The last couple of days I’ve been wondering if I should also post wildlife photos on my blog… since I usually only post sneak peaks from my latest portrait sessions. And today, I decided: yes, I should!

So…… six months after our wedding and honeymoon in Tanzania, I finally started the lengthy process of viewing and selecting images from our trip. So far I’ve made it through 3 days worth of photos.. and the following images are my faves so far… I hope you enjoy them! :-)

Lake Manyara – this was taken on our first day of safaris, we watched this lioness for a long long time.. in 40C full sun… since we were totally oblivious to the time, Heiko and I got pretty badly sunburnt – and just days before our wedding too!

Baboons in Ngorongoro Crater – the babies are so cute, I loved watching them play and explore. They have such human expressions at times, it’s quite facinating!

These two (above and below) were taken in the Ngorongoro Crater. These two young lions were lazing by the side of the road with full bellies… you can tell they are young by the spots on their legs. I just love the reflection in the one above, and their interaction in the one below .

In the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, just a few hundred metres from Olduvai Camp (where we were married), we had the most AMAZING sighting of African Painted Dogs (aka Wild Dogs). There are less than 5000 in the wild, and since they are nomadic, sightings are incrediably rare. We had the pleasure of spending time watching a pack of 24 dogs, play, run, snooze, play some more… it was just incredible. A dream. We could hardly believe what we were seeing. It was magic!

Do you see the Painted Dogs above? There are a few resting in the shade of a tree. The landscape in this area was just beautiful. In the Ngorongoro Conservation Area we were allowed to drive off road since we were there during the wet season (the rains quickly cover vehicle tracks, although we are not allowed to double back on a track in order to prevent damage to the vegetation). But driving off road gave us the perfect opportunity to get closer to this pack of Painted Dogs, we would have missed them otherwise.

Watching them run and play was just amazing! :)

The next day, we were again very lucky with our sightings. Our driver (amazingly) spotted a leopard, far in the distance, but since we were allowed to drive off-road, we were able to get fairly close. He was pretty shy, so we still had to keep our distance. Just look at his sleek coat and bulging belly in the image below – he was certainly well fed. There were herds and herds of migrating wildebeest in this area and our driver commented “the supermarket is open” – certainly, this leopard was doing a lot of supermarket shopping! ;)

This next couple of photos, I love:

Here’s a short extract from my journal:

“We followed him [the leopard] for about 2-3 km. On one occasion he ran out from a tree to attack our vehicle, watching him do this through my large lens, close up, gave me two conflicting thoughts simultaneously
1) Sh*t, he’s going to charge, and
2) Excellent, great photo opportunity”

luckily only a mock charge.. and thankfully, got the photos too! ;)

This last one was taken just moments after his mock charge!

Hope you enjoyed this small selection… I promise there will be more to come! ;)

Did you notice a change to my website???? ;-)

I’ve been working with Erika Jessop, a fabulous artist and designer, and she created the PERFECT new logo for me……… I love it!

:-))))))

It’s always great to get together with others that share the same passion – and in this case, our passion is most definitely photography, and you will see from the photos in this post, that we (Vinita, Tineke, Sandra, and me… Tigs!)  like to combine photography with lots of fun and laughter! Do you remember when Vin, Tin and Tigs went to Utrecht?

Btw. I love the way that sounds – Vin, Tin and Tigs – thanks to Sandra for that, since I pinched it from her blog post title ;) I also pinched ‘cheese and laughs’ from Tin’s blog post title, because that sums our day up quite nicely! Hope they don’t mind!

So, where to start… well, this time we all met up in Gouda to visit the cheese market. Whilst wandering the old parts of the city we managed to stumble upon a ’secret garden’ where we had much fun creating self-portraits and pulling silly faces to each other – we’re all big kids at heart! After our play in the secret garden we stopped for lunch at a fabulous bagel shop to feast on delicious bagels and unfortunately we ran out of time to taste their incredibly delicious cheeeeeeesecake that Vinita had been tempting us with for so long, lucky for us, we got it all packed up nicely for us to enjoy back at Vinita’s home :-) yum! I’ve never tasted cheesecake soooo gooooood!

What’s in the bag that Vinita is holding? it’s cheeeeeesecake!!!!! :-)

Yes, here we are in the ’secret garden’ and the sillyness begins………

I think Tin wins the competition of ‘most silly’! lol

Here I am spinning around and around with my new fish eye lens….. do you see Tin and Sandra snapping pics of me in the background..?

Are they really self-portaits..? You betcha! And me likes! ;)

So… here we are at the cheese market, and having fun and laughs with those working there!

Busy busy on the phones..

Tin never stops being silly, never!

See ice cream shop, must buy ice cream – right Tin? ;-)

And back home, to Vinita’s gorgeous son – here he is eating a delicious lollypop – and their gorgeous (and mostly shy) puddy cat, sweet Maffie :-)

Hope you enjoyed my rather large selection of photos… be sure to stop by Vinita, Tin and Sandra’s blogs to see their photos too:

Vinita’s post: http://vinitasalomeblog.com/?p=586
Tineke’s: http://spaghettiphoto.com/blog/?p=375
Sandra’s: http://www.sandra-aartman.nl/blog/?p=245

Till next time……

Ohhh… just look at this little cutie-pie!

Meet the gorgeous Matteo… doesn’t he just make your heart melt?! It took quite some time before he slept, but once he drifted off into dreamland he was a little angel.. let’s take a closer look at those gorgeous lips….

*kiss kiss* :-)

sleep peacefully little angel…

I love this next one, so precious.. ohhh.. those beautiful lips!

and the last one in the sneak peak, here he is safe in daddy’s hands..

I hope you enjoyed them.. I’m smiling a big smile, as I always do when I’m editing newborn photos…!

Thank you to my clients for your patience, I’m a little later than normal with a sneak peek but I’m quickly catching up and there are plenty more beautiful photos arriving in your gallery very soon… I will be in touch!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone! :-)