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Gallery: pick a word (August 2023)
To focus on a single word and bring it to life in an image; it sounds simple, but … This month’s Pick a Word choices come from Botswana, China, Oman, Guatemala and Peru. Whatever else they make you feel, you could well be dizzy travelling so far so quickly!
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Gallery: making eyes at me
Giraffes’ eyes are beautiful but they can look rather mournful. Maybe that’s a touch of anthropomorphism, attributing human emotions to an animal? And yet …
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Gallery: the animals went in two by two …
The animals went in two by two. And three, and four, and five, and more.
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Gallery: taking a wider view in Botswana
Looking for the ‘ah-ha’ seems to me to be an excellent mantra for any photographer. Although in truth I sometimes search for that not by stepping back but by zooming in. For me the important thing is not to settle for the obvious, for the first angle that occurs to me.
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The sun sets and the sun rises over the Chobe River
The wide waters of the Chobe River form the northern boundary of the national park of the same name. They divide Botswana from its neighbour Namibia to the north. But of course the wildlife that teems on its shores, in its waters and in the skies above knows no national borders. And nor does the sun, which sets and rises on all.
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Gallery: playing with a selective colour technique
Lisa has set an unusual challenge, the selective colour editing of photos. It’s one that really attracted me to have a go. I love fiddling with my photos, as regular readers will know (I call it editing but really it’s quite often just fiddling!) So the idea of removing much of the colour in an image to leave just a splash appealed to me.
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Gallery: meet Steven the Seagull and some friends
Not many gulls are as famous as Steven. Said to be Estonia’s most photographed seagull, he lives in Tallinn and is often seen on the viewing platform overlooking the Lower Town. He has featured in hundreds of tourist photos and became so famous that in 2016 he got his own Instagram account.
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A walk on Sausage Island: it’s all about the elephants
While the safety of a jeep is comforting and often necessary on safari, there is nothing to beat the experience of walking through the African countryside on foot. A slight frisson of danger accompanies you as you step carefully through the long grass. The only sounds are those of the wildlife around you and the breeze through the trees; the only scents those wafted on that same breeze.
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A walk on Palm Island: hippos, hogs and crocs
It was early morning in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. As we stepped ashore from the small boat our guide, Slade, immediately stopped to load his rifle. It was a somewhat disconcerting start to our walk, to say the least. He then gave us a short briefing on how to stay safe during our time on Palm Island, one of hundreds that dot the delta.
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Video: flying to the Okavango Delta
Sometimes how you travel to a place can be as much fun as the place itself. The small planes that serve the various camps in Botswana’s Okavango Delta operate much like buses, dropping off and picking up passengers along the way. For some people, a flight in a small prop plane would be their worst nightmare; for me it was almost as much of an attraction as the destination itself!
