What is making the journey to africa with me in April?

Well, its finally Easter and its just a few weeks before my next International workshop, a Safari to Tanzania. I have developed a close personal relationship with my local courier drivers over the last three weeks. From batteries to memory cards and some new gear, the credit card was humming with activity. A few months ago I sold all my Olympus gear and reinvested the money to make the change from "Olympus" to "Nikon and Sigma". Since then I have been building up my new gear while feverishly field testing it as we go.

Thankfully, everything has arrived as planned; and as I sat and looked at everything laying out on the table; I could not help but wonder if it was all going to fit in my bag... but it did... that Think Tank Airporter V2.0 seemed to swallow up my camera gear as if it had magical powers bestowed on it like it originated from Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

My photo safari in Tanzania is 10 days... for 7 days I will be leading a workshop for my company, The Photographer's Lounge, and for 3 days I will be sitting back with my good friend, Gary Simmons in the heart of the Serengeti for a 72 hour marathon shoot  to capture long exposure night photography, golden hour photos and day time safari drives...

For my ten day safari, of which only those last three days will be dedicated to my own photography as I really do not shoot that many shots when I lead a workshop, here is what the Think Tank roller bag swallowed up for me.

Nikon D7000 crop sensor camera and Nikon D600 full frame camera bodies.

battery grip for D7000
6 Nikon EN EL15 batteries
two battery chargers, a small power bar and international power converter
6 - 16gig Sandisk Extreme PRO memory cards
6 - 8gig Sandisk Extreme PRO memory cards
1 - 8gig eyefi card
Laptop and 1 terabyte external hard drive
Monfrotto 290 series tripod with pano head. (Put into my duffle bag that was checked)
Apex mini bean bag
black rapid camera strap
Remote control for cameras
rain cover for my camera and lenses
Photoflex triton flash for night photography
battery pack for triton flash
2 sets of transmitters and receivers for triton flash
Sigma 12-24mm f4.5-5.6 for landscape photos
Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 for walking around and landscape photos
Sigma 70-200 f2.8 for close animals and portrait photos
Sigma 150-500 f5.6-6.3 for the safari drives

Now its a waiting game... the vaccines have been taken, malaria pill prescriptions have been filled and I am proving that watching a clock or counting the days does not make time move faster...

As we enjoy our workshop I will be posting to my blog from various areas such as Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro Conservation Area and the Serengeti. You will be able to get a feel for the areas as we experience them first hand. Look for these posts between April 26th and May 4th, and please check out the photos that are posted on facebook and www.kpepphotography.com after the workshop...

Sorry you could not make it with us this time, but we are headed back to Africa in 2014. Please check out these African workshops here...
Marrakech with Deborah Sandidge in March of 2014
Namibia with Denise Ippolito in April of 2014
Back to Tanzania in November 2014 with my good friend, Mefi and her company, Journey to Africa... contact me for details as we build and price this workshop

Tips For Photographers Headed on a Photo Safari

Photo courtesy of Rick Sammon (www.ricksammon.com)

You’re booked, you’re prepared, and you’re excited… just do not forget to bring your sense of adventure!!!!

Going on safari in Africa is not like going to a zoo. This is the real deal! The animals that you will see are primal in ever sense of the word. They are living their lives in the wild and driven by the need to eat, rest, procreate and exist, and you are trying to find them to capture them in their native habit through your lens.

That means sometimes you don’t see much for a while. It also means, sometimes you come around a tree, and standing right in front of you is an sixteen foot tall giraffe which is so big that as it walks past you, you can actually look up and see the underside of it’s stomach. Or you round a bend and find yourself in the midst of a herd of African Buffalo who are a little ornery because a lion just tried to attack them. Or an even more awe inspiring sight is a small herd of 100,000 wildebeest sits there in front of you… yes, I said a small herd of a 100,000. There are over a million of Wildebeest, Zebra and other species that roam the plains of the Serengeti in an annual migration… smaller herds of 50,000 or 100,000 are quite frequent if you are going there to see this migration. But that’s the beauty of being on safari; you never know what you’re going to experience, or when it’s going to happen.

There is also a different pace to life in Africa. Neither the animals, nor the people are in a rush. Life moves in a more tranquil fashion, a pace more in harmony with nature that somehow fits the scenery. This is a good thing, although to some type A personalities who get frustrated when the line at Tim Horton’s coffee shop takes more then four minutes to get through may find this frustrating, there is one little trick that I have learned from the two times I have been there! At any time during your experience when you start to feel a little out of sorts, take a long deep breath, look around, and think to yourself “I’m in bloody Africa! How cool is this?”

Then just sit back and marvel at the sights and sounds that surround you.

If you have ever wanted to go on an African Safari, check out our African Safari in 2013 to Tanzania with Rick Sammon. http://www.photographers-lounge.com/photo-tours/our-2013-photo-tours/tanzania-photo-tour

Or, if you want to start planning for 2014, check out our three workshops we are running to Tanzania and Namibia with Denise Ippolito. http://www.photographers-lounge.com/photo-tours/our-2014-photo-tours