The first time I was allowed out of a vehicle in Africa was when I captured these white rhinos in Namibia. We had been looking for them all morning, and when my driver finally found them it was 11 o'clock in the morning. I had lost the golden light, and the contrasty shadows from a midday sun wasn't ideal. The crash of rhinos were lounging around a group of trees, and you can see the pattern of branches on them. What I really like about this picture, though, is the low perspective from which I was able to shoot. Instead of sitting in a land rover seat 5 or 6 feet above the ground, I took this shot from a bended knee just above ground level. To me, that made all the difference. After I'd taken a few shots, trying to be as quiet as possible because rhinos have very good hearing, one of the huge adults turned my way and started pawing the ground. My driver, who was armed with a rifle, said, Ok, Jim, time to go. I was thinking if he charged, I could roll to my left behind a nearby tree and he'd probably run right past me. But then I thought, that's pretty stupid. I'll do a lot of crazy things for pictures, but dying isn't one of them. So, I grabbed a few more shots and then we quietly walked back to the vehicle which was about 100 yards away. My settings were 1/400, f/5.6, and 200 ISO.
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