For Rachel - Eye to Eye with a Painted Dog

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Everyone:)

Just minutes after this sighting I sent a text message via mobile phone to our friend Carl Walker, who was enquiring whether we had a good morning. I told him how frustrated we have been trying to grab a few frames of a wild dog pack and at the same time avoid having a caravan in the picture. Image taken (again) from moving vehicle, while this pack of nine individuals - big and small - were doing what wild dogs do: sniffle around for possible prey, play with sticks, run up and down... Carl's reply was dry but humorous and summed up so well a typical Kruger situation: " Great, did you get any decent pictures of the caravan?"

The driver of the 4x4 towing the caravan was probably in a hurry to get somewhere, he kept pushing the dogs and not for a moment considered us or the other vehicles following. We all wanted to see and enjoy the sighting but he kept moving forward at great speed, caravan swinging from side to side and the vehicle itself so dangerously close to them. At times the dogs disappeared from our sight and we feared he might have driven over them, so we kept our distance. This went on for about fifteen minutes or so and all we got was a glimpse of the individuals who had to get out of his way, they sometimes stopped to sniffle the vegetation on the side of the road but then moved along quickly to catch up with the others.

Apologies for the lack of IQ, all I could do really is try and grab a frame or two, it was not easy since we could not stop or turn the vehicle to get a better angle due to other cars following behind us.

Nikon D4
Nikon 500 F4
ISO 2000
F6.3
1/1250
+0.3 EV

Thank you so much for viewing, I am happy to receive your comments and critique, suggestions welcome and appreciated.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Gabriela - It's like you brought me back a present from your trip! I'm so happy you and Andre got to see the wild dogs and that the reckless driver did not hurt them. I know how much you love them. The low pov and eye contact take this image up a notch. I like the complementary fall colors too.

TFS,
Rachel

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Hi Gabriela. Very nicely photographed and processed! I like the vertical framing, the colours look spot on and the lowered head, walking pose and eye contact are awesome. I am glad you managed a couple of frames here and did the best you could despite the high ISO. TFS.

[haseeb badar]

Hi Gabriela -- without reading your description the first thing came in my mind was WOW , cause of the eyes and the low pov , also i loved the colours of the painted hunter and the leaves around , IQ is good i feel you being too modest abt that . Thanks for sharing an image of this beautiful animal .

[Gabriela Plesea]

Thank you Rachel, Sanjeev and Haseeb,

I forgot to mention this was a fairly large crop, during PP I had to remove almost half of the image (LHS) which included err...some tarred road. Some of those frames even had the back of the caravan in them...I have never taken so many images from a moving vehicle in my entire life, they are not super-sharp as I would like them to be, FP is spot-on though (here on the eyes) and I made sure to have good SS and put the VR on. I expected some of you to request I sharpen the WD face more, thank goodness none of you mentioned it because I will not do it, pleased to have this as is under the circumstances and I shared it because I loved this character among those lovely Mopani trees...

So thank you from the heart for viewing and comments, wishing you all a pleasant evening:wave:

[Douglas Bolt]

Excellent! I liked the lowered head and front on view from ground level. the foliage on the right adds to the image, both for location and for balance.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Gabriela, it appears your trip was peppered with frustrating encounters where others were less than courteous or observant and reciprocated in photographic etiquette and when time is oh so precious I can very much appreciate how you two felt. I you get the shots, allow others in, is so simple and everyone is happy.

The image posted is not always that easy to achieve, as often there are other WD's getting into frame, or the pose isn't right, or the POV isn't quite there, so top marks in getting what you did under difficult circumstances. I very much like the head on approach and alert ears, with the eyes direct to you, but the head is in an almost submissive position. Overall the colours work and the 'fall' colours add a nice touch to the overall scene. The dead stick is slightly distracting IMHO, but without it it may look too manicured, fairly easy to do, but leave it in. Perhaps a hint more DoF to have the ears to nose sharp, but no deal breaker for me.

Yes I think it's good to be self critical of our own images because you know where you can improve next time, but I think you may be rather tough on yourself based on the story behind taking the image, if circumstance were different and you had the sighting to yourself then fine, but with circumstances out of your control I feel you did extremely well.

TFS
Steve

[Gabriela Plesea]

Thank you Steve,

I did some serious pondering over this recent Kruger experience. I came to conclusion that I have been spoilt over the past nine years with those amazing camping trips on the Botswana side of the Kalahari.

There is no such thing as "photographic etiquette" in the Kruger - photographers there are in minority.

Photographers generally understand each other and have learnt patience. Most visitors of the Kruger are there to see the predators and desperately want a lion, a leopard or a cheetah. Preferably a kill. No one bothered us at an elephant or buffalo sighting, and at first I could not understand why... in the end it became quite obvious: there are hundreds of ellies and buffalo, zebra and baboons all over the place, once they are ticked off the list there is no serious desire to see them again.

Wild Dogs are rare sightings, therefore on top of everyone's list. Including mine. I cannot describe in plain words my frustration of being so close to them but unable to capture decent images - I grabbed the 500/D4 but could not manoeuvre it because Andre's gear was in the way so I put it down, took the 300/D3S but felt I was too far away and the caravan was in the frame so I put it down as well, picked up the videocamera but soon threw it on the seat next to me, only to grab the 500/D4 again. I hated the caravan, the driver in the vehicle towing it, the people trying to overtake us, I even hated myself for wanting this so much. At some stage I dropped everything and closed my eyes, for I could see the dogs here and there but could not reach them, could not "take them home with me".

This WD you are looking at here was running up and down the road (mostly in front of the 4x4/caravan) and eventually stopped for a moment to smell that distracting OOF stick which I should have probably removed during PP work. By then his nose was close to the ground and I was too close to him, did grab the 300/D3S but it was too late - Andre decided enough was enough and negotiated his way in-between vehicles, the dogs also had enough and wandered away from the road into the tall grass, soon out of sight.

I am indeed highly critical of my photography and at times insecure... For now, instead of going back to my KTP lions, I would like to make the best of what I came back with from the Kruger - quite a challenge, and I am so grateful for your understanding, Steve. Only four months to go - err... I am already ticking off the days in the calendar - in February 2016 I am going back "home", which is... Rooiputs, Polentswa, Grootkolk and Urikaruus in the KTP :tinysmile_shy_t:

Wishing you a wonderful evening,

[Morkel Erasmus]

I love the POV, pose and autumn mopani leaves in this shot Gabriela.
I know full well how frustrating predator sightings can be in the "wrong" region of the park - assume this was not in the North though? Which area of KNP?
Makes me appreciate how long we had them to ourselves near Skukuza in June - and I too think you are too hard on yourself given the context of the image!

[Gabriela Plesea]

Good morning Morkel:)

Our itinerary in the Kruger included Malelane Private Camp, Tamboti, Shimuwini, Shingwedzi and Punda Maria. This particular sighting occurred as we were heading towards Shimuwini, coming from Palaborwa gate direction. There were a number of day visitors at the time on this road (it was week-end, eek) as well as people entering the park with their trailers and caravans, rushing to get to their destination. One does not think of such "small" details when doing a booking:) We were grateful to manage those dates as they were, since we could not book in time to go to the Kalahari and just had to go somewhere. Thought we'd avoid the busy places (Skukuza, Satara, etc) and go up North, we were aware we might not see many predators but hoped to spend some time alone with our subjects, be it elephants, zebra, giraffe, or rabbits, LOL. It was very dry just about everywhere we stayed and some of the water holes were closed due to maintenance. The animals were scarce. Interesting that Punda Maria and Pafuri had some rain, the scenery was indeed breathtaking, numerous trees and bushes were filled with fragrant flowers and we had to stop from time to time just to take it all in.

What upset me at this sighting was, the chap driving the caravan was "chasing" the dog pack, not to get close to them (because close he was), but to get past them. You know how the dogs behave and you can imagine they were all over the place, some of the pups had a tug-of-war with a stick in the middle of the road, others were sniffling bushes, they were running constantly and playing and generally in a hunting mode. From time to time they wandered off the road into the bush and I was waiting for an opportunity to grab a shot but we could not stop because the traffic was catching up with us and we'd be overtaken:) Other vehicles were coming from opposite direction and I was waiting for the guy with the caravan to swing to the left, but then suddenly it was just cars everywhere, cars and wild dogs and caravans and trailers and Andre's big lens too in my way LOL, he was driving slowly and trying to grab a shot or two as well, they were so beautiful and so awesome and we have not had many opportunities as this. Very chaotic and I have not experienced this before. We have plenty WD here in the Umfolozi and I will go look for them every week-end, the chances of spending time "together" undisturbed are very high... provided we find them, LOL. We always find spoor but just minutes too late:)

I hope Andre has better images from this sighting to share with you, let me see what else I can find and I'll be back now now, hope you have a great Sunday!

Warmest regards,

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Gabriela well this looks very nice to me on all counts , and from the technical POV even more after reading that this is a fairly large crop , so think the IQ stands well !!!! I like the comp and the approaching WD .
Lovely overall color and tones and incredible fine detail/sharpness !!!!!
From my POV i might give some more tone for a bit more depth in parts . The only thing is the white patch of gravel and the dry piece if wood that is somehow distracting , but nothing you can do rather than just toning down the whitish patch .
Love the somehow "autumn" looking colors in this frame !!

Overall very nice Gabriela

[Gabriela Plesea]

Thank you dear Boetie, much appreciated.

I could try to work on adding more tone, just a bit concerned that the WD would look "pasted on", WDYT?

Easy to remove the piece of wood, Steve already mentioned it and I agree it is distracting, I just did not find the time to RP.

I too loved the vegetation and colours here, those leaves look like butterflies to me:)

Nite Andreas, thank you so much for your comments and time to view!