BOTSWANA, AFRICA, ANIMAL SAFARI, Guest Post by Ann Paul

Leopard, Botswana

My friend and fellow children's book writer Ann Paul and her husband Ron recently returned from a trip to Africa which included a trip to Botswana. Here is her report and some fantastic photos of the wildlife they saw. You can find out about Ann's books at www.annwhitfordpaul.net. Her newest book, If Animals Said I  Love You, will be published in the fall.

Botswana, a sparsely populated country of little more than two million people is mostly desert, savannah and grassy plains, but features some of the best animal viewing in Africa. Although our spring (Botswana’s fall) trip was off season (which meant lodges and safari camps were at their most reasonable) and we were warned wildlife might not be out in abundance, we were more than pleasantly surprised. Perhaps we were fortunate that the country had endured an especially rainy season, for we were greeted with some great sightings, including our first ever of a leopard out for a stroll.

And, a less than one-week-old hippo calf hitching a ride on her mother’s back....

a parade of over one hundred elephants that never seemed to end....

and a pack of wild dogs on the prowl. Here is just one of them. I love its perky ears.

Warthogs are usually a common sight. What is uncommon is to come upon two near their den and that they stayed still long enough for a decent picture.

A male lion making sure no other male suitor came after his females

These two male giraffes posed perfectly.

Then they put on a demonstration of their sparring technique, using their heads to lift up the other’s leg.

I’m particularly proud of this photo of a baboon high up in a palm tree taken with my new Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ1000k camera which features a Leica lens and a view angle from 25 mm wide-angle to 16X optical zoom. (thanks to the suggestion of a dear friend.)

The camera allowed me to get some lovely bird photos which I’ll share in an upcoming post. For now, I leave you with this advice. If you’re planning a trip to Botswana, consider going off-season. The prices are cheaper. The lodges are less crowded, which means you’re not crammed into a vehicle for animal sightings and you get more personal attention.
On previous trips, I’ve traveled with a simple camera.
Never again.
If you’re going to the trouble of a long flight (22 hours air time from Los Angeles, not counting layovers in airports) make sure you can take quality pictures.

We stayed at Tubu Tree Camp in the Okavango Delta floodplains and Zarafa Camp located in the Selinda Reserve.  Our trip was arranged by LIVINGSTONE SAFARIS.

Hiking the EBMUD Trails in the Oakland Hills, California

Tall trees at the canyon trail head

Recently, we spent a warm Saturday afternoon hiking on one of the many beautiful trails in the Oakland Hills. The expedition had two purposes: one, to make use of our son Matt’s recently acquired permit for hiking on East Bay Municipal Utilities District (EBMUD) land; and two, to try out our new, or newly adapted, cameras.

Infrared, left; Infrared colorswap, right

We had three cameras to play with. I had a new pocket camera, Art had upgraded his SLR camera with a new model, and Matt had refitted one of his cameras to take infrared pictures. For our hike we chose the King Canyon Loop and Riche Trail, which offered ample opportunity for photos.  We started in tall trees at the bottom of the canyon, hiked up through oak woodland, before reaching the part of the trail that opened up to broad vistas.

Blackberry leaves

A surprising variety of fungi, moss, ferns, leaves and other plants provided the chance for close-ups along the way.

Looking East toward Mount Diablo

We had packed a picnic lunch and ate it at the staging area where there were picnic tables and portapotties. As we ate, we heard a tap, tap in the tree just above our heads. When we looked up we saw a  woodpecker drilling a hole in search of sap and insects. After I got home and looked it up in my bird guide, I discovered that it was a red-breasted sapsucker, a kind of woodpecker native to the western U.S.

"Red-breasted" sapsucker

The EBMUD manages 27,000 acres of open space and 80 miles of horseback and hiking trails just a short distance from downtown Oakland. I am always amazed how quickly one can be surrounded by nature and still be close to the city. We passed only a few people along the trail. It was wonderful to be out in the fresh air enjoying nature just a few miles from home.

Using focus effect to blur edges of picture

PARIS CLOSE-UPS, Guest Post by Kathryn Mohrman

My friend, Kathryn Mohrman, an avid and excellent photographer, went to Paris recently.  She has graciously agreed to share some of her photos and impressions of her trip. Kathryn is a professor at Arizona State University and travels widely for her job as director of several projects with partner universities in China and Vietnam. You can see photos from her trips to Morocco, Lalibela, Ethiopia, and Turkey elsewhere on this blog.  I have known Kathryn since we were students together at Grinnell College in Iowa. Here is her report: 

My most recent adventure was another photo workshop, New Year’s in Paris. What could be better than that! The focus was on street photography—every picture had to have a person in it. Our instructor, an experienced news photographer with dozens of Newsweek cover photos to his credit, pushed us to use a wide-angle lens and get close to people, get closer to people, get even closer! You can see the results of our class at http://www.peterturnley.com/student-galleries/paris-2015-new-years It was inspiring to be with terrific photographers who challenged me to look differently…and get closer.

Note: I asked Kathryn why she chose to shoot her pictures in black and white.  Here is her answer: "I chose to do B&W (as did most of the eight students in the workshop) because the instructor shoots only in B&W.  It was street photography, every photo had to include humans, so akin to photojournalism. We were told to shoot at 20-35mm, so wide angle--no sneaking pictures with a telephoto!  Shooting in B&W was also a challenge for myself, because B&W photos require more attention to composition and contrast--no color to attract the viewer."