Africa Imagery – Photography in Africa

Just a short one this week. We were down in Durban wrapping up the photography for a book on KwaZulu Natal and one of the things we had to get was some pix of Hindu Temple Dancers. But how? I thrashed around with some ideas and was getting nowhere very quickly when the thought occurred to me that I should be talking to my friend Raymond Pillay who heads up Assegai and Javelin – an amazing advertising agency in Durban. A quick call and a few minutes later all was set up. Local knowledge at it best!

Well almost. Local, local knowledge is even better. We started doing the shoot at the Palmview Temple, a typical, but rather plain Hindu Temple . Our young (experienced, it turns out) models were beautiful, dressed in their saris and jewellery we did a few pix and then of the mothers suggested that we move location to a temple near where she lived – aparently it was more attractive. We (6 of us) piled into Pat’s little Peugeot 206 (not really a “people carrier” of note) and wound our way through the back streets of Phoenix until we came to the most beautiful of temples and got some really great images of the temple as well as the temple dancers. Local knowledge really does work!

If you need images of temple dancers and other subjects have a look at our Image Bank.

Why not join us on our safari to Madikwe Game Reserve in May where we will be trying to get some great images of wild dogs. More info here: http://www.africaimagery.com/workshops_madikwe.php

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I am a member of the Pix Magazine photography forum (have a look here: http://pixmag.ning.com) and from time to time members ask advice. Here’s a recent one and I’ve posted it here because I think that it could be useful to you. Here’s the question:  “Hi. I hope you are well. Roger can you please help me. I obviously must be doing something wrong on the aperture priority. I have noticed that when I try to blur the backgrounds of some of the photos it doesn’t always work. I adjust the aperture to minimum (3-5) the minimum that the camera allow”.

The depth of field is hugely influenced by your choice of lens (also by the aperture of course) and indirectly by your choice of camera. The reason I say by the camera is that if you are

This image was shot with Nikon's 200-400mm f4 lens at 400mm and at f4 resulting in a nice smooth background.

using a small sensor camera like the Nikon D300 or a Canon 7D then your “standard lens” (50mm on a full frame camera and somewhere around 35mm for the so called DX format cameras) is longer on my full frame D3x, for example, than on my wife’s D300. What this means is that in any given situation, you will be using a longer focal length lens with a full frame sensor than with a DX camera to achieve the same framing. And wide angle lenses, as we know, show more depth of field than telephoto lenses.

If you want out of focus backgrounds use the longest lens you can with the largest aperture you can and in your case it seems to f4.5. This aperture will limit things a little especially if the lens that you are using is fairly short. All those wonderful animal portraits with completely blown out backgrounds that you see are usually shot with lenses like the 300mm f2.8, 400mm f2.8 and the 600mm f4 – expensive glass to be sure.

There are 2 other things to consider:

The first is that the closer you are to your subject the shallower the depth of field – just try shooting macro. Number 2 is that the further the background is from your subject the more out of focus it will be. So the recipe for out of focus backgrounds is to use a long lens with a very large aperture (f2.8 or f4), get close to your subject (obviously within the limits of the lens that you are using) and make sure that the background is as far away as possible.

Hope this helps

I think it’s the most beautiful of the lot! The Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, South Africa dominates the city skyline making almost ever photograph shot before its completion last year, obsolete. The graceful steel centre arch, based on the South African flag, is 106m high and a cable car designed to take visitors up to the highest point where they can take in wonderful  views of the city operates daily. The arch is 350m long and weighs 2600 tons. During the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ it will seat 70 000 people reverting to 54 000 thereafter.

We stayed at a very convenient B&B in Durban North called Annies Place (http://www.anniesplace.co.za/) just a few kilometres from the stadium. We did quite a few panoramic shots of the Durban Country Club with the stadium in the background and stitched these together in Photoshop CS4 after doing the necessary tweaks in Lightroom. What an amazing combination. In many instances these days I don’t even worry about using a panoramic head. I simply lock the focus, exposure and white balance and go click, click, click, allowing about 25% overlap and voila. Have a look at some of the images we did over the few days we were in Durban before the cloudy weather moved in again.

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While we are chatting things photography, we’ve a few more spots available on our Photographic Safari to Madikwe Game Reserve in May 2010. Have a look here for more details. These are amazing fun! http://www.africaimagery.com/workshops_madikwe.php

Wow! What a Photo Graphic Safari that was! We had 5 people join us at Jaci’s Camp in Madikwe Game Reserve in South Africa’s North West Province – Lousie Donald (Publisher of Pix Magazine), Tim and Yvonne Driman, Hilary Baak and Mike Rickard out from the UK. The idea was to try to photograph the African Wild Dogs that Madikwe Game Reserve is so well known for but, as so often happens with wildlife photography, the dogs were not quite as cooperative as they could have been. We did see them a couple of times though and we did get some pix. Everything else  seemed to be doing their best to be photographed – we had great times with elephants (and had a couple of charges to keep out attention going), lions and

Lilac Breasted Roller at Madikwe Game Reserve

general game and also managed to play with some scenic after sunset.

We followed the usual format of early morning and late afternoon shoots with image analysis and other photographic discussions in betewwn and the VERY attantative and helpful staff at the lodge forced deliscous food and drink down our throuts a regular intervals. While the standard of photography at the start of the workshop was pretty good, I must say that after 4 days of intensive work on images, techniques and Photoshop, some very fine images we starting to appear. Have a look at some of the images we shot here:

This workshop was so successful we’ve scheduled some more with 2 people having already booked onto the March one. Book you place now. Have a look here for more details. Louise Donald of Pix Magazine very kindly put this video together.

It’s interesting how similar issues raised themselves in batches from time to time.  Recently I have had quite a few enquiries from people wanting to know which version of Photoshop to use.  What I am finding with my own work is that most of my image processing is being done in Adobe Lightroom with only some of the more advanced edits having to be done in Photoshop.

When Adobe launched Lightroom 2 (and it’s now up to version 2.6) the addition of adjustment brushes increased the processing power of Lightroom to the extent that Photoshop has

A raw image as its was shot before processing in Adobe Lightroom

almost but not quite become redundant to processing images.  I would guess that something around 90% of my raw images don’t need much editing at all other than levels correction, a bit of dust removal, perhaps a little local adjustment (which is where the brushes come in) and may be correcting a skew horizon or two.  I find that I’m only using Photoshop to stitch together panoramic images or work with layers when I need to.  And even here I do most of the edits in Lightroom, right click the image, then select edit in Photoshop.  Lightroom converts the image to a 16 bit TIFF file, opens it in Photoshop, where it or you do the necessary reprocessing and at the end of it, it opens the image in Lightroom again as a 16 bit TIFF.  It stacks this new file with the original so that you can easily find them.

What I am suggesting to people now in is that instead of buying one of the top Photoshop versions, they rather get Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop Elements which has the added advantage of being a little more affordable.  And yes I know that

Here the images has been processed in Lightroom only.

Photoshop does have a raw converter that is a perfectly competent editing program and actually is the same raw converter engine that is found in Lightroom but in my opinion, working with in Lightroom is very much more user-friendly and logical.

So just a short one this week and if you have any specific queries in this regard is feel free to contact us.

When I mentioned to a friend recently that we were heading out to 88m high Karkloof Falls in the Kwazulu Natal Midlands to do some pix of the falls, all he said was, “what? In this @%*$ weather – it’s overcast and raining!” Well, in many instances, this is the best time to be shooting waterfalls and water. If you photograph a waterfall in sunlight, very often the whites of the falling water blow out completely and if you try to hold exposure on them then the rest of the images is really very underexposed. Best of all though, in the low light of the overcast conditions you can shoot at very long shutter speeds resulting in those soft, fluffy waterfalls.

Here’s the first Image – shot from the viewpoint as you arrive. As you can see from the exposure data the long 2 second exposure has allowed

Karkloof Falls. Exposure Data: 2 Sec at f16. Iso 100 + Polarising Filter

the falling water to blur completely and a polarising filter  cuts the reflections on the rocks, foliage and water resulting in more saturated colours.

We then moved to the area above the falls to the much smaller waterfall called Woodhouse Falls (you see them above the main falls). Here I experimented with different shutter speeds to change the effect of the blurring. The choice of shutter speed depends on your personal preferences and on what you are trying to portray but have a look at the exposure data below each image and use what you think is best.

WoodHouse Falls. Exposure Data: 1/4 Sec at f16. ISO 100 +Polarising Filter

WoodHouse Falls. Exposure Data: 1/30 Sec at f5.6. ISO 100 +Polarising Filter

WoodHouse Falls. Exposure Data: 1/60 Sec at f4. ISO 100 +Polarising Filter

WoodHouse Falls. Exposure Data: 1/250 Sec at f2.8. ISO 400 +Polarising Filt

I wasn’t quite happy with my pic of the main falls and we scouted around for another view point. Eventually we discovered and tiny, indistinct little path through the thick bush that led to a rock overhang with a stunning view of the falls. The problem was the sky. The contrast between the rather dark gorge and trees and the sky was just too much for the camera to handle. I decided to use a fairly new (well it’s actually been out for a few years now) technique called High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging. What you do is shoot a number of different images at different exposures. I used what the camera metered and then +1, -1. -2 and -3 stops. I then run these images through some software called Photomatix which, to cut a very long story short and to oversimplify it, blends all the images together and compresses that range of tones. The last image is what you get.

We are running a Photo Workshop in Howick in early January and then again in March and will be working these falls as part of the experience. Have a look here for more details: http://www.africaimagery.com/workshops_midlands.php.

Karkloof Falls. HDR image from 0, +1, -1, -2, -3 exposures.

Anyway, Zama said he knew of a Sangoma (Diviner or Traditional Healer) just to the north of the HiP that would be willing to talk to us about dogs and so off we went. Now there are no street names in this part of rural Zululand. No street numbers. No nothing. So it took a bit of a while. A couple of stops along the way to check directions with a few locals, and we arrived at a small homestead where the Sangoma lived. What a gentleman! Helpful, courteous and knowledgeable, he provided a real insight into using various objects (both animal and plant) to treat patients. All too soon our time with him was up and it was off to continue our search for wild dogs so we could photograph them.

That was where Carla came in. There was actually a pack of about 16 that was quite close to where we were staying at Hilltop Camp. We’d got fairly close to them on the first morning using some telemetry equipment that Carla had. They were in very thick bush in a rather deep donga system and there was simply no way we could get close enough for photography. It was now 5 days later and we were no closer to getting pix of them and our time at HiP was fast running out. And then this morning after a long and completely uneventful drive in the area we rounded a corner and there they were – right in the road. I stopped about 50m from them, got off a few very quick shots and they up and offed into the very thick bush. And that was that! 5 days. About R1000-00 in fuel in the Game reserve and another R1500-00 to get here and home again and a few very early mornings. About 10 images and I’ll probably be able to use just 1. Oh, the joys of wildlife photography!

We also had a long chat to Brendan regarding his research, sitting under a huge marula tree in the iMfolozi section of the park. (The result of the sitting under a tree in the grass if a bunch of tick bites where you really don’t want tick bites!) He had some fascinating insights into the life of dogs which will certainly find their way into the book.

I have put up a small web page with some images we’ve got on this trip on it. Have a look here.

We’re off to do one of our photographic workshops after this and I’ll post the results next week. But if you’re interested in joining us on one of these please visit www.africaimagery.com to find out more.

First overall by Ann Johnson who, together with her husband Ian, owns Big John Clothing.

Second Prize went to Karen McGee who is in the Real Estate business.

Third prize went to Nick Hilterman who is one of the directors of Tuli Lodge in Botswana

Congratulations to the winners and please contact us if you are keen on attending one of our workshops.