The wildebeests after drinking in the waterhole in Etosha National Park, the Namibia’s foremost wildlife sanctuary, in June.
I was there to take photos of wildlife drinking at the waterhole when unexpectedly the wind increased and quickly turned into a sandstorm; it was at this moment that I took this image. I love such instances, as they give you opportunities to take unusual and special pictures. For me, at such moments one should not put the camera in the bag, but try to take advantage of the atmosphere and study the best composition and camera settings.
I shot from the car, with the open window, and the sand storm was really strong. The car filled fast with dust…so did my camera and my eyes! There were many animals at the waterhole and everything happened very quickly. I had to think fast, especially that visibility was so poor. What struck me most was that I could no longer distinguish the sky from the earth. With my shots I tried to emphasize this. Here, I overexposed the image, so that only the subject stood out.
No complicated post processing was done to this photo. I adjusted a little bit the curves, levels and sharpening. All these happened in front of my eyes, so this photo is what nature created. I was in the right place at the right time, during a sand storm, in one of the bad years for Namibia, when the severe drought happened.
My approach to photography is not to sit in front of my computer at home, but to be in the field, behind my camera and wait for the right moment and the right light to shoot. I really love to create my images in the field, sometimes using filter (like polariser etc), or speedlite, sometimes working just with shutter speed or aperture. What could be better than being out in the field, in nature? This is what makes me happy as a photographer, not sitting at home in front of the computer.
CANON CAMERA EOS 5D Mark III
CANON LENS EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM + 1.4x III
1/1000sec
f/5.0
ISO 200
