I think I’ve mentioned maybe a thousand times on this blog that I’m not a wildlife photographer. I just don’t have the glass for it, and I’ve never taken the time to learn the habits of animals so that I could get images of them that were amazing. That’s sort of the great thing about safaris though, is you’re paying someone to get you close (i.e. so you don’t necessarily need a long lens), and then you can just wait for something interesting to happen! While I don’t think I captured anything ground breaking, I definitely captured some memories that I’m personally excited about – and that’s what photography is all about in my opinion!
Anyway, if last week’s Picture of the Week was not what you were expecting from Africa, hopefully this week’s picture is! 🙂 When I think of Africa, zebras are right up there at the top of the list of animals I would want to see because, in my mind anyway, they’re synonymous with Africa. Since Holly and I didn’t have just a ton of time to commit to safaris (or a ton of money – geesh safaris can be outrageous!), we chose to stay at the Aquila Private Game Reserve, a few hours away from Cape Town. This particular game reserve is completely fenced in, which means you’re guaranteed to see animals (it was 80,000 acres… but still, the animals aren’t leaving), and frankly we felt like this would be a good experience for us on the first time (like Cades Cove here in East Tennessee, you can go to Kruger National Park and never see anything, except for maybe a deer or two).
One evening when we were on our way back to the lodge from our game drive (they don’t call them safaris in Africa turns out), we came upon this group of zebras trotting along the dirt road. As we came closer to them, they all got out in the road in front of us, as if to say they wanted to show us the way back. The setting sun cast a wonderful light on the mountains in the background, and Holly and I couldn’t help but laugh a the zebras, now insisting on staying in the road. We joked that they were headed home after a long day at work, entertaining the tourists. I had the driver stop so I could grab some shots, and even though it ultimately a picture of a bunch of zebra behinds, the scene still makes me laugh!
More next week,
–Dan Thompson