Gallery: NPN PhotographersPosted December 15, 2017265 views5 comments
Comments
5 comments
Comment posted by Ronald Murphy on December 15, 2017 at 10:38 AM
Please give us some back story here!
Registered on March 13, 2012, 279 Posts, 975 Comments
Comment posted by Julia Flanagan on December 15, 2017 at 1:27 PM
And then you died???
Registered on November 13, 2003, 59 Posts, 986 Comments
Comment posted by Jim Gavin on December 15, 2017 at 2:19 PM
Perhaps "nature" was the wrong word. Another vote for a back story. Is that you? Where? How?
Registered on August 14, 2008, 293 Posts, 1250 Comments
Comment posted by SandyRichardsBrown on December 17, 2017 at 12:38 AM
Hi! Who are you? WHERE are you?
You've posted some killer images of gorillas in the past, but nothing for a couple years.
Please tell us more about you, and how this image came about, assuming you are still alive...
Sandy
Registered on November 24, 2003, 3937 Posts, 12909 Comments
Comment posted by Betty-Lou Luyken on January 6, 2018 at 9:14 AM
For those of you who were wondering: No, I didn't die and I have posted a couple of times in the last years. I have been busy, so I wasn't able to post as much as I would like to. But I am trying to get up to speed again and start posting more regularly. Now about the story to this image: That is me, when I visited South-Africa. I was staying at a small lodge. There was only one other guest and that was a Dutch guy. We decided to share the cottage and he was so glad to have met me, because he was just getting into wildlife photography and eager to learn. The management of the lodge told us we could easily go for a walk, because there were no predators at the game reserve. Well, that wasn't entirely true. On a day we went for a walk, which was incredible: being on foot among giraffes, kudus, zebra's etc. I will never forget. But when we upon the hill of the game reserve we found feces of brown hyenas and leopard tracks. We decided to stay close to the cottage afterwards. Also later in the week there were some regular guests coming and they told us we should be very aware of all the snakes when we were coming down to the main building in the dark for dinner. There were cobras and black mambas in the area.
One day a group of 3 white rhino passed our cottage on their way to the waterhole our cottage was facing. They were quite relaxed and we made some nice images. We said to each other that we would wait for them at the waterhole if they would pass our cottage again. That happened the next day. When we saw them coming, we went to the waterhole with them following at about 40 meters. They were very relaxed and started drinking at the waterhole. The Dutch guy was on the other side of the waterhole and I was waiting for the rhinos to take a mud bath, but then they saw me sitting there and they probably had never seen a sitting human being. For me there was nowhere to go: no trees to climb in, the hide was to far away, there was water in front of me and the rhinos coming from both sides. I was terrified, but knew I had to stay calm and not be threatening, so I just sat there and the rhinos came sniffing at me. One of them was quite nervous and started pawing the soil. It took about 20 minutes for them, but for me it seemed like hours. When they finally went away I tried to stand up, but my legs wouldn't hold me. The Dutch guy had to help me get back to the cottage. I had been terrified at the moment but afterwards it was really cool to have been so close to wild rhinos, although I wouldn't recommend doing that.
Comments
5 commentsYou've posted some killer images of gorillas in the past, but nothing for a couple years.
Please tell us more about you, and how this image came about, assuming you are still alive...
Sandy
One day a group of 3 white rhino passed our cottage on their way to the waterhole our cottage was facing. They were quite relaxed and we made some nice images. We said to each other that we would wait for them at the waterhole if they would pass our cottage again. That happened the next day. When we saw them coming, we went to the waterhole with them following at about 40 meters. They were very relaxed and started drinking at the waterhole. The Dutch guy was on the other side of the waterhole and I was waiting for the rhinos to take a mud bath, but then they saw me sitting there and they probably had never seen a sitting human being. For me there was nowhere to go: no trees to climb in, the hide was to far away, there was water in front of me and the rhinos coming from both sides. I was terrified, but knew I had to stay calm and not be threatening, so I just sat there and the rhinos came sniffing at me. One of them was quite nervous and started pawing the soil. It took about 20 minutes for them, but for me it seemed like hours. When they finally went away I tried to stand up, but my legs wouldn't hold me. The Dutch guy had to help me get back to the cottage. I had been terrified at the moment but afterwards it was really cool to have been so close to wild rhinos, although I wouldn't recommend doing that.