Dates: Leave home on April 28, 2014 and arrive home on May 7th, 2014
Locations: Ngorongoro Crater, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Serengeti national Park, Arusha
Attendees: Minimum of 6, maximum of 12
Fitness Level: Minimal physical activity involved in this photo tour. Some minor walks if you choose to take them.
Price: $4750
Single Supplement: $450
Deposit Required to secure spot: $750
Pro Photographer Guides: Kevin A Pepper
Our goal is to answer all of your questions while we spend our time together in Africa. But because of the nature of this photography safari, the key learning opportunities will be on:
Apertures & Shutter Speeds: We will discuss the different modes on your camera and the effect your aperture and shutter setting have on your images.
Composition: Learn how to improve your photography by applying ‘rules’ of composition.
Long Exposure: With th eopportunity to shoot at night under the full moon and at other various locations you will practice long exposure blue hour and night tiem photography.
Autofocus & Techniques: Here you learn how to keep the focus on your subject whether taking a landscape image or photographing action!
Digital Darkroom: A Photographers Lounge photo tour is the perfect opportunity for any photographer to refine their post processing skills.
Itinerary
April 29th, 2014
Our guides will pick you up at the airport when your International flight lands and we will begin our safari together.
We will be taken to our Lodge for the night, , the River Tree Lodge. River Trees has long been our first choice as the beginning point for most of our safaris in Northern Tanzania. It has the friendly relaxed atmosphere of
someone's home (because part of it still is) yet manages to provide good service and simple home cooked food to a high standard.
April 30th, 2014
We head to the Ngorongoro Crater. This area has some of the highest animal diversity in a relatively small area. One of the reasons is the year round water and abundant food.
Lake Magadi one of the water sources is an alkaline lake [due to its bed of sodium carbonate] located on the crater floor. The lake supports thousands of flamingos and other birds. Here are greater and lesser flamingo mingling, along with some other birds. The greater flamingo is larger and has a pink bill with a black tip. A filter feeder, it preys on invertebrates which it shifts from the bottom mud using its bent bill. Lesser flamingos, recognizable by their darker bills, primarily eat spirulina, a blue-green algae found in the shallows
of alkaline lakes.
Home to nearly 25,000 animals, a game drive gives you a very real chance of spotting the big five: lion, elephant, endangered black rhino, buffalo and leopard.
We will return to the Plantation Lodge for a night of going through our photos and you will see a slide show of the adventure we are about to embark on in the Serengeti National Park and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area.
Plantation Lodge is set on a working coffee farm outside Karatu, less than an hour away from Ngorongoro Crater gate. This small intimate lodge with a great eye for detail has only 16 rooms allowing the owner, Renate Marahens to keep up with her high service level. The elegant rooms, each with a different decor, have
large beds, spacious bathrooms and verandah [patio]. Plantation Lodge has a swimming pool from where you can enjoy the lovely surrounding landscape after your game drive.
The food prepared at Plantation Lodge is delicious with most of the produce coming fresh from their own garden or the many farms from the surrounding area.
May 1st, 2014 to May 3rd, 2014
On our drive out to the Serengeti we will stop at a Masai village and spend some time with the people in the village, learn about their culture and photograph the juvenile males performing their famous jumping dance and throwing spears on the open planes. Have your cameras ready… the opportunities to photograph the Masai tribe is a wonderful experience.
After we leave the village you will quickly realize that you can spend days in the 6,000 sq. miles ecosystem [the size of Connecticut] and every day is a different day. There is the predator and prey relationship you want to keep a look out for, the constant grunting hippos to admire, the colorful small birds to large flying birds you want to see take flight over the skies, Serengeti's daily activities can never tire you. From the large groups of lions to the lone working leopard spying from the tree, the constantly migrating 1.5
million wildebeest and 0.5 million zebras have constant companions. With them the hyenas and vultures are never far away. If we are lucky, we will spot the endangered black rhino.
In 2013 we were lucky enough to drive through a large heard of 500,000 wildebeest and witness a family of lions feast on a wildebeest that they just killed while staying in this area. In addition to this we had tracked a family of Cheetah and spent the morning photographing a mother Cheetah and four of her cubs playing in the woodlands and fields.
After our drive and numerous photo opportunities, our group will arrive at Ndutu Lodge. This is one of the oldest and more popular lodges in Southern Serengeti used by documentary photographers because of the location (built in the 60s) but a well-kept one under the management hence requiring an advance booking.
Their emphasis is not on the frills (though the rooms have been updated and are very comfortable) but location, location, location.
For the next three nights, Ndutu Lodge will be your home. Situated in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in the southern short grass plains of the Serengeti ecosystem lays Ndutu Lodge. Standing amongst acacia woodland near Lake Ndutu, the 34 stone cottages sit unobtrusively in the wilderness, offering the quintessential setting for the experiencing the peace of the Serengeti.
During this time of year, the wildebeest and zebras have finished calving around the Southern Serengeti plains. With them, the resident and migratory cats and hyenas follow. Lake Ndutu offers the many resident animals and birds a permanent water source which makes Ndutu Lodge a wonderful place to stay any
time of the year.
Their motto - Don't expect five stars. From our campfire, you'll see millions!
May 4th, 2014 – May 5th, 2014
Central Serengeti is known as Cat Central. From here if lucky, you will get to see the lions on kopjes which are the huge rock outcrops that pop all over the Serengeti area. These are volcanic rocks left-over after the volcanic eruption that happened a million years ago that blew the Ngorongoro Mountain top crating
the Ngorongoro Crater.
Our accommodation for the next two nights is the lodge of, Serengeti Serena. Serengeti Serena Lodge is located adjacent to the world-renowned Western Corridor & Grumeti River. Within an hour, you can be in wooded Northern Serengeti or Central Serengeti's Seronera River Valley or as some like to call it - the cat
central!.
The 14,763-square km area is home to a million wildebeest - the dominant herbivore but also the main prey of predators as they continually roam in search of fresh grasslands for survival.
Cooled by groves of acacia trees and watered by streams, Serengeti Serena Lodge attracts game close to guests who can even watch what's happening on the plains below from the cool of the rim-flow pool at the lodge
Last year we spotted the rare African Leopard, numerous lions, hippos, huge herds of elephants and other African animals that you will want in your portfolio.
May 6th, 2014
Must all good things come to an end? This will be your thought when you are having breakfast overlooking Serengeti and you take your final photos as we head to the airstrip.
Say kwaheri [good-bye] in the late morning [around 10:30 am] to your guide and fly to Kilimanjaro Airport.
Day room provided at KIA lodge, 1 km from the airport before you transfer to Kilimanjaro Airport for your flight home.
More workshop details
You will have 4x4 Land Cruisers with viewing hatches for optimum game viewing. Each vehicle is equipped with two-way radios as well as cell phones that keep track of your well-being every step of the way. You will enjoy the room, having capped the number of photographers in each vehicle to 3. This way you get the
benefits of viewing animals from both sides of the land cruiser in your own row.
Your guides will offer a wealth of safari experience, amazing you with his observation skills, knowledge of flora and fauna and enthusiasm in spotting animals hidden behind the grasses of the Savannah.
Every day we will carve out time to go through images individually, and with the group to maximize the feedback. This will ensure you come back with the best possible images you will be able to create.
Included
in your Safari:
- All transfers as mentioned
- Accommodations as per itinerary
- All meals included on Safari
- Bottled water when driving in the parks
- All the Conservation and Park fees as per itinerary [* Special Ngorongoro Conservation and Serengeti Park fees when staying at Ndutu Lodge]
- Ngorongoro vehicle levy fee for 1 entry
- Tanzanian Driver /Guide for Safari
- Vehicles – 4x4 Land Cruiser with cell phones with no mileage limit (maximum 3 photographers per vehicle)
- Special Activities - Coffee Plantation walk when at Plantation Lodge and a visit to a Masai village
- Flight from Serengeti to Kilimanjaro Airport [taxes included] - Temporary evacuation subscription
[Your pre-departure package on the receipt of your deposit of $700 per person of the Safari will contain all the necessary documents that will prepare you for your Safari.]
Not included in the Price:
- Safari activities not mentioned, visas, International Flights [we recommend making arrangements through Journey to Africa],
-local Airport taxes and security fees (if applicable)
- Phone, tips to driver-guides, porter, bartender, etc.,
- Travel Insurance and purchase of personal items and souvenirs.
Contact Information
To book your spot on this photography tour please contact the tour company in Houston, Texas that arranged this trip for us. They can also give you a breakdown on the costs for this tour if you require. Their contact information is as follows:
Journey to Africa
Toll Free: 1.877.558.6288 (America only)
Direct Number: 1.713.592.6228 (Outside United States)
Email Address:
Info@JourneyToAfrica.com
To get your questions answered in regards to the photographic details only please contact:
Kevin Pepper
Phone Number: 519 620 9185
Email Address:
kevin@photographers-lounge.com
