can expect a long string of images since I found quite a number of nice occasions to snap a few animal shots.