Stories Behind the Images: Botswana

Pandora Maund shares some of her favorite pictures

Remember the travel photography competition we ran at the end of last year? The overall winner was Pandora Maund (with her stunning image ‘Taken by a Ghost’), which meant she got to join us for free on our recent photo safari in Botswana. “It’s most definitely the best prize I’ve ever won and I was so excited to visit a new area that I was not familiar with but had been on my bucket list of places to visit,” Pandora said. “Although I am a wildlife photographer in the UK and have been on several safaris, I was also delighted that the trip was being accompanied by not one but two Penda photography guides (Alan Hewitt and Mike Dexter), as I was looking forward to seeing their own approach and learning from them.”

Pandora was kind enough to share some of her favorite images from the trip, and the stories behind them.

Elephant Dust Bath

“I find that for me, it is not enough to get a standard shot of a species, and I’m always looking for something that’s a bit different that makes you think about the behaviour of an animal. The elephant dust bath was a great sighting that enabled us to get more creative with our pictures. Focusing was tricky, but the results were worth it, and I was sure to give my camera and lenses a good clean afterwards.

This is one of my favourites and I felt it benefited from a black and white high key edit. I usually do very little editing, just a small crop if required and playing with the highlights and shadows, but I learnt some useful editing tips from Alan and Mike on the trip too that made me a bit more adventurous with some of my editing.”

Technical Details:
Shutter Speed 1/640
ISO:640
F Stop: 7.1

Leopard with Kill

“One of my main hopes for the trip was to be able to photograph a leopard. I’d seen leopards before, but only at a distance and I’d never gotten a decent picture. Whilst staying at Serolo Camp, we often heard their call during the night. One evening, Jou – our guide – said he was sure the female had made a kill not far from the camp, so we jumped in the vehicle and sure enough, Jou found her relaxing after her meal – but it was night and there was no chance of getting a decent picture.

The following evening, we found her in a tree with the remains of her kill, but it was a bit dark for photography. It was the day after that that we got the most amazing sighting. She sat in the long grass, but as we approached she made to go back to the thicket to where she had left her kill and proceeded to eat. Wow – we had the best view and I have so many pictures. This is probably my favourite.”

Technical Details:
Shutter Speed 1/800
ISO:3200
F Stop: 5.9

Brown Hyena

“I wasn’t actually aware of brown hyenas, and I’d certainly never seen one before. They are the rarest of species, only to be found in certain locations. They are slightly smaller than the spotted hyena but have a long shaggy coat, striped legs and larger more pointed ears. It was a privilege to get a sighting of one as even the guides said they rarely saw them on the reserve. The following day, we sighted a male and female pair, so we were extremely lucky.”

Technical Details:
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 1000
F Stop: 4.0

Lilac Breasted Roller with Cricket

“This was taken on our final game drive, when we noticed a roller trying to eat a rather large cricket. As we watched, the bird continued to toss the cricket into the air for several minutes to get into the best position to be able to swallow it, which it eventually did, much to our amazement.”

Technical Details:
Shutter Speed: 1/1600
ISO: 500
F Stop: 6.3

Find out how to join us for a photo safari in Botswana

Pandora’s Kit

“I use OM Systems cameras the OM1 Mk I and MkII. One camera has a 40 – 150mm Pro lens (equivalent to 80 – 300mm on the cropped sensor) with a 1.4x tele converter. The other camera body has the 150 – 600mm lens (equivalent to 300 – 1200mm). I tend to hand hold my camera most of the time for shots but for the longer lens I did sometimes use a mono pod with a speed gimbal which enables me to just lift the camera off to handhold quickly if I wish.”

You can find Pandora’s website here.