Off to South Africa!

My wife and I are finally off to South Africa!  We leave this weekend for Capetown then on to Kruger National Park for a few days of game drives.  We are super excited!

Some of the places we will be visiting are Table Mountain, 

http://www.sa-venues.com/table_mountain.htm

Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden,

http://www.gardens-to-visit.com/2009/02/kirstenbosch-botanical-gardens.html

Robben Island (where Mandela was held),

http://www.south-africa-tours-and-travel.com/apartheid.html

and Cape Point.

http://www.capepointroute.co.za/moreinfoOther.php?aID=112

I'm really looking forward to Cape Point and shooting the Penguin colony they have there.  Just today I heard an interesting story from an acquaintance who was there a few weeks ago that said while at Cape Point, even though there were signs that said "no picnicking", they picnicked and had some unfriendly baboons raid their food.  Apparently the Cape Point Baboons are like bears and will raid anything to get food over there (if you want a good laugh just Google some videos).  Have you seen the size of a Baboons teeth?!  I'll make sure to not have food on me while I'm shooting them...

While in Kruger National Park we will be staying at Ngala Private Game Reserve.

http://www.eyesonafrica.net/south-african-safari/ngala-lodge.htm

Ngala means lion in Shangaan.  Hopefully that's what we will find!  In the past week I've been really excited and doing a lot of research.  I found a blog for the wildlife sightings here that is pretty cool.  We will have a game drive at sunrise and sunset each day.

So stay tuned...I'm sure I will have tons of images for you in a few weeks!

Macro Heaven

So I'm borrowing this macro lens from a friend and I can't put the thing down - I love it.  For those of you who don't know what a macro lens is, it's basically a lens that allows you to get super close to a subject and still focus on it so you get a super shallow depth of field (meaning I can focus on a pin point and have the rest blurry).  It's also for shooting very small subjects.  As you see below, most of these subjects are very small (with the exception of the shell).

Here's a taste of what I've been shooting all week.

This is some kind of Trochus shell from a Southern California beach.

One of my favorites so far - they look like gummy worms.  This is commonly referred to as Coral Jade.

Geranium. 

And of course one of the funnest things to shoot...water drops.

Thanks for stopping by!  There's more to come.