When the sun began to set our driver looked for some animals that we could put in the foreground to create a silhouette against the sun. I wasn’t happy with the way the animals’ legs were hidden in the horizon, so we moved on to look for a tree. The driver saw this one and I was hesitant as I could see that the tree trunk would be lost in the horizon as well. I said nothing and decided to see the shot before saying no. When we turned the corner, another vehicle tried to get into position for the same shot. However, their vehicle created an envelope of dust that surrounded the tree. The dust helped to illuminate the lower portion of the image making the tree trunk visible—I yelled out to my group to photograph the dust. It ended within seconds. I shot four shots before the dust settled and/or blew away. This ended up being one of my favorite sunset shots from the trip. Dust and light can be magical especially when there are beautiful colors filling the sky.
I really loved the shape of the tree trunk for the above image. The colors in the sky were gorgeous so I decided to compose the tree to the right, leaving lots of space for that color. Had I placed the tree on the left, I would have had the bright area of the sun to deal with. I also liked the way the trunk was pointing to the left.
My first thought was to create a single giraffe silhouette against the sunrise. But then several of them appeared and I liked the way each one was posing. I also liked the rays of colors that formed a diagonal. So, I moved away from the sunrise a bit and concentrated on the colors and the giraffe’s positions. I know that there is some kind of rule that says that odd numbers are best, and I did capture a few shots with only three giraffes, but I liked this one best. Sorry to all the rule followers out there-my bad!
This was a wonderful ending to an unforgettable evening. We watched as several lions and antelope passed through this sunset. The lion above was facing away from the sun. In Photoshop I turned him to look toward the sun. Too bad he didn’t do it on his own as I had wished…