Giraffes by Starlight by markg

My favourite thing to do at Mara Bushtops in Africa, was to go on a night time game drive. It was quite a surreal experience really. The vehicles are fitted out with a special filtered spotlight so it doesn startle the animals when shone on them, and also an night vision camera. Now being an astrophotographer, I had a certain goal in mind, and that was to capture the wildlife under the night sky. It certainly isn the easiest thing to do, as you need an animal that is big enough to show up in frame, and they need to be standing still for at least part of the exposure time.

We decided giraffe would be the be subject for this photo, so we went out on to find some willing participants. As we found out finding giraffe isn the easiest thing to find at night, but after driving for around 30 minutes, we finally came across a herd. But this herd was a little reluctant to stand still, and every time I put my camera over the side of the truck to get a shot, the giraffes moved on. Finally about another 30 minutes later, we came across another herd that were out in a grassy plain. These giraffes were a lot happier to stay still and one was even sitting down in the grass. Ever so carefully trying not to disturb the giraffes, I lowered my camera and tripod over the side of the truck to get a shot. They seemed curious to what we were doing, and to my amazement, the giraffes stayed relatively still for the entire exposure of the shot. I managed to get 5 shots, and this one was the best of the bunch with all giraffes, except for the one on the left, staying perfectly still for the entire exposure.

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