Four Rhinoceroses

[Mike Buckley]

We were extraordinarily surprised to be blessed with being able to see any rhinoceroses in the wild, much less four of them. This was in Madikwe Game Reserve, which is in South Africa.

The first photo was captured by my wife and post-processed by me. Thank goodness she saw the birds and had the presence of mind to fire away and hope for the best.

[Brownbear]

Beautiful and yes, your wife was brilliant to capture the birds...

I prefer the colour versions likely because it is a nature shot... And I'm very envious of your trip...

[Shadowman]

Very nice series.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to Christina and John.

[Donald]

Very good stuff, by both Mr & Mrs B.

That image with the four rhinos is, indeed, something special. What works particularly well for me. is that gives us the context. We see them surrounded by their natural environment. But that doesn't explain it well enough. You could get a million pictures (and they're probably out there on social networking sites) of rhinos with the background behind them. But 99.9999% won't be the well-crafted, composed and finished image that this is.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you, Donald.

I have a strong fondness for tight crops, which comes of course at the expense of context. I approached my trip long before it began with a promise to myself that I would be sure to make photographs of animals that display their surroundings rather than solely rely on the drama of a tight crop. As I was planning each shot, I kept reminding myself of that promise. I have to admit that even though I was so familiar with the image of the four rhinos because I had post-processed it, I was blown away when I displayed it on my television last night.

Speaking of context, the roundish chunks of dark material on the ground are elephant dung. The small trees laying on the ground in the foreground and right background were probably knocked down by elephants. They knock down much, much larger trees.

[GeorgeM]

Great stuff, Mike. I especially like #3 for its colors and pov...

[jprzybyla]

Hello Mike, I have been following your threads from your trip to Africa... wonderful images, a trip of a lifetime. As George wrote in the post before mine... great stuff.

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, George and Joe!

a trip of a lifetime

To clarify that, my wife and I have great friends in Johannesburg who have been regularly going to the game reserves since they were children. They joined us for our first four days in the bush and said those four days were probably the best single trip that they had ever taken. When we moved on to a different reserve later in our trip without them, they couldn't believe that our great luck in the first reserve continued in the second one. When we make our next trip to view animals in the wild in Africa (which we definitely plan to do), we will have to dial back our expectations because it's simply not reasonable to expect such incredible experiences in so short a period of time as we experienced in our first trip a few weeks ago.

[rpcrowe]

Very well done imagery.

[Wavelength]

Those are brilliant shots and that was a great timing by your better half; congrats to both