ON PHOTOGRAPHY: Maximising the Odds of Photographic Expression – 2. A Farm Called Palmietpan

In the previous blog, I discussed very briefly how spending some time in the company of the same individual or small group of animals on separate occasions has allowed me to explore their lives more intimately and meaningfully through photography. This is one strategy that I relish whenever I stumble across such an infrequent and special instance. I indicated too that spending time repeatedly in the same small locality on separate trips has allowed me to maximise the odds of capturing the sense of place much more intensely. Repeated visits have not only allowed me to broaden my understanding, appreciation and feel for a locale; recurring outings to the same area also spur me on to work harder at capturing all features of a place photographically.

In a significant way, a locality brings to light its magnificence, beauty and meaning to me (as a photographer) only once I have taken several photographs during an initial visit, I have had time thereafter to reflect on these images, and then I have had an occasion to revisit the region once more. This allows me to compare my first photographic efforts to the actual place and to my experiences of it during this subsequent opportunity. Moreover, on succeeding visits, I inevitably discover new, previously unobserved features of the place, different conditions of lighting, my different moods will evoke different responses each time around, and the place itself too will have altered in many particulars. Never has a locality confronted me with congruent combinations of visual delights or photographic challenges as on any previous occasion. 

Any destination, no matter how often I have visited it, will always provide unique experiences if I remain receptive to its sense of place and I am willing to pursue it. At a very young age I learnt that having encountered a particular place and photographed it, does not equate with comprehension, appreciation and complete discovery of a locale.

I have written previously about Palmietpan, a small sheep and cattle farm in the south-western Free State Province of South Africa. As with all agricultural landscapes, fences, tracks and roads crisscross Palmietpan too, and the farm is peppered with cribs, windmills, kraals and outbuildings. Worse still, Palmietpan is situated on the outskirts of the town of Hertzogville/Malebogo – maize silos, electricity pylons and telephone lines dominate the skyline. The general landscape of Palmietpan is monotonous; flat grassland covers most of the farm, with an occasional clump of several Acacia thorn-tree species, Buffalo-Thorn Jujube, Karee and Wild Asparagus at watering-points. A small, shallow dam and a large pan are present as open expanses of cracked clay for most of the year – in summers with good rainfall, they do hold some shallow water. An isolated portion of the farm is covered by open bushveld, but I have had only very few opportunities to spend time there with a camera.

Family commitments have always determined the times of my visits, most often during the end of summer or in the middle of winter. In addition, many visits have coincided with times of severe drought. Of all the places I visit regularly, Palmietpan has set the greatest challenge photographically. Apart from a brief stopover of a sporadic vagrant (a Kudu or a Warthog, for example), the farm is devoid of large game. For a photographer interested in the environment and its inhabitants, first impressions of Palmietpan are that this farm is unphotogenic in extremis.

Over the past decade and a half, I have wrestled with Palmietpan. Initially I would gladly have swapped localities with almost any other environment; nevertheless, I had no choice and had to accept the challenge posed by this farm, an agrarian area that seemingly would not bring to light any fine photographs. Palmietpan is a place that humbles the photographer – every composition, every image has to be discovered through hard work. Here, photographs do not happen, compositions do not await disclosure by a photographer’s merely cursory glance.

Yet, as I have discovered (and I am still discovering fifteen years on), Palmietpan is a magical place of hidden beauty and exciting encounters. The most obvious photographic gems are the various patches of different grasses on the grassland expanses. The seasonal changes in the interaction between the light and the grasses – each species with its own specific inflorescence, height, thickness of culms and shape, length and arrangement of leaves – is astonishing. Hidden between the grasses are the numerous shrubs and herbs, each with different flowers in summer. These colourful gems are usually small – the tall grasses conceal them – so that only prolonged hikes through dense grassland can uncover them.

The bushes and trees also display beautiful flowers for a short while in summer, but they retain throughout the year their individual growth-forms and distinctive plant parts, including cladodes (instead of leaves), hooks, prickles or thorns, for example. Just as every part of a nude body can be photographed, so too every part of a plant reveals beauty.

While grasslands hide the splendour of the insect and spider life extremely well, especially in dryer months, the Harvester Ants are busy throughout the seasons. When water is present in the small dam, colourful dragonflies and damselflies zing through the air or wait patiently on grass stalks or branches of shrubs for passing prey. The seemingly abandoned grasslands also hide the small mammal inhabitants, the rodents and small carnivores. Very patiently, they have taught me their individual habits and they have revealed their favourite seasonal haunts.

After a long apprenticeship, I can now find and approach Four-striped Mice, South African Ground Squirrels and Yellow Mongooses whenever I feel the need for a good chuckle at their skittish and secretive behaviour. I have learnt, too, exactly where different species of grassland and bushveld birds will find a beak-full of water, even during droughts, and which water birds I can expect to encounter in the wetter summers.

By working away at first discovering, then learning about Palmietpan, over many visits to this one small place, I have been able to capture at least some of the essence of the grasslands, bushveld, dam, pan and the residents of this most wonderful domain. There is no need to rush from photogenic locality to the next – patience, observation and the ceaseless exploration of even the most unpromising environment over time will yield successful photographic compositions.

The sense of personal achievement as a photographer is boosted by having to work hard at the fundamentals of photography, searching for compositions rather than being confronted without effort by an obvious landscape that is then photographed but often left uncharted. I learned very early on in my photographic journey that restriction to access of a discernibly photogenic destination in no way diminishes my photographic passion or chances of capturing unique images. I simply need to work harder and become receptive to the sense of place that surrounds me, wherever I may find myself.

Moreover, Palmietpan even provides ‘landscape photography’ regularly. While the ground below baulks against composition as a dynamic, satisfactory landscape image, the high vaulted sky above provides cloudscapes, which, like all landscapes, challenge any photographer to find a composition – not of an actual place on Earth, but a haven for cloud princesses, giants, ogres, gremlins and imps who will show their residences and castles to any earthbound explorer of the endless vista of clouds, again-and-again, visit-after-visit.

A SENSE OF PLACE: A Gem Called Zwartkloof

Whenever I tell people that I am about to spend some time in the bush, their response still bemuses me: “Enjoy the peace and quiet!” ‘Peace’ is a relative term and may be used differently by folks to express very different states of inactivity, calm, tranquillity, lack of conflict or even stress, for example. However, the term ‘quiet‘ is far less abstract and so should mean a similar lack of loud noise, at least to most humans.

Possibly, people can ignore noises emanating from the bushveld; perhaps these noises are not relevant to most human beings, these noises are not directly related to their own personal lives of work, family and friends. I have never inquired quite what connotations people associate with the good wishes – I just know that the bush is never quiet; there is never silence in the bushveld. In fact, it is a tremendously noisy place.

As I am writing this blog*, sitting in the shade of the thatched roof of a tiny rondavel at midday (while family members are snoozing away the hottest hours), in a tiny patch of bushveld near Bela-Bela in the Limpopo Province of South Africa, a hot wind is susurrating through the still-leafless branches of the thorn-trees. A Tree Squirrel is chatting out its alarm call nearby, a group of Glossy Starlings is ratcheting away at some discussion, and a family of Grey Go-away-birds is busy settling some domestic dispute to the accompaniment of several Rattling Cisticolas. The most insistent and penetrating noise is the screaming of the cicadas, begging the sun to have some mercy on them on this hot, early summer day.

When I did finally tie the knot (as they say) relatively late in life, I had no inkling of the most generous gift that would be bestowed on Jacqui and myself. Every year we have had the privilege to be invited to Maroelarus, a beautiful small thatched-roof compound situated in a tiny piece of bushveld at Zwartkloof Private Game Reserve close to Bela-Bela. Our visits usually coincide with Christmas or New Year; however, in the past we have been invited occasionally to join my late brother-in-law Flip, my sister-in-law Elize and the nieces and nephews at other times of the year too. This present trip to Maroelarus is the first family outing to this most marvellous place since the sudden and untimely passing of Flip earlier this year. Sala kahle, Ou Grootte. Ngiyabonga kakhulu.

Zwartkloof lies at the edge of the Waterberg Mountains. This tiny game reserve measures just two kilometres by two kilometres in size. The bushveld is very dense since it is difficult to manage a reliable fire regime to control old growth on such a small property. Yet, despite its size, Zwartkloof boasts with a great diversity of veld-types. A small portion in the north-eastern corner of the reserve covers the first gentle slope of a large kopje situated on the neighbouring farm. Here, on the rocky soil, the bushveld is dominated by bushwillows, and includes (amongst many other tree species) wild figs, Candelabra Euphorbia, Live-long and Mountain Karee. In the opposite south-western corner, the ground is sandy and a deep red in colour. Silver Cluster Leaf trees and very tall grasses dominate this part of the reserve.

The rest of Zwartkloof is covered by the typical bushveld of the area, changing between thornveld (with various species of Acacia (particularly Umbrella Thorn, Robust Thorn and Red Thorn) and patches of mixed bushveld (dominated by bushwillows (Red, Velvet and Large-fruited), with African Weeping-Wattle, Bushveld Saffron, Marula and Jacket Plum. The smaller shrubs in the mixed bushveld include Common Guarri, several Wild Raisin species and small, scrubby Sickle Bush.

Large game is scarce at Zwartkloof and restricted to the common antelope (Kudu, Nyala, Common Duiker, Blue Wildebeest, Red Hartebeest and Impala, including Giraffe and Warthog) and Burchell’s Zebra. Watering-points scattered across Zwartkloof are rotated and controlled carefully, to prevent overgrazing or damage caused by browsing of the vegetation. Only small predators are resident on the reserve – Banded Mongooses, Slender Mongooses and, increasingly over the last decade or so, pairs of Black-backed Jackal and their offspring.

The birdlife at Zwartkloof is spectacular for such a small and usually quite dry bushveld reserve. The parched winter months can be challenging for keen birdwatchers, but the summer months reverberate with the calls of a host of resident species and summer migrants, including six cuckoo species and four species of owls.

This singular, tiny patch of the bushveld of South Africa is definitely never quiet, as indicated at the start of the blog. Obviously, there is no roaring of resident lions, no sawing of local leopards and no cackling of hyenas – there is, however, the nightly howl of jackal.

The birds add to the daytime cacophony. I have heard several European visitors remark that Africa does not have a dawn chorus of bird song. What Africa has instead, is a dawn-raucous, less melodic perhaps, but just as voluminous. Almost invariably, the francolins and spurfowls will start the African melody, followed by the unmatched range of calls of the Fork-tailed Drongos whistling out their own repertoire of songs or disguising their voices with the mimicked calls of innumerable other bird species. The various robins, scrub-robins, thrushes and tchagras soon join in. The slightly later risers of the avian menagerie of the bushveld, the hornbills and go-away-birds, add calls that are more grating later in the morning.

In summer, Woodland and Brown-hooded Kingfishers, Black-headed Orioles, numerous cuckoos and the high-pitched trills of a few bee-eater species, boost the daily performance. The less obtrusive, soft bubbling of doves, the tinkling of fire-finches and the sibilant swizzling of Blue Waxbills provide the real melodic musical talent. The noise continues throughout the day, with a ratcheting of grasshoppers and locusts, the buzz of bees, the drone of flies, the screams of the cicadas and the tremolo of leaves as a wind tickles past.

Despite numerous visits during the last decade and a half, it remains a privilege that I am invited to experience and to explore this small gem intimately. Zwartkloof has never disappointed – never, not once, have I encountered at Zwartkloof the same conditions, the same exuberance of the bushveld. Each visit reveals a different combination of flowering grasses, trees in bloom, diversity of insect and birdlife. The seasonal changes at Zwartkloof are dramatic, but even the summers have exposed their unique individuality, year-to-year.

I have set myself a hopeless task – to capture in a single image, the entirety of the most awe-inspiring qualities that Zwartkloof has to offer. I have spent at least a week a year for sixteen years now working tirelessly to attempt to hold in a single photograph, a single exposure, Zwartkloof’s unique sense of place. I have captured many good images of the environment, the flora and the fauna. I have been able to snatch many special moments in images.

As a collection, the photographs taken at Zwartkloof do reveal, in separate images, the charm and character of Zwartkloof. Yet, I am still captivated by a conviction (certainly fiction, not fact) that Zwartkloof will reveal its most treasured sense of place at any moment, to allow me to capture it in a single photograph, an image that encapsulates all facets that make Zwartkloof so extraordinary a place.

I know I have not succeeded yet; I know too that my obsession is a pipedream. Every photograph, every image, is an abstraction by definition, simply because it is a careful composition that includes only a chosen subset of elements of a place or its inhabitants, while deliberately excluding all other, distracting parts. Why then do I proceed with this mania? I continue searching because I remain convinced that it is possible to capture in a single frame – although it does not document all species and only a smidgeon of the geographic locality – a genuine, integral and summative sense of place of Zwartkloof.

As long as I may still be invited to enjoy this tiny jewel of bushveld, I will pursue my most tragic romantic passion that obsesses me still.


*   This blog was written on 20/21 October 2020, and is dedicated to my late brother-in-law and his family, the Bornman folks that have invited Jacqui and me repeatedly to share in the experience that is Zwartkloof.
 

REMINISCENCES: Sojourn in the Mountain-Lands of Kruger

In a previous blog, I mentioned and explained my devotion to the central and northern regions of the Kruger National Park, South Africa. I also pointed out several reasons why I had neglected the southern sections of this magnificent park during the past decades. Yet, following a very brief trip to the southwestern region of Kruger in early 2017, I had vowed to return before long to the previously shunned expanses of the park.

So, towards the end of 2018, Jacqui and I set off to spend a week at Berg-en-Dal Camp. This camp had been built in Kruger long after my childhood. It also featured a different style of architecture of the buildings, a shape and layout that was very different from the quaint rondavel circles of the older camps. Several other factors that impinge significantly on my enjoyment of the wilderness and any chances of snatching good photographs had kept me away from Berg-en-Dal previously.

I spent quite a while mulling over the pros and cons of such a visit, before I finally resolved to stay over at Berg-en-Dal for a week. The camp is stationed very close to the entrance gate into Kruger at Malelane, which itself is very close to countless ‘safari lodges’ (without game!) crowded along the southern border of the park. Moreover, Malelane Gate is only a short drive away from the bustling city of Mbombela. This combination of circumstances ensures that throughout the day all the roads in the immediate vicinity of Berg-en-Dal carry heavy traffic – trucks carting supplies to the park’s southern camps, buses conveying staff into and out of the park, and day-visitors who are eager to traverse the greatest distance possible in limited time. Of course, my nemesis, the presence of countless safari lodge jeep-jocks and their noisy guests required exacting consideration.*

Besides, the location of Berg-en-Dal Camp at the edge of the Malelane Mountain-land restricts the choice of any visitor (leaving the camp or returning to it) to a single decision – whether to turn left or to turn right at the camp’s entrance gate. Therefore, traffic close to camp is concentrated and increased dramatically in the earliest and latest hours of the day – precisely the time that is ideal for photography.

Despite grave reservations, I decided that I could not delay the opportunity to explore the hills and kopjes in this part of Kruger. For too long, I had abandoned the scenery, the many distinctive species of plants that grow in this region and an enjoyment of a different part of the Kruger National Park.

Inevitably, I had packed some rain amongst our camping equipment – luckily, this time, a few mornings and afternoons remained clear enough for some splendid play of light and shadow. Notwithstanding the crowds and the rain, we enjoyed a most wonderful trip. Our luck with photogenic sightings was astonishing – no doubt, the presence of my lucky game-spotting charm bolstered our luck; my youngest sister, Bärbel, joined us on this trip. Each day confronted us with exceptional sightings of game and photographic opportunities. Our short trip was so packed with excitement that we even forgave the camp’s resident baboon troop after it had ripped through (not opened) our tents – one side wall of our two, small tents each were aerated by metre-long tears, despite us storing all food safely inside our locked vehicle, day and night.

The roads through the mountain-lands were fabulous. The numerous densely-vegetated gullies between smaller hills, the narrow expanses of flat land bordered by the boulder-strewn slopes of some kopjes across which the roads threaded their way, and the many views of majestic hills and a few mountains enthralled us. Each drive along these steeper, winding sand roads provided large herds of buffalo and elephant. The recent decline of the lion population in the southern section of the park meant that we could not travel without lurching into leopards along the bases of kopjes and along the many smaller rivers and vleis on the flatter plains around Berg-en-Dal.

The assortment of stunning sightings of game in the picturesque landscape that surrounds Berg-en-Dal kept me quickened and very busy every day. Animals, plants and the landscape enveloped me. For once, I trundled across several photographic opportunities that I could work earnestly to capture in images at least a few impressions of this splendid environment. I even managed to spend twenty minutes or so in the company of a young honeybadger that was busy excavating a large dung-pile for juicy beetle grubs.

A hefty storm that showered Berg-en-Dal for an hour one night, caused runoff from the slopes of the hills to start flowing down smaller gullies and rivers. From a bridge, we spotted a huge crocodile fishing below the low wall of an overflowing weir. Regularly, Sharp-tooth Catfish and minute Barbs attempted to leap up the rushing water to get over the river blockage to a fast-filling pool upstream of the weir.

At very early dawn and late dusk, Lesser Galagos (bushbabies) vaulted through the vegetation, tree-to-bush, bush-to-tree, past our camping spot to entertain us daily. At dawn on the morning of our last full day in the park, I spotted an adult bushbaby perched on a sturdy branch of an old dead tree. This parent was calling softly to a youngster that was still hiding in a very dense shrub. I backed off and waited patiently at some distance until I had seen both bushbabies entering a hollow of the dead tree. That evening we returned to camp slightly earlier than usual – I desperately wished to photograph these mini-humans as they left their hollow tree trunk to forage the night away out in the dark bushveld. I managed to snap only a single exposure.

I remain convinced that I will not be able to put up with the traffic and the crowds of the southern Kruger for an extended time. Yet, I have decided that the areas and camps that I have avoided for so long must be included from now on, albeit only for short visits.


*   Perhaps I need to explain why I loathe much (not all) of the so-called safari and purported conservation ‘industry’ in South Africa. The most significant source of my boundless detestation of this ‘industry’ is the unacceptable attitude of the majority of citizens – South Africans are renowned for exploitation of the wilderness. If money is to be made, all thoughts and considerations of conservation and ethics evaporate. There are countless examples that populate a list that is too long to discuss here in its entirety. Well documented examples include: the illegal import and export of rare and endangered species (animals and plants), the deliberate breeding of colour morphs of various species (primarily antelope) for hunting clients (individuals whose egos have become satiated by the slaughter of the available ‘common’ game, so that they now covet a unique, special victim), canned lion hunting, many other questionable hunting ethics (such as allowing clients to shoot game at waterholes or salt licks, the use of hides or vehicles from which to blast forth), ad infinitum.
 
One of the less offensive, yet equally questionable practices involves the concept of game and safari lodges and reserves. There are laudable proprietors who are indeed sincerely concerned and immersed in efforts of conservation of the total environment. However, the majority of ‘reserves’, ‘parks’, ‘zoos’, ‘lodges’ are frankly money-generating endeavours in a country that believes generally that ‘ecotourism’ is a valuable, honourable and necessary facet of the economy. This is an ‘industry’ that does not add value to a product of human intellect, discovery, manufacture and labour – rather, this industry simply affixes a spurious price tag to the rapacious exploitation (most often detrimental) of the environment and its inhabitants. There is simply no understanding that the wilderness has existed for millennia, without human assistance, despite ceaseless abuse by humanity. The wilderness exists; it is not a product of human ingenuity, skill or exertion. The smidgeon of wilderness that remains must continue to exist – to ensure that the planet remains habitable for a sizeable fraction of the biosphere (including humans), not for trade by a single, self-elected, self-aggrandising, renegade pest species.
 
The ‘safaris’ on offer usually do not provide an experience of wilderness; nor do they provide for an adequate understanding of the necessity of conservation. Rather, they are glorified, glamourized and pared down rattles through the ‘wilds’, hollow attempts at completing a tick list of game sightings, not filled out by a slow, deliberate and untiring search of the environment, but by travelling at the highest speed possible from one incident to the next, following the instructions of a radio operator. This is not game-spotting; this is not an experience of wildlife and the wild. Worse still, the running commentary provided by ‘expert guides’ in the majority of cases is based entirely on providing info-bites enclosing a certain wow-factor, using outdated and faded information, much of it false.
 
There! I shall stop now.
 

A SENSE OF PLACE: Kruger National Park’s Mopane Country

The Kruger National Park, South Africa, remains my favourite destination for wildlife photography. In particular, I am enthralled by the more densely vegetated central and northern regions of this vast, magnificent reserve. From the middle of the park northwards, the vegetation quickly becomes dominated by mopane (Colophospermum mopane) on the flatlands. Three large rivers, flanked by thick riverine bush, cut across the flat plains. The rivers and their numerous smaller tributaries allow the growth of dense woodlands and scrublands in this part of the park.

Many of the roads in the northern half of Kruger travel along the large rivers and their branches. These rivers are often dry, with wide sandy riverbeds, except after very good rainfall – sadly in more recent decades, these rivers have flooded much more frequently than customary in the past, causing extensive damage to the riverine bush flanking their banks. The gravel roads in the central and northern sections, particularly, are often narrow. They wind up-and-down through large gullies; they wind along twists and turns, following the snaking courses of the rivers. All along the way, even narrower, more hidden little loops extend from the roads to the banks of the rivers – here you get spectacular views of the wide rivers and their often high riverbanks. The roads also frequently skirt small kopjes and rock-outcrops. All-in-all, the roads of central and northern Kruger offer privacy and add a sense of mystery to any game-viewing drive.

While game sightings with photographic potential are far more rare in this part of Kruger (rather than the grassy plains and more open bushveld of much of the south-central and southern sections), when I do stumble upon a sighting, it is usually brief, intense and intimate – the way I like it. Moreover, sightings of game often happen at very close quarters – that is, if you are lucky and the game is not spooked by your approach. The winding roads, the small lookout loops and the dense vegetation always heighten my sense of anticipation. You have to scan the terrain very thoroughly – anything could be hidden behind the thick bush, massive tree-trunks, dense reeds in the riverbeds and large boulders of the kopjes. Just possibly, some spectacular animal could stroll out into the open at any moment to afford me the briefest of glimpses.

Since good sightings are infrequent and the vegetation is very dense, many photographers find the environment of the central and northern sections of Kruger less-than-ideal for wildlife photography. However, I thrive on the numerous challenges set by this part of the park. The greatest challenge is to get it right; to achieve your photographic goals here takes concentration, a lot of very hard work and time. I get much greater satisfaction if I capture just a few photographs that are good (for me, not necessarily for the ‘experts’ on social media), rather than returning with hundreds or thousands of clicked-off images of a sighting of game that lies exposed before a crowd of game-spotters and me for hours. For me personally, the greater the challenge, the more I have to work at photography, the better. It is in short, intense interactions with game that my instinctive reactions (of camera settings, composition and visualisation) allow me to attempt to capture a unique photograph.

I also relish the challenge of shooting in an unpredictable environment that shields my ‘prey’. For me, the challenge is always to show an animal in its environment; it is never the animal on its own that is important to me as an environmental photographer. To me, a successful photograph must express the ‘being’ of my ‘prey’ and must not simply be another documentary portrait of a particular species.

The numerous layers of vegetation – grasses (short and tall), shrubs, bushes, trees (the stained-glass mosaics of leaves and branches) – always test my skill at composition too. I have to consider the lines, shapes, positive and negative spaces, patterns and rhythms, and perspective – always subtle, never obvious in the bushveld – while attempting to get a complimentary composition of a subject that I am interested in photographing, a subject that invariably has no intention whatever of obliging my photographic aspirations. Add to this often cluttered, three-dimensional environment the different textures and hues of the vegetation and the ever changing fall of light and shadow. For any photographer interested in chiaroscuro (as I am) the dense bushveld of central and northern Kruger is a paradise.

In Kruger, the seasons are defined less by the calendar, more by the presence or absence of good rainfall. The bushveld-palette of the northern half of this national park changes dramatically with the seasons. Spring is a time of recovery, mixing fresh new greens of short grasses and young leaves with the bone-white of the remaining straw of the previous summer and the browns of winter. In years of good rains, summer can be overwhelmingly green throughout, until flowers and fruit appear later in this season. The colour palette of autumn is the most spectacular – the grasses attempt to out-compete each other with their display of the range of yellows; trees and bushes along the rivers compete with greens; while the mopane outshines all other vegetation with its hues of green, lemon-green, yellow, orange and deep-red. For all plants and animals, the winter is the harshest season, often extended for several months during times of drought. On the flat plains, almost all of the plants are deciduous, dropping their desiccated dark-brown leaves, and leaving behind only their twisted, tortured stems and branches to form brown-black skeletons reaching towards the cloudless sky, like supplicants, with arms raised, begging the deities for mercy.

Irrespective of the season, a host of animals are thrown into the mix of colours of the vegetation – the Big Five, the Tiny Five, the Magnificent Seven (or Eight), depending on the conversation of whichever particular crowd of game-viewers to which you are subjected. When it comes to wilderness – and only then – I am catholic. To me, Kruger is home to the Awesome Twenty-Thousand at least, and then there are still the waters of streams, rivers, pans and mud-puddles; the endless morphing realm of the clouds; the infinite earthly landscape of sand, soil, rocks and boulders of the riverbeds, riverbanks and kopjes. How could any photographer, obsessed with capturing and expressing in images the patterns and processes of our planet and its inhabitants, not fall in love with the central and northern sections of the Kruger National Park in South Africa?

Of the several million sightings of the tremendous variety of the landscape, the plants and the animals that I have been privileged to witness, the majority are recorded only in my memory. Very often – most often, in fact – I could not record on camera a fraction of beauty, a sliver of action. The moments were too sudden and too fleeting; the sightings were impeded by the dense bushveld of the central and northern Kruger; or, I simply failed to find a composition that was worth seizing.

And, it is precisely these ultimate of challenges to my own photography, my own vision of wilderness, that draw me back, again and again. The central and northern sections of Kruger hold on to their treasures; it is not easy working in this environment. Nevertheless, you can (with a bit of luck, with patience and with very hard work) be offered a very special gift – that feeling of the ethereal, that image of the fleeting moment, and that sense of place.