Africa is a photographer’s dream

By Roxanne Reid
Heinrich, Philip and Ingrid van den Berg have produced a number of beautiful African wildlife photo books over the years. Their latest is Land of Contrast: Southern Africa’s diverse biomes. Guest blogger Heinrich van den Berg shares five photos from the book.

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‘There are many wildlife coffee-table books that deal with large predators and the Big Five. Although the Big Five are often the highlight of many trips to the wild, we love to experience the other aspects of the wilderness, be it small or big,’ he writes. ‘We are fortunate to live in an extremely diverse country with a wide variety of biomes to explore. Each one provides its own magic. And that was what we were after when starting out to compile this book. We wanted to show the beauty of diversity.’

Not many photographers visit Etosha during the wet season, because the animals don't congregate as much at the waterholes then. But we love Etosha at this time of year, when you get beautiful dramatic skies, yellow flowers covering the earth and drama all around you. Zebras are particularly active and play-fight constantly, which makes for brilliant photographic opportunities. On the afternoon when we took this photo, we were lucky enough to get animals in front of an extremely dramatic rainbow.
Canon 5d mark 2, 16-35mm lens, f8

The Hartmann mountains in the north-western corner of Namibia are beautiful, especially after rains. Philip and Ingrid went on a trip there in March, just after heavy rains that transformed the world into a colourful wonderland. It is an extremely long drive to get there, but after a trip like this, you can’t even remember the long bumpy hours; all you remember is the awe of driving through such a landscape.
Canon 1DS Mark 3, 16-35mm lens, f11

A great way to experience the wildlife of Botswana is to go on a boat trip down the Chobe River. The animals get right up to the boat and birds don't fly off until the boat is almost on top of them. So even if you don’t have a long telephoto lens, you can take brilliant images. The elephants are the stars of the show and are entertainers in the water.
Canon 1D mark 4, 600mm lens, f4

When photographing a subject, always try to get unusual angles. To photograph a chameleon from above isn’t the first angle one would think of when photographing one. In fact, it’s probably the last angle a photographer would consider. But play around with your subject – you never know which angle will work best.
Canon 5d mark2, 180mm macro lens, f8.

The pincushion protea is very photogenic. By zooming in with a macro lens onto the details on the flower, the colours come out wonderfully. Don’t always crop in a traditional way. Be adventurous.
Canon 1DS mark 3, 70-200mm lens, f16.

Land of Contrast is for sale in most bookshops and on HPH’s website www.hphpublishing.co.za. If you order directly from HPH, the Van den Bergs will sign the book and send it to you at no extra cost.
 
All photos on this page © HPH Publishing.