Apologies to any fisherman enthusiasts, but there are no fishermen in this photo. Instead, this is a slightly different shot of Budapest’s Fisherman’s Bastion, one of my favourite viewpoints of the city. The building and windows that the building is reflected in had an unusual brown tinge, hence why I decided to make the shot monochrome, but I think that adds to the abstract effect I was aiming for.
A bit of a delay at the beginning of this week, as I started my PhD today and needed to get lots of bits and pieces sorted! Thankfully, I’m back with a photo today and I’m out shooting tonight too.
This is another shot from Tarangire MP, which, as I’ve previously, was absolutely amazing. I hadn’t expected the scenery to be as spectacular as it was, but I found it to be stunning. This shot was taken on a day where we saw the smallest amount of wildlife, so I was able to spend a bit of time getting to know the landscape.
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Back to the safari today! As I’ve mentioned before, the zebras were the most fearless animal we saw; I think that any fear they have is overwhelmed by a reluctance to move out of the way. Either way, it made shooting animal portraits very easy!
It’s been a fairly monochrome week this week, on my blog at least, but I thought it was the best way to capture the contrast of this scene from Tarangire NP. I only just managed to capture the shot with my telephoto lens before we drove away – it seems obvious, but safari trips make changing lenses a much more difficult process!
While I showed you a very small view of London from above earlier this week, this time I thought I’d show you a bit more of an expansive view from the dome of St Stephen’s Basilica in Budapest. I almost didn’t manage to get this shot to work, but, thankfully, I was able to to stitch three of my shots together. The view of the city with the turrets in the foreground was really striking and I hope I’ve been able to capture that here.
While the Southbank may have some excellent views down the river Thames, I decided to ignore those and take this shot instead! This was taken from the balcony at the Southbank Centre, which had a really interesting exhibit in the basement about immigrants in the UK – definitely worth a visit if you’re in the area.
A slightly more abstract take on safari for you today. I can’t remember for the life of me what type of birds these are because I learnt about so many different types, but that hasn’t stopped me from sharing them with you! I saw a photo of some birds in this high-contrast, monochrome style in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition a few years back and have wanted to emulate it for a while, so it was nice to finally have the chance to do so.
As well as being a photo of a monkey that looks a little blue, this is also a photo of a Blue Monkey! Such wit. This is possibly my favourite shot from the trip – it was taken in Lake Manyara National Park during the midday sun, which is usually a time I expect to get no decent shots. Thankfully, the way the light passed through the trees actually created a harshly lit studio effect, which made for quite a moody and emotive shot. I’ve added the colour shot too as I like both, but I would love to know which is your favourite!
I’m still wading through hundreds of shots from Tanzania, but here’s a shot of the relatively rare Serval Cat from the Ngorongoro Crater. While it’s not one of the big five, or even an animal I had given thought to before I left, this was actually one of my favourite spots from the trip. You can see zebras, wildebeests and many other big game creatures with relative ease, depending on where you go, which made the spotting of such a small, wild cat hunting for its dinner so exciting – I wouldn’t have even spotted it without the expert vision of Simon, our guide!
Tanzania is amazing.
I was only there for six days, but it was one of the most amazing trips I have ever taken. As you can probably guess, we were visiting to go on safari and I soon became an addict. It’s been a dream of mine to go on safari and I’m already trying to figure out whether I can get away with going again next year!
This is an atmospheric shot from the Ngorongoro Crater, the first stop in our trip. It amazed me how close we were able to get to the animals, but I haven’t got round to editing those shots yet, so I thought I’d share this one with you to whet your appetite!
Alex Elliott Photography 