Fun with photography

Who the hell knows what I was thinking here? It seemed like a good idea at the time!

Photography can be a pretty intense hobby at any time, but when you've paid thousands of dollars to fly somewhere exotic and you know you're not likely to be back there in a long time... Well don't we all get a little too serious about our pictures.

A little angry when somebody gets in the way of our perfect landscape. A little too disheartened when we get turned down for yet another portrait.

Take some silly photos. Like this one here. Remind yourself that it's all meant to be fun. And if you're so busy trying to get that perfect angle do what I do, put the camera down.

That's right. Here I am the professional travel photographer telling you not to take any photos. Sometimes we get so caught up in trying to get a great shot that we miss the actual event. We're so busy looking through the viewfinder that we don't actually see a thing. And when we see the pictures later we often have no personal memories of what happened.

I can sometimes go for hours just snapping away and at the end of the day I might come away with some memorable shots but I haven't really seen anything. And then at other times I have just put the camera down and sat and watched things unfold and those memories are etched deep into my mind.

This photo above was at the end of a particularly amazing session photographing not one, not two but five giraffes all drinking at the same time. Just as they were finishing up two cheetah brothers came down to drink at the same waterhole and this giraffe ended up having a staring competition with a tiny cheetah. I took quite a few shots but often just sat there for ten minutes or more without even touching the shutter, just watching and taking it all in.

And decided to take a silly shot just for the hell of it. So if the photography action gets a bit intense remember that it's all meant to be fun, and at the end of the day if you don't come away with the photograph you were really looking for, at least you'll remember the experience.