Images, thoughts, and crib notes from near and far.
Jan 16th, 2012 by Randy Hanna
Aug 2012 brings another safari to Tanzania. This safari will feature the all of the highlights of Tanzania. From the elephant rich Tarangire National Park to Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the famous Serengeti National Park. This safari gets it all including the northern area along the Mara River. If you are interested, check out all of the details here.
May 16th, 2012 by Randy Hanna
One of the many things a dad gets to do is brag about his daughters. With two of the most wonderful daughters in the world, I find myself seldom talking about them on the blog for privacy reasons. So today, I’m breaking this rule for a mini update and a congratulatory note.
Alexis, my oldest, has said goodbye to her time as an Army Officer and is now in Japan raising two wonderful children, Cole and Eleanor Grace, with her husband Kevin. Their Japan tour should come to a close next May and the next assignment is still a wild guess at best.
Coogan, my youngest, completed her one year assignment in Afghanistan followed by a short tour in Germany as a communications Officer in the Air Force. Today was a big day for Coogan, as she graduated from The University of Oklahoma with a Masters in International Relations, a degree she started while on active duty in Germany. Although getting to Norman OK took a full day of flying, I was very happy to be part of the program. Great job Coogan! Following graduation, Coogan will turn to Atlanta, Georgia where she will continue another Masters degree at Goizueta Business School at Emory University.
Two other folks to thank:
Kathy; thanks for being a great mother to our two girls. Happy Mothers Day; and two my Dad, thanks for your coaching and support over all of these years.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!
So for those of you that know Coogan, let’s play the Waldo Game. Can you find Coogan in the photo below? If you can, drop me a note and I’ll send you something special.
Photo taken with my iPad
Cheers and happy photo’ing
May 2nd, 2012 by Randy Hanna
On one of our last days with the dogs, we found them lounging around in a small open area surrounded by low brush and trees. I really wanted to walk away with a low angle shot of the dogs; sort of an image taken from a dog’s view. Steve Carey, our guide (AKA Wild Dog Man), mentioned that he thought I could get closer to the dogs by exiting the vehicle and maintaining a very low profile as I worked my way into the bush and to the edge of the clearing. When I asked Steve just how close he thought I could get, he simply answered ‘you will know’ – a man of few words, that Steve. We repositioned the truck to cover my dismount and down I went into the brush. Ouch, Ouch I thought as I crawled on my knees to a position just forward of the outermost tree, then it was down into a low crawl position. Between the pain of the sheeps’ head burs and the acacia thorns, I was in a great deal of pain with my every move and thought about just giving it up. As I made my way to the edge of the grass, I found myself concentrating on the dogs and their interaction with his 6.2 foot guy laying in front of them holding a really large camera and lens. The pain that was previously killing me, was no longer in my attention span. On several occasions the inquisitive young dogs would approach me to the point that they were outside of the minimum focus of the zoom that I was using. Below is one of the up close and personal shots of one of the dogs taken while in this position. I used a shallow f-stop in conjunction with minimum focus range in an attempt to blur theforeground grass that I was shooting through. Steve Kruger is in the background (in the truck) shooting me shooting the dogs. BTW, I was crawling on my stomach With a D3s -200-400 and a D3x – 70-200. What a load to crawl around with and maintain a low to the ground profile and not spook the dogs. It was another great day in the bush with the dogs.
Nikon D3s, 200-400 f/2.8 VR @ 310mm, ISO 720, f/8.0 at 1/400 sec (8:38 am)
Cheers and happy photo’ing
Tags: Africa, African Wild Dogs, Eyes On Africa, Kenya, Safari, Wild Dogs
Apr 16th, 2012 by Randy Hanna
I recently led a photo safari to the Lewa and Sossian areas, both in Kenya. Located in the the middle of literally nowhere with the nearest village some 2.5 hours drive from our camp, the Laikipia Conservation Area is the place to see and photograph wild dogs in Eastern Africa. Until some 4 or 5 years ago, the dogs were thought to be extinct in this region. Now a number of packs are making a wonderful come back in this conservation area. Under the back county guidance and expert tracking skills of Steve Carey, these dogs can be located and photographed (with some luck). Once located, the photography can range from easy to very challenging, all depending upon light and brush conditions. The dogs run or are active very early in the morning and again late afternoon, often after sundown. Every image has a story, so here is the story associated with the image below.
We had been tracking the dogs for two days, with little photographic opportunities. While we spotted them midday on day two, they had moved to a river bed far below our access road later in the afternoon, offering little chance of good a good photograph. We positioned ourselves along a road above the river bank so we could maintain visual contact. Our thought was that they would cross the road, either behind us or in front of us, as they began to move for the evening hunt. With any luck, we could reposition the truck to take advantage of their movement, all before the last light. With the sun now below the ridge line and only atmospheric reflected light, I knew any photos taken at this point would require a very high ISO if I had any hope of a capture. I let out a deep sigh after taking a meter reading off of some nearby grass. Ouch – an ISO of 12,800 might work if my shutter speed was low. Shooting with my Nikon 200-400 f/2.8 VR, I knew I would be facing a potential vibration or focus issues due to lens movement. A few minutes went by and suddenly the dogs sprang into action, heading up the hill. Within a minute, it begin to look like they would cross directly behind us. We decided to not move the truck, in hopes that the dogs might come to us. Shooting to the rear of the truck, a tripod would not work and would take more time to set up than I had. Here they come, and man were they moving fast. I now have only a few seconds to make an exposure decision and move into a shooting position. I fell over the spare tire and wedged myself between the spare and the side roll cage support for a shooting platform. As forcefully as I could, I crammed by arm and elbow into my chest and supported my 200-400 the best I could. As the last of the light left the road, two young dogs appeared on the road and walked directly toward us, as if they owned the truck. I was able to take two shots before the dogs spun around and disappeared into the grass and on up the hill. With the low light conditions that I was shooting in, I knew in my heart that the shots were going to be worthless and full of blur. When I looked at the images after I returned from the trip, I was very pleasantly surprised: tack sharp – and our first photo experience with the dogs. The remainder of the trip was filled with more imagery of the dogs and a truly unique experience. Thank you Steve Carey and my travel partner, Steve Kruger.
Nikon D3s, 200-400 VR f/2.8 @ 400mm, f/5.6@ 1/30 sec, ISO 12,800
Cheers and happy photo’ing
Tags: African Wild Dogs, Kenya, Laikipia, Laikipia Conservation Area, Sossian Ranch, Wild Dogs
Mar 27th, 2012 by Randy Hanna
I’ve been very quite over the past 12 days, all do to the remote locations we we visiting. So I thought a fast update would be in order, as I sit in Zurich looking for that elusive United Airlines gate. At both locations, Lewa and Sosian, cell coverage and Internet was either non existent or so weak that it would not carry a data signal. This made updates from the field impossible, so you will have to hang on a few days for the stories and photos. For now, the rhinos of Lewav were impressive as was the varried landscape. Once found, the African Wild Dogs of Sosian were fabulous to photograph as a well as just watch the dynamics of the pack as they went about their business. So, give me a coulple of days to get my arms around the images and start processing.
More later and happy photo’ing
Sent from my iPad
Mar 18th, 2012 by Randy Hanna
Sitting in Zurich awaiting our flight to Kenya for another wonderful safari. This safari will focus on two locations, Lewa and Sosian.
Lewa is Lewa Wilderness Trails Lodge is located on a 60, 000 acres Lewa Wildlife Conservancy to the north on the foothill of the snow capped Mount Kenya which is Africa’s second largest Mountain.
Its topography is characteristic of mountains, rocky outcrops, acacia woods, plains and a river valley all in the immediate vicinity. Lewa Conservancy is rich in wildlife and is haven for Black Rhinos, Sitatunga – a spectacular aquatic antelope as well as the Grevy’s Zebra. Our focus at Lewa will be photographing the Rhinos.
Sosian Ranch is set amid stunning
scenery and overlooks snowcapped Mount Kenya. The old ranch house sits within the 24,000 acre working ranch on the Laikipia plateau. The variety of habitat here, open plains to the north and dense scrublands to the south, supports plenty of game. However, our focus on this trip is to photograph the wild dogs. Once thought to be extinct in this area of Africa, the wild dogs have made a great come-back in this area. Armed with tracking equipment, I am very hopeful that we will have little trouble in photographing these wonderful dogs.
While I am unsure about internet connectivity, I will try to post from the bush as much as I can. For now, it’s off to Nairobi and the Fairview. We will overnight at the Fairview, my all time favorite place to stay, where will be reconfigure our bags for the early morning push into bush.
Cheers and happy photo’ing.
Mar 16th, 2012 by Randy Hanna
Well I did miss a couple of weeks without posting my weekly images, so here is a nice treat from Namibia – a place that I long to return to. This image was take during our flight from Sera Cafema to Sossuvlia. Sossusvlei lies in the Namib Naukluft Park in the heart of the Namib desert and is home to the the highest sand dunes in the world. Considered by many to be one of the ‘must see’ places in the world, I am looking forward to returning as soon as I can.
Cheers and happy photoing
Tags: Africa, Namib Desert, Namibia, Sand Dunes, Sossusvlei, Wilderness Safari Company
Mar 7th, 2012 by Randy Hanna
I can tell you that I have been a long time user of Lightroom (LR) 3 since it was first released. Now, we have a seriously improved and massively updated version to play with. For me this will re-define my workflow from start to finish. The expanded brush controls are reason enough to jump into the new version. As if this was not enough, the publishing module AND the price caused me to pause only about 5 milliseconds before I ordered my two copies.
This version is updated across all of the LR3 modules and I would strongly encourage you to spend some time across the ADOBE training sites for highlights of the new program. Take the jump if these improvements are for you.
Once I return from Africa, I’ll do a fast update on how I used LR4 while on safari as well as a summary of the more serious improvements.
Cheers and happy Lightroom’ing
Tags: Lightroom 4
Feb 28th, 2012 by Randy Hanna
Every once in a while, I find myself in a position to capture the charge of a bull elephant. Kelio, my long time guide in Tanzania, tells me that the bulls will make three mock charges. The forth one is for real, and they will be coming thru your window. Fortunately, the expert guides at Thomsons Safaris are keenly aware of the conditions that surround them and would never let any dangerous situation arise. As much as I would like to tell you that this bull stopped only inches from our Land Rover, it was all possible due to a telephoto lens. Using a telephoto lens, you can compress distance a great deal. As with this image, I was able to compress the distance between me and the elephant in such a manner that it appears like he was right on top of me. In reality, we were safely tucked inside of our Land Rovers and at an appropriate distance…..the miracles of telephoto glass. To get up close and personal with the wildlife, consider joining me on one of my photo safaris.
Nikon D3, 200-400 f/2.8 @ 400mm, ISO 500, f/8 at 1/400 sec
Cheers and happy photo’ing
Tags: Africa, Elephant, Elephant Charge, photo safari, Safari, Tanzania, Travel
Feb 23rd, 2012 by Randy Hanna
Nikon D3s, 200-400 f2.8 at 380mm, ISO 1000, f/8.0 @ 1/640 sec
This image as taken here.
Cheers and happy photo’ing
Tags: Ocean Shores, Pacific Coast, Pacific Northwest, Snowy Owls, WA, Washington State