Capturing the Moment

This post is another one written in praise of, and thanksgiving for, that wonderful invention called a digital camera. I have never had any interest in the complications of photography - I really don't know what an f-number is - I just want a machine that I can point, press a button, and know I've recorded a visual moment in time - and nowhere is the ability to record something very, very quickly more important than when one is 'on safari' in places like Tanzania.

I'm rather proud of this first picture as the hippo had seemed quite happy watching from the bank as we passed in a very fragile small boat. However, it suddenly decided to launch itself into the water. I was quite convinced that it was going to attack our boat and turn it over. Happily, it didn't.

This sparring between two gazelle happened in moments but the camera was ready so all I did was press a button. I don't think it was a serious fight but, whereas the gazelle would normally have fled the approach of a Land Rover full of camera-swinging tourists, these were too engrossed to notice us.

This wart hog boar had been warily watching our approach and I had him lined up for a nice photograph, when he transformed it by rearing away just as I pressed the button. Wart hogs aren't particularly beautiful animals but I have a soft spot for them, knowing that they are the favourite prey of lions - yet, somehow, they survive and thrive.

I had seconds in which to turn my camera on and grab a shot of this, a bush pig. Considering the success of wart hogs as a species, bush pigs are surprisingly rare - I had never seen one before - and yet it walked past within ten metres of me as I watched from a hide which overlooked the water hole at the lodge in Sadaani National Park.

Finally, this is an unbelievable photo - again, taken from the hide at Saadani - because when I showed it to the lady who ran the lodge she couldn't believe that an old, male Cape buffalo, one of the most respected of Africa's range of dangerous creatures, had come for a drink not a hundred metres from where her clients were relaxing in the lodge's restaurant and bar.