Interview with a Wildlife Photographer

SA-Venues.com talk to Dave Estment, intrepid wild­life pho­to­grapher based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Q:
What first inspired you to pick up a camera?

A:
Racing Superbikes, strangely enough! I raced pro­fes­sion­ally from 1979 – 1985, so got to know some of South Africa’s top motor­s­port pho­to­graph­ers, from the other side of the lens. Later this led to work­ing with them on test rides for motor­ing magazines and the odd TV show, even­tu­ally being invited to join the South African Guild of Motoring Journalists as a pho­to­grapher myself. It was a nat­ural pro­gres­sion from there into my other pas­sion, wild­life, and then on into com­mer­cial photography.

Q:
I see the need for the cap­tion to that pic! Before mov­ing on, do you have any par­tic­u­lar high­lights to share with us about racing?

A:
One of the best was rep­res­ent­ing South Africa in New Zealand in the 6 hour International endur­ance race in which I broke the cur­rent lap record by some mar­gin. Two other high­lights were rep­res­ent­ing the coun­try in the World Championship 250 Moto GP in 1984 and 1985. Being South African it was a bit of a wangle to pull it off due to the apartheid-based sanc­tions insti­tuted against us. Regrettably these brought a pre­ma­ture end to my racing career, along with many other sports­men and women at the time.

Q:
So it’s all over between you and motorbikes?

A:
(hearty laugh) Ask any racer ... that’s an affair that’s never over! Although my wife Naomi is in close con­ten­tion . Actually, I still race com­pet­it­ively in the National Enduro Championship, and have recently been sponsored by Pro-Action/KTM, so my worn old bod is into a hec­tic train­ing sched­ule, over­seen by the ulti­mate coach, Russell White, who’s based in Ballito and trains some top ath­letes around the world.

Q:
Come on, your bod can’t be that worn?

A:
You may be sur­prised ... after break­ing over 50 bones in about as many years ... but enough of that, let’s talk photography!

Q:
Okay, mov­ing on ... pre­sum­ably "as one door closes (mean­ing racing), another opens", as in photography?

A:
For sure, pho­to­graphy has been a pas­sion ever since, and you’ve used an apt phrase, because it has con­sist­ently opened doors for me. A recent example is that we’ve been invited to join Hills of Africa Travel this month as the offi­cial pho­to­graphic team on their phe­nom­enal "Soul Safari" with Ainslie MacLeod, which includes four nights at Madikwe Safari Lodge and another four at the Twelve Apostles Hotel in Cape Town!

Q:
That sounds fab­ulous. Is pho­to­graphy your primary pro­fes­sion now?

A:
No, it never has been. Fortunately I’ve man­aged to main­tain it along­side my cor­por­ate career, which was neces­sary to fin­ance all the equip­ment and time off! Thanks to being a reas­on­ably well-known sports­man and trus­ted (I hope!), I was recruited into fin­an­cial ser­vices and asset man­age­ment after racing. This spanned twenty years, before branch­ing into com­mer­cial property.

Q:
Would it be true then to say that you pho­to­graph more for pleas­ure than pay?

A:
Yes, in the sense that I do it for the love of it, espe­cially wild­life and motor­s­port pho­to­graphy, although a sig­ni­fic­ant amount has been pur­chased by image lib­rar­ies and pub­lic­a­tions over the years. I’ve also con­trib­uted pro bono many times to the likes of the Endangered Wildlife Trust and BirdLife South Africa. Here’s an unusual sequence that was pub­lished in the recent BirdLife SA book, fea­tur­ing a fish eagle attempt­ing to steal a fish from a saddle-billed stork, shot at the Okavango Delta.

Having said all that, my com­mer­cial pho­to­graphy provides much cre­at­ive and fin­an­cial ful­fill­ment too. This extends to com­mis­sioned shoots incor­por­at­ing product, events, archi­tec­ture, aer­ial, sur­gical and other genres.

Q:
What would rate as your favour­ite genre?

A:
Definitely wild­life, because of what it entails. Naomi and I love to explore the Southern African bushveld and have done so extens­ively for over a dec­ade. One of my old­est friends, Peter Bean (whose fam­ily owns Schotia Safaris in the Eastern Cape), and I grew up run­ning free on their farm (caus­ing tons of stress for his folks! ). This instilled an early pas­sion for the bush and also res­ul­ted in us doing our pro­fes­sional hunt­ing course together.

Q:
Isn’t hunt­ing at odds with pho­to­graphy and con­ser­va­tion val­ues in general?

A:
Not when it’s prac­ticed with care and aware­ness, in which case it engenders a deep respect for wild­life and the envir­on­ment, while at the same time acknow­ledging the human role within the world (as opposed to being sep­ar­ated from or super­ior to it). My belief is that there is no "Us and Them", only "Us".

Q:
Even when faced with poten­tially dan­ger­ous, close encoun­ters in the wild?

A:
More than ever. Those form the most pre­cious memor­ies ... like the half hour we spent with an ele­phant on the mat in our camp­site, eat­ing fallen seed pods from over­hanging trees in the Okavango Swamps ... or one bump­ing our tent in the middle of the night. Little com­pares to wild lions walk­ing through your camp­site and roar­ing at sun­set, or a snake unex­pec­tedly cross­ing your path. Without want­ing to sound reck­less, fear should not be a factor in any­thing you do, or you run the risk of panic and disaster.

Q:
Sound advice. So you like snakes?

A:
Love them! Here’s a little snip­pet with an African Rock Python which Naomi filmed in the Waterberg. Incidentally, I once ordered a Burmese python to keep at home, but my wife put her pro­ver­bial foot down, partly because of our 2-month old Norwegian Forest kit­ten ... prob­ably wise, but don’t pub­lish that!

Q:
Another case of "DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!" You and the python were both obvi­ously fine, but have you had any close calls in the bush?

A:
Some ... mostly caused by sur­pris­ing anim­als unin­ten­tion­ally, such as the odd ele­phant, lions or hippo. Here’s a short sequence of an ele­phant chas­ing down a vehicle which acci­dent­ally got between it and the Khwai River in the Okavango Delta. I shot this from our roof-rack, with Naomi in the driv­ing seat, hold­ing the video cam­era. She got such a fright that she dropped it, so sadly no video is avail­able

Talking about close calls, per­haps I should admit to my own faux pas, which involved a chain-saw, also at the Khwai River. Fortunately we had some local anes­thetic, sutures, etc. and an ortho­paedic sur­geon in camp, who stitched me up, after a fash­ion. I’ll leave the details to your ima­gin­a­tion, but here's the "after" photo ...

Q:
Enough said! What is your favour­ite wild­life place?

A:
Wow, there are loads, each with their own unique attrac­tion. Botswana fea­tures strongly, espe­cially the Okavango Delta and Central Kalahari Desert, which we call "Big Sky Country". We love doing the sur­viv­al­ist thing, tak­ing all our own pro­vi­sions — food, water, you name it — and head­ing out into the wil­der­ness. On the other hand, we’ve been priv­ileged to visit private lux­ury lodges like Londolozi (supreme leo­pard sight­ings), Welgevonden (where my brother owns a share in a lodge) and Thanda (exquis­ite accom­mod­a­tion), amongst oth­ers. Schotia Safaris is very close to my heart, par­tic­u­larly their spec­tac­u­lar lions ... oh, and not to for­get Kenya. The migra­tion on the Masai Mara is per­haps the pin­nacle of the African wild­life exper­i­ence. Sorry, I can’t pick a favour­ite! Here are some images instead:

Q:
These are beau­ti­ful and pin sharp! Do you have any tips for our read­ers on equip­ment to use and how to achieve this?

A:
Personally, I’m a ded­ic­ated Nikon user. I really rate the rugged reli­ab­il­ity and tech­no­lo­gical excel­lence of their products. My arsenal of gear includes their D3 body and 9 pro­fes­sional lenses, ran­ging from a 600mm f4 AFS VR super-telephoto lens to a 14–24 mm f2.8 AFS wide-angle lens, plus all the ancil­lary kit, includ­ing Manfrotto tri­pods, Lowepro bags, etc. Apart from the obvi­ous issues of com­pos­i­tion and light­ing, I con­sider steady hands, fast reflexes and a crit­ical eye as my key factors for success.

Q:
A for­mid­able com­bin­a­tion ... well, you clearly spend a lot of time in the bush. Apart from that, your pho­to­graphy, racing and work, do you get to do much else?

A:
(chuckle) If I had a closet fear, it would be bore­dom ... so yes, which include being a Dad and Grandpa, doing a num­ber of dif­fer­ent sports, sky diving (long ago), scuba diving (I'm a NAUI instructor, although I no longer have time to teach), trav­el­ing, snow ski­ing, police reserve work, S.W.A.T. training ...

Q:
We get the pic­ture! But now that you’ve whetted our appet­ites, we want to see more of your pic­tures ... are they avail­able online, and if so, where?

A:
Absolutely and thank you for ask­ing

Our pho­to­graphic com­pany is called Outdoor Video & Photographic and the offi­cial web­site is www.ovandp.co.za.

Otherwise, Naomi’s blog fea­tures a selec­tion of my wild­life pho­to­graphy, together with the philo­sophy it inspires, which is quite a spe­cial com­bin­a­tion. This can be found in the "Thought for the Day" cat­egory at Naomi’s Notes.

Please browse these sites, but feel free to con­tact us if you’re look­ing for some­thing spe­cific as we have masses more images off-line. Our con­tact details are as follows:

Email: dave.e@mweb.co.za or mobile: +27 (0)82 882‑7272
Email: naomi.e@mweb.co.za or mobile: +27 (0)83 307‑7694