Giraffe Breakfast

[Morkel Erasmus]

A family of giraffes feed on a camelthorn tree in the dry Auob riverbed of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in South Africa.
This is one of several of my photos screened at the BioPhoto festival in Budoia, Italy, this past weekend. The theme for this year's contest was "Deserts" and 7 of my images were awarded with commendations.

I am always on the lookout for an opportunity to whip out the wide angle lens with wildlife, to add context to the photos I am taking and where they are taken.

New biological and taxonomical information about giraffes actually has biologists wanting to place them in 4 separate species, enhancing their conservation focus. At least two of the proposed new species would fall into the "threatened" category of the IUCN Red List, whereas giraffes as a main genus now lists as "least concern". The current designation does not offer them the conservation effort that is needed, as their numbers are falling rapidly. Read more here: http://gizmodo.com/we-just-found-out-theres-more-than-one-species-of-giraf-1786385246


Techs:
Nikon D800
Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 44mm
Circular Polariser
f4.0 | 1/250 SS | ISO-250

[haseeb badar]

Hi Morkel -- Congrats on the commendations !

I liked this scene with Giraffes lined almost in a descending order . Beautiful looking sky and the yellow fruits on the tree adds to the colours in the scene . Wide angles do appear very appealing and you have done a great job with the same .

TFS !

[Sanjeev Aurangabadkar]

Beautiful image Morkel. Love the comp, the light, the line up of giraffes and the feeding behaviour. Congrats on this one.

[Steve Kaluski]

Nice, clean image Morkel, having a bit more separation of the head & bush on the third Giraffe as viewed, would be better, but that's in an ideal world.

TFS
Steve

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Morkel - beautiful scene and the wide angle perspective works really well here. There's a halo along the left side of the neck of the fg giraffe.

TFS,
Rachel

[Douglas Bolt]

Beautiful image! It just screams DESERT! I to had to look a couple of time at the third animal to figure out if was eating something or simply standing in front of a bush in the background. If you ever decide to remove the confusing bush, I'd consider also removing the rock in front of that animal.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Morkel you nailed this one with the beautiful color and tones of the KTP .
Nicely lined up Giraffes and the BG is fading superb into the far desert .
Little nit is the intersection of the heads with the horizon , but no chance to avoid this .

TFS Andreas

[keith mitchell]

Love the light and composition Morkel,great the way you have them in line,very well caught.

Keith.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Thank you all so much for the comments :)