Practice Makes Perfect

Many people use their photo gear just once a year and by the time next year's summer break comes along they have forgotten how to handle their cameras and the important lessons they learnt the previous year!

"I once asked a student photographer in one of my workshops how many times a month she was able to get out to shoot, and her response was about once a month. That's only twelve times in a year. I'm sorry, but no one will develop if they only shoot twelve times a year!" -

Mike Moats, professional macro nature photographer

We don't have the money to live in the wilderness and photograph the big-five every day - if only!

So what we do is photograph subjects at the zoo, the Krugersdorp game reserve, the lion park or the rhino and lion park.

For the zoo you will need a tripod but for the other three destinations you will drive around the reserves from enclosure to enclosure and shoot from your vehicle, emulating the conditions you will be facing when visiting the 'real' game reserves like Kruger, Kgalagadi and Etosha.

In addition we photograph subjects at home - our pets (practice panning with running dogs), garden birds (birds in flight) or flowers, insects (practice macro on spiders, beetles etc.) and landscapes (cityscapes).

We are fortunate to stay to the North West of Johannesburg on a ridge so we have a nice view of Sandton to our east, Johannesburg to our south and Fourways to our north providing us with the following photographic opportunities for keeping in practice...

General Cityscapes...

Weather Conditions - Sun, Lightning and Moon...

Advertising - such as the 2010 Soccer World Cup...

Keep in mind that the more you practice your photography the better you will become at it.

If your passion is wildlife and you cannot get to a zoo or the game park then shoot landscapes, ships in the harbor, planes flying overhead - it doesn't matter what you shoot. What does matter is that you keep in practice for the time when you can get to the national parks.

Many international visitors to South Africa combine a holiday in Cape Town or Durban with a big-five safari. If that's the case with you then you have even more opportunities to practice your photography skills before heading for the national parks!

And yes, you will make mistakes, and sometimes you will miss 'that shot' but that's how we learn. Practice makes perfect and if you're not making mistakes you are not practicing enough.

And that leads us to another saying - Perfect Practice Makes Perfect! It's no use practicing your old bad habite - you need to learn what mistakes you are making and then practice not doing them anymore.

And rather make the mistakes when practicing at home than when you are on your expensive photo safari!

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