Today is World Elephant Day. Six months ago I was actually in Tanzania seeing elephants in person, so there’s no better time to post about the tons and tons and tons of elephants that I saw. I am working on a presentation for Photo Club a little later this month, so I have been diligently perusing the thousands of shots I took.
The very first game drive photo I took on safari last February was of an elephant, notably with my own camera and lens rather than the top-of-the-line equipment I borrowed from Canon. One of the first admonitions from photography pro Jeff Cable was not to neglect wide angle shots. I did my best to follow that advice every day.
There are an estimated 3,000 elephants living in Tangire National Park, and I think we saw every single one of them. Mike G of M&M Photo Tours told us that his first safari group saw only six elephants. Our group was much more fortunate; sometimes we were surrounded by elephants on all sides as far as the eye could see. I wish I had a good wide-angle shot with a huge group of elephants, but my tendency seems to be to focus on smaller groups such as this one, with elephants spanning a range of ages. By the way, a herd of elephants is known as a memory.
The lighting was not always ideal, but we had many opportunities to shoot iconic elephant shots such as this one slowly lumbering along with ears fanned.
Elephants love water. I particularly like this shot because it caught water movement in two different places.
The elephants had no fear of our safari vehicles and would cross the road in close proximity to our great delight.
Some of the elephants coated themselves in clay dust to help themselves stay cooler. Or perhaps just to become a redhead.
Here’s a little guy doing the same thing:
One of the benefits of seeing so many elephants was the opportunity to watch for different types of shots, such as these these elephants that almost seem to have choreographed their walk.
One phenomenon I noticed in Africa is the number of times that animals turn their backs to humans. Sometimes you just have to seize the opportunity for a rear view.
Some elephants do cute things with their trunks, like this one curling it around its tusk.
Or this elephant enjoying a snack:
One evening we came across a small memory of elephants in lovely evening light as we returned to camp.
These adolescent bull elephants treated us to an extended skirmish. This is my favorite elephant shot of the safari.
I probably have sufficient elephant photos for another weblog post or two, but first I plan to feature some other animals. Stay tuned!
So many great shots!