animal photography | Sun Downer Blog

Last week we spent a day at Addo Elephant National Park and, just as we were leaving at sunset, we saw a lone bull elephant striding up over the horizon. The misty Suurberg ridges rising up beyond the Sundays River valley made a lovely dramatic backdrop to his silhouette.

Addo Elephant coming out of the sunset

I got to wondering what would happen to my picture if I draped it like a tablecloth over a three dimensional elevation model of the Addo area – showing the elephant embedded on the landscape it lives in. It wasn’t easy to get the image looking aesthetically pleasing and on the right part of the landscape but here’s the result.

Elephant and Addo landscape

It’s coincidental because I was also using my geographical skills last week working with a 3D model of the Port Elizabeth area. I suddenly wondered if I could get something much more evocative using the elephant picture instead!

Relief Model of the Port Elizabeth area

Yesterday I drove down to Port Elizabeth to collect Kate at the airport with the thought of an afternoon game drive through Addo Elephant Park on the way home to Grahamstown. We have a SA National Parks Wild Card subscription which gives you free entry for a year and so it’s a real incentive to get into a park if you are near one.

We drove into the southern section of the park from the N2 through the Mathyolweni Gate and exited halfway up the Park near Nanaga. There’s was plenty to see in the late afternoon light. We got really close to some very relaxed elephants, saw lots of buffalo, many, many warthogs and then came across a very sleepy lioness.

The beauty of owning a Pentax is that all of your old lenses will work even on the newest body. Yesterday’s pictures were taken using my old manual Tokina SD 70-210. It was a real pleasure to work with it again and for my fingers to rekindle their memories.