I am planning an extensive review of bean bags for use on safari. While researching the subject, I found a very interesting article by Joe McDonald. In the article, Joe discusses Botswana but also Kenya and Tanzania. I have taken the liberty of taking parts of this article for presentation here.
First, who is Joe McDonald? Joe McDonald is a pro photographer who, with his wife, MaryAnn, provides instructional workshops, including courses in Photoshop and Lightroom. In addition, Joe, through his company McDonald Wildlife Photography, leads tourto great photo destinations worldwide including trips to Yellowstone, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Brazil, and multiple other destinations. For more information, go to www.hoothollow.com.
As noted earlier, this is an excerpt from a longer article. The full article can be found at Naturescapes.
Text and photos copyright Joe McDonald, all rights reserved
Lioness on gnu kill at dawn - photo copyright Joe McDonald
I travel a lot as a wildlife photographer and to me there’s no place like Africa for the absolute best in wildlife photography. Indeed, Africa gets in your blood, not as a malarial parasite but as a burning obsession, because for most, one visit simply isn’t enough. Most folks, before they’ve even completed their first visit, are already planning on when and how they’ll be able to return. It simply is that good!
Jumping ahead in the article, Joe discusses Botswana:
Botswana
From the article, here is the negative, and a good photo safari planning tip:
I think one of the biggest problems with Botswana is the vehicles, which are open-sided and generally setup for several passengers. It’s relatively easy to arrange for a three-person vehicle in Kenya or Tanzania, but in some Botswana camps, it can be almost impossible. For the record, it can be done – we arranged this for our safari, but it is costly. More bothersome is the vehicle layout since using a beanbag is cumbersome or impossible. In contrast, in Kenya and Tanzania one generally has the option of shooting from a window or from a roof hatch. Most folks use the roof hatch, where a beanbag can be secured quite easily for very comfortable shooting. In Botswana’s open vehicles I felt as if I were re-inventing the wheel each time I shot. I was constantly rearranging my tripod for an optimum position, or simply trying to get it into some type of usable form. My experience isn’t unique here, either.
Pied Kingfisher carrying fish. The pied kingfisher is found everywhere, but on the Chobe River in Botswana I’ve found the birds both abundant and easier to photograph. Photo copyright Joe McDonald
Picking a safari
Once you decide on a country, picking a safari should be much easier. Your first concern must be that you are indeed going on a photographic safari, not a birding safari or a general natural history safari if you intend to make quality pictures. I can tell you horror stories from photographers who have made that mistake!
Next, consider how many photographers there are per vehicle. Ideally it should be one photographer per row, rather than X number of people per vehicle. Certainly shy away from any safari touting “everyone has a window seat,” as that can put you in a vehicle with eight other people! In some parks or camps, or with some outfitters, you might discover that a “three person per vehicle” rule means you are crammed into a vehicle with only two rows, sharing a roof hatch that’s not designed for two serious people with big lenses! That said, I would avoid any vehicle where more than four people could have their own row, as more bodies compound the chance of movement and shaky images.
While you may be tempted to “see it all,” and visit a number of game parks to maximize your variety, I would not recommend it. You’ll find that you’ll spend as much time traveling as shooting, if you’re lucky, and the travel schedule will simply exhaust you. You will be far more successful limiting yourself to a couple of parks where you can spend true quality time instead.
Your mode of transportation between destinations can be important as well. In Kenya and Tanzania, most of the parks are close enough that a half-day’s drive can take you from one to another on a well-planned itinerary. Flying from park to park is certainly more comfortable, but can be costly and problematic in terms of luggage and camera equipment given the weights allowed. If you keep the same driver-guide and he drives while you fly, you might find that you are wasting as much time waiting for your driver and vehicle to catch up to you, as you’d have spent driving and seeing the countryside.
An alternative is to arrange for each camp to provide a driver for you. However, that option can be a problem, as you’ll have less of a chance to develop a relationship with your driver, and instead find that you are just a new face in a sea of constantly changing tourist faces. I’ve encountered this on fly-in camps in Botswana where, at first, our driver-guides went through their usual dialog and time frame based upon the average point-and-shoot tourist. On my first trips to Botswana, years ago, I found this maddening. On our last trip, perhaps due to prepping the guides with pre-game drive talks or improved people skills, we didn’t have the same problems. On the plus side, camp-based guides should know the area better than anyone, which should work to your advantage. In Kenya, however, the vehicles used are often old and second rate, bouncy and open like the Botswana vehicles, where using a beanbag proves difficult.
The number of people on your safari may or may not be important to you. I’ve heard arguments from some who think that a group of thirty or fifty shooters offers wonderful diversity in group dynamics, but I’m not especially convinced. Conversely, a very small group can be a nightmare if you find that you are stuck at dinner or on game drives with someone you simply can’t stand. A group of nine to fifteen, using three to five vehicles, could provide the happiest of medians.
Picking a tour leader
The wildlife and the experience of a safari will trump everything else. That said, however, I still think it extremely prudent to consider the tour leader as well. Experience counts here, as your tour guide may be as new to a safari experience as you are, and is using the role of guide merely as a vehicle to make a safari for free. A photographer may be a great shooter but have little knowledge of the wildlife, and again, that counts.
An experienced tour leader should know where the good places are, when the light is best and when it is most likely that game will be there. The leader should know when to hold and when to fold, to quote Kenny Rogers, providing guidance on whether or not to wait for potential action or move on to find something more promising.
Although it’s subtle, an experienced leader may know things he or she wouldn’t even think of mentioning in describing his qualifications. He can recognize an alarm call that announces the presence of a moving leopard, or sense that something is about to happen simply by the vibes of quiet and intensity an animal displays. This is gleaned from field experience, not books or TV specials, and I certainly have seen the latter with some of our participants who confidently and incorrectly predicted what was about to happen because they saw it on Discovery. It often doesn’t work that way.
The greatest show on Earth
With all of that said, I will conclude that regardless of how or where you go, you’ll simply love it. We’ve had participants on our trips who, previously, had taken the cheapest, bounciest, most perfunctory safari, or one crammed by gum-snapping tourists more concerned with their next meal than with anything they’re watching. And yet our participants returned again because Africa just gets into their blood.
It is the greatest show on Earth. With an increasing population, the specter of fuel shortages, and, with increasing regulations in most parks, the time to go is now. But be warned, for if you go once you’ll simply need to return again, and again, and again . . .
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