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Archive 2005 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview

  
 
Phil Holden
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview



A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit the Luangwa Valley, Zambia and I spent the best part of two weeks taking part in multiple safaris, both within open top vehicles and walking single file into the bush. During the trip I stayed in both small lodges and even smaller bush camps in both South and North Luangwa as we transcended the valley. The valley is littered with oxbow lakes, abandoned watercourses and surrounded by woodlands and bush with lots to see. Our trip was half way through dry season and as such the rivers and lagoons were a popular place for the huge variety of wildlife that call Luangwa home. Much of the valley is completely remote, most days we never saw another human on our wanderings and many people feel that Luangwa represents one of the last “old Africa” where you get to experience what the first visters saw a hundred years ago. All in all quite the experence, pretty amazing for me and left me hooked on the place.

I’m about a third of the way through editing the images and the following series of images represent what I feel is a little representation of what I consider to be “good”. These images show both tight shots of wildlife and also animal-scapes that show them in context with their environment. Love to get feedback on what you like/not and why. Thanks much

ps, seeing as I haven't managed to figure out how to embed multiple images I replay a few times to this first post



Aug 16, 2005 at 07:00 PM
Phil Holden
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview



# 2. ele family



Aug 16, 2005 at 07:01 PM
Phil Holden
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview


#3. Burchells Zebra


Aug 16, 2005 at 07:02 PM
Phil Holden
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview



#4. More Burchells Zebra



Aug 16, 2005 at 07:03 PM
Phil Holden
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview



#5. Lions breakfast, caught in the mud



Aug 16, 2005 at 07:03 PM
Phil Holden
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview


#6. hippo's basking one morning


Aug 16, 2005 at 07:05 PM
Phil Holden
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview


#7. Thornicroft Giraffe


Aug 16, 2005 at 07:06 PM
Phil Holden
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview



#8 - last one for now. Thornicroft Giraffe portrait



Aug 16, 2005 at 07:06 PM
grosema
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview


Love that first one I thought it was a rock at first
The pics have a real different feel to them a unsaturated look



Aug 16, 2005 at 07:17 PM
ronbo
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview


Nice series of shots. You got a great variety of shooting in. Great giraffe portrait.


Aug 16, 2005 at 07:58 PM
EMRJPV
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview


Nice shots. What lens did you use for these. The vast spaces in the images seem to make the animals look small. Great shots . Like the different look to them.


Aug 16, 2005 at 08:16 PM
Phil Holden
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview


Lens choice was somewhat a drama before going. Due to some of the internal flights we were restricted to a total of 15kg weight for everything, including my toothbrush. The largest I took was my 300mm f2.8 with the 1.7 extender. Then the 70-200mm, a medium zoom 24-75 (or something like that) and then my wide 12-24mm. I used all most days but of the 70-200 and the 300 was typically what was hanging off the body most of the time. But that left not much choice in clothing


Aug 16, 2005 at 08:37 PM
Roccco
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview


Great photos, Phil.

How many nights did you spend in South Luangwa and where did you stay?

I leave in two weeks for 12 nights in Zambia, split between Lower Zambezi and South Lunagwa (at Puku Ridge and Luangwa River Lodge).

Did you have the opportunity to go on any walking safaris, and if so, how much gear did you take along?

Also, is it even possible to get good wildlife photos on the night game drives? I realize they have the 1 million candlepower spotlight but they are not really allowed to keep it in the animals face, or else they may blind the animal.

Looking forward to seeing more of your South Luangwa photos. Thanks.



Aug 16, 2005 at 10:25 PM
mervin.q
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview


great shots !!!




Aug 17, 2005 at 01:01 AM
Upshotsphoto
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview


Hi Phil,

Great photos, sounds like a fantastic trip. Of the images you have posted so far I liked the first one (elephant hiding in grass) and the group of zebras in front of the water hole. The tight cropping and grass in the elephant shot create a somewhat abstract image. The Zebra shot is at once tranquil due to the lateral composition and tense due to the alert posture of the in focus zebra in the foreground and another behind. You get the feeling that the tranquility can be broken at any second. In addition the unsaturated look gives the impression of a harsh environment. Is this unsaturated look something you deliberatly created or is this the nature of the light in the Luanga valley?

Also, I will be travelling in Tanzania and Kenya for 3 weeks in September and will be subject to the 15 kilo weight restriction. Did you have any problems? If I hang a camera around my neck will they tend to ignore it during the weigh in? I already plan on stuffing my spare batteries and other small dense objects in my jacket pocket. If I am discreet, not too many bulges, will they take notice?

And if you have got this far, how did you deal with image storage? I plan on taking an 80 Gb flashtrax with me and am concerned this may not be enough.

Thank you. I am looking forward to seeing more of your images.

Paul



Aug 17, 2005 at 01:03 AM
razmik
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview


Fantastic!


Aug 17, 2005 at 01:49 AM
Greg Matty
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview


Phil Holden wrote:
Lens choice was somewhat a drama before going. Due to some of the internal flights we were restricted to a total of 15kg weight for everything, including my toothbrush. The largest I took was my 300mm f2.8 with the 1.7 extender. Then the 70-200mm, a medium zoom 24-75 (or something like that) and then my wide 12-24mm. I used all most days but of the 70-200 and the 300 was typically what was hanging off the body most of the time. But that left not much choice in clothing


Phil,

I am some ways away from actually going to Africa, but weight and lens choice is a serious consideration. I have a 70-200 and will likely have something like an 80-400 before going. I would also have my Sigma 18-55. As the 80-400's end up at f 5.6 real quick, is there enough light to work at smaller apertures? I know it really doesn't matter whethere one is in Africa or not, but I see that all your lenses are fast ones. It would be nice to leave the 70-200 at home but if a person needs 2.8, he needs 2.8.

Greg



Aug 17, 2005 at 09:03 AM
Phil Holden
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview


Regarding the light. Shooting in the morning, when most of my good shots were taken, had a wonderful soft look that the prints capture nicely. Half way through the dry season and the landscape becomes very harsh away from water and everything is dry and very dusty and you get to see that in the landscape shots. I think I lost something on the jpg conversation as the images look not quite as nice as my psd’s do.

Regarding equipment.

- Weight. Opinions differ on this. Some people have told me it’s literally everything you own and others say that you can get away with carrying camera gear. I played it safe, I made sure my body+lens+camera bag were all under. I did carry camera batteries in my shooting vest but that was about it. Not sure where you are staying, but I found that I could wash clothes almost everywhere and only took a couple pair of pants, t-shirts etc and washed them every few days. I wasn’t exactly a fashion show, but there would have been serious tears if I couldn’t get on the plane without my gear. One of my hardest decisions was camera bags, as when you weigh them they really add up the weight. That took me many visits to the Glazers our local store trying many combinations.
- Storage+power. Yeah, I bought the flashtrax 80gb. I thought long and hard between that and the Epson, as much as the screen is amazing the 40 gb limit was really worrying me. I took along my http://www.digitalcamerabattery.com that I bought last year for some winter Yellowstone shooting and took this along. I used this with the screen of my d2x to delete obviously bad images and then powered the flashtrax with the bigger battery. Basically saved my smaller batteries for being in the field. In terms of power, it gets hard some times. There are a bunch of solar panels that you might investigate, get the flexible ones. We went days without a power source and often the car cigarette socket doesn’t work. Take a UK plug and make sure your power boxes work with 240volts. I stupidly fried my digitalcamerabattery power supply in the one place that we had power ~ not smart!
- Lens. My personal view would be that you should take 70-200 and the longer one if you can. At f5.6 you will be really struggling, even if the 80-400 has VR/IS etc unless you dial up the ISO, which depending what camera can be problematic at times. Also, should you get to witness any action my experience with my old 80-400 was not good on focusing quickly. Make sure you have a good strong mono pod and get to your local zoo before you live to practice with the new gear. I hadn’t shot any wildlife for ages and it too me a while to get into that mode.

Then to answer Rocco

- Walking safari's are just amazing, such a different experience from being in the car. You would often start out early, 6am when it was cold and you would have multiple layers on. Come 10am it was HOT and you had removed most of it, strapping it to my pack. I pretty much took all my gear and suffered when it was hot. I carried one of the bigger lenses on the body with my monopod as you wanted to have it ready should you see something quick and the rest in the bag. If you are interested there is a little write up of my interpretation of our first walking safari @ "http://spaces.msn.com/members/philholden/Blog/cns!1pqdthAqyXPGyArXrM8wrbiA!383.entry" (sorry, url doesn't embed for some reason, you will have to copy/paste manually)


- Regarding where I stayed. In South Lunagwa we were at Kafunta River Lodge and then a small bush camp down south. I loved my experience and the people at Kafunta are really great.

- Night safari’s. Here I’m a little mixed. It’s a great experience, and you do get to see stuff that you wouldn’t see in day light. But apart from a documentary point of view the images aren’t exactly your typical photographic image that you would expect from Africa. I’ve attached a lone Leopold as it just walked past our truck and you can see what I mean. Not exactly natural! But, it was the only time I got to see this beautiful creature on this trip and wouldn’t have missed it at all. Net-net, my POV – its part of the experience, enjoy it, but don’t expect fab images!




Aug 17, 2005 at 01:09 PM
DNA.
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Luangwa Valley, Zambia image preview


Sorry, but the color saturation is poking me in the eye and I think there is a yellow cast as well. With that fixed I think I will enjoy your pictures.


Aug 17, 2005 at 06:02 PM





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