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upload_dateFeb, 2019

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2 Comments |
glengebert PRO+
 
glengebert November 11, 2020
Nice one Ron!
JLCoop
 
JLCoop November 30, 2020
Vince are my favorite animal

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Behind The Lens

Location

A very interesting story about this gentle giant. This is Jabu, a famous free roaming elephant who lives in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. Jabu has been filmed on programs that we'd see on Animal Planet, National Geographic (Walking With Elephants), and likely numerous others. Jabu is an orphaned elephant who was taken in by Doug and Sandi Groves, along with two other elephants - Thembi and Marula. Doug and Sandi started the Living With Elephants foundation to educate people about these magnificent animals and hopefully put an end to the ivory trade, and senseless poaching. It was a total chance encounter for me being at Stanley's Camp that I learned about the possibility to go and visit with Doug and meet the elephants. Again, these are free roaming elephants so it's quite an amazing encounter. It's impossible for you to spend the day with them and not fall in love. In 1992, IBM did a commercial with two elephants, one of which was a baby. Jabu was the baby in that commercial - please google, "IBM commercial with elephant" to find it, it's really a great commercial. Sadly, in late August 2020, Doug did not return from a trip into the bush with the elephants. Quite unfortunately, an encounter with one of Botswana's many wild animals would take his life. You can learn more about the foundation and the elephant story at withelephants.org

Time

One of my favorite things about this shot is relative to the time of day. At this point, I had been shooting most of the day and was getting tired of hauling gear. All of the shots were hand held and on foot, we did not have a vehicle of any kind while with the elephants. I was literally kneeling in front of him to get this angle. This shot was taken at approximately 5:30pm, you can see the from the shadows that light is starting to get angled. I noticed the moon coming up so I positioned myself to compose it into the shot.

Lighting

For most of this day, the lighting was quite hard. As you can see, there was not a cloud in the sky and hence, no natural light diffusion. At this time, I'd estimate the sun was approximately 45 degrees, or slightly more, to my subject. This is the light I had been waiting for - with elephants being so big, there is a noticeable play to the light. Such a beautifully lit face and great shadows on the body.

Equipment

This photo was taken with a Nikon D800 and a Nikon 28-300mm lens. Handheld, no flash is allowed.

Inspiration

At this time, I had been working shooting the elephants for the entire day. I had come to know this elephant and wanted to show him as magnificent as he truly is. I wanted to show a day in life of this free roaming elephant, framing the empty field behind him, and the moon, to give a feel for the journey he had been on. I got low and close, and shot wide to give a feel of scale. I purposely brought him into the edge of the shot to have him walking right off of it and into the viewer. Anyone who has spent time with these animals will tell you about the awe they feel in their presence, it's quite emotional and motivating to capture as it is.

Editing

All post processing on this shot was done using LR. I really didn't do too much, everything was fairly basic: crop, clarity and sharpening to trunk, face, ear and moon, I personally drop highlights on almost all shots. The sky gradient was there naturally but I lowered the exposure slightly to pop his face and the moon out. The biggest thing was selectively adjusting shadows to get the look I was after.

In my camera bag

Selecting gear to pack could be the most important thing you do for your shoot. I have at least 30 lenses in the studio so It's really a scoping issue... consider: where are you going?, what are you shooting? (that you know about), how close will you be to the subject?, will you have a sherpa to carry your stuff? how many back surgeries have you had? :-) etc... Now, I have had sherpas on occasion but even then I'm laser focused on what's going along with me. Before I answer..., a side note to this question: When you travel to remote locations, you may be taking very small aircraft - as was the case on this trip to Africa. You will be adhering to very strict weight limits. I believe 43lbs was the magic number on this trip, and that includes your clothes. If you're like me, you have 143lbs of gear so you have to leave some lenses home and only bring clothes you're wearing :-). I swear it's true, I left some clothes at home so I could fit fishing gear with my camera gear. This shot was taken with my backup body - a Nikon D800. On a typical trip, I am bringing 2 bags. My camera bag is an older Tenba backpack that I love, it's unfortunately out of production now. My second bag - and a good tip - is a Spiderwire soft tackle fishing bag. The tackle bags are cheap, waterproof, and they come with many selections of plastic tubs you can stack inside. If I'm bringing flash units, they go here. Also, battery chargers, diffusion media, cables, tools, tape, remote triggers, tripod parts, filters, etc.. I've even packed a Mavic drone in there. If I'm going into the abyss, I'm assuming that I will be shooting wildlife, insects, astro, landscape, and hopefully the people of the region. This is going to require many different types of lenses and I only have so much room: My go to camera bag pack: Nikon D5, Tamron 150-600mm G2 with 1.4 tele, Nikon 28-300mm, Tamron 90mm 1:1 macro, Raynox DCR-250, Sigma 14-24mm, spare batteries, many memory chips, graphite tripod, various UV filters, rain cover, and possibly a ND kit. You'll notice my macro lens is the only prime lens making it in the essential pack. If you told me I was only allowed 1 lens, it would be the Nikon 28-300mm. Now if I'm shooting models in the studio, the pack is completely different: Nikon D5, Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8, Nikon 50mm f/1.4, Nikon 85mm 1.8, various Lensbaby lenses, various other specialty lenses.... Again, it's totally based on the shoot and the planned objectives.

Feedback

I think there are 2 types of photos when shooting wildlife - 1 type shows you "what" something is, the other shows you "how" something is. This photo is not about documenting that elephants exist on this earth (the what), it's focused on the personal connection of the elephant, his size, and his world journey. My advice would be to try and focus on the story of the shot and not just point and click at what it is. Also, and this goes with all photos, try to be hyper aware of what's going on around your shot. The background can make or break a shot - in this case, I moved myself so the moon would be composed effectively. Train your eye to look past your subject! We've all seen shots of a bird with branches behind the bird going through his head. Perhaps a simple body adjustment of inches could have gotten that bird without the branches distracting him and in fact used them to frame him in. Finally, talk to the locals - learn about their place and how they live. All my best locations come from talking and learning from them. This shot was pure chance from talking to people in the camp and explaining I was doing photography there.

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