European Roller

European Roller

(Coracias garrulus)

Secretarybird - The Hunt

The Secretarybird is one of the most majestic birds of prey in sub-Saharan Africa.

Hunting its prey on foot in open grasslands and savannah, provides the ideal opportunity to capture these birds in action.

Stalking through the Highveld grassland with long strides looking for an early morning snack.

The Secretarybird suddenly disturbed an insect.

The insect had a few trick up his sleeve, and tried every one of them.

Eventually the Secretarybird caught-up with its quarry, for an early morning snack.

Light Directions

Back Light and Side Light

The photographers paint consists of reflected light from the scene being photographed.

For this reason, light is the most important factor in the image creation process.

An ordinary subject in excellent light conditions provides better opportunities than a photogenic subject in bad light. (Harsh midday light)

Golden hour light is probably the most productive light we have.

This light is available during the early mornings and late afternoons.

However, even during the golden hour we still have some alternative light directions and angles to explore.

Front light, back light and side light (natural light) are the three main light directions available to the photographer to explore.

The images below show the difference between, side light and back light.

The subject did not provide the opportunity to capture front light.

During the shoot the early morning light on the subject did not change at all as the subject did not change his position relative to the direction of the light, only my orientation to the subject changed.

Side light - more creative than front light. The sun is at a 90° angle with the subject in your viewfinder.

90° difference in the light direction produced two distinctly different images .

Back light always provides more opportunities to be creative in photography.

Although in this image the sun was not directly behind the subject in line with my position.

The Rufous-naped Lark provided the ideal opportunity to explore the available light directions.

Black-shouldered Kite

Juvenile Rivalry

During one of my photo shoots at Rietvlei Nature Reserve, I came across two juvenile black shouldered kites sitting on opposite perches.

The one suddenly flew off and seconds later started a mock attack on the subject in my viewfinder. The attack consisted of one flyby only.

From the series of images below the image above clearly shows the anxiety experienced by the victim.

Patience is required to produce timeless natural history photographs. Spending time with you subjects will eventually lead to spectacular opportunities,

but keep in mind that not all opportunities will end in keepers.