Giraffe in the Mara

I took this shot on my very first African safari in 1994. I was in the Masai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya, and on the first afternoon I photographed cheetahs at a kill, a pride of lions in the grass in sunset light, and this beautiful scene with a giraffe stretching its neck to feed on an acacia tree. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I tell clients who travel with me to Africa that closeups of animals and birds are great, but don't forget to include the environment as well. African landscapes are beautiful, and they give context. Often, too, skies are dramatic and they add visual impact to the images. I shot this with medium format film back then, and while the settings were unrecorded, I used to shoot the same way most of the time based on the light. This shot was probably taken at 1/250, f/8, and on safari I always used Fujichrome Provia 100 because it was one f/stop faster than Fujichrome Velvia 50 (in those days, we never dreamed of having the capability of shooting with high ISO settings). I believe I used a 250mm lens on my Mamiay RZ 67 which is equivalent to a 135mm lens in the 35mm digital format.