“If you are out there shooting, things will happen for you. If you’re not out there, you’ll only hear about it.” ― Jay Maise

One of the perks of working for an operation like Sabi Sabi Private Game Reserve is that there is never a shortage of guests to host. This means that we are almost always out there shooting images and sharing in the African wildlife experience. Even when we find ourselves with the odd day-off, we’ll often take out a vehicle and get out there anyway. This is the key if you want to capture unbelievable moments of animal behavior, or even a sunrise/sunset. Get out there, be adventurous and don’t be afraid to try new things with your photography. I hope you enjoy this week’s selection of wildlife in monochrome.

While approaching a breeding herd of buffalo, this mother and calf showed a keen interest in us and paused from feeding to ‘test’ the air.

A full-bellied and lethargic Charleston male lion rousing himself from an afternoon of inactivity. We continued to follow this big male as he led us to a kill nearby.

Overcast days offer great opportunities for monochrome photography as the clouds enhance the mood of the image. Here, a very large bull elephant feeds next to our vehicle and I had to go to 16mm to try fit him in the frame.

It’s not often that one finds hippo far from the river on morning game drive so on this occasion we were very lucky. What made the situation even better was because the animal was incredibly relaxed with our relatively close proximity.

While trying to go wide in order to capture the whole scene at a carcass, this young hyena became rather inquisitive of the vehicle and approached quite closely so that I was able to photograph it with great detail.

I loved the color version of this image showing Little Bush’s daughter, but the conversion to monochrome seemed to pull me in more. Either way, it was a difficult situation with regards to light and her being high up in a tree, but I think in this way it has worked.

It’s no secret that I enjoy spotlight work with part of the appeal being the ability to accentuate only certain parts of the animal, and to me it works no better than with the cats. Pictured here is Maxabeni as he was out on a patrol.

I love this image of the Southern Pride. It just shows the closeness of the females with one another and it’s great to see them in this way once again.

This was a very fortunate moment and when this Sand River male started moving toward this dam, I knew we had to set up for the drinking shots. I went a bit wider with this image and am quite pleased with the result, not to mention the reflection.

Classic zebra. There’s nothing spectacular going on here in terms of behavior, but then that’s not always necessary in my opinion. Sometimes a good subject and a low angle is all you need.