After our opera festival in Botswana, we took a three-day camping safari at Kruger National Park in northeastern South Africa.  It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. And yet my photos just don’t seem to capture it.  Why not?  Here are my top 10 reasons:

10. The animals are usually walking away. (Was it something I said?)

 

 

 

9. It’s impossible to get a photo that does justice to an African sunset… or an African sunrise. The orange-gold color is emblazoned forever in your mind, but not in your digital library.

 

 

 

 

 

8. Giraffes are the ultimate photo-bombers. (What you lookin’ at?)

7. If the animals are sleeping or hiding, it’s more fun to take pictures of your friends goofing around inside an open-top vehicle. (It was a very windy day.)

 

6. When a monkey jumps in your car and steals your food, you start yelling at him, and you almost forget to grab the camera.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. It’s hard to believe that these beautiful wild animals are right there… almost close enough to touch…

 

 

 

 

 

4. … but if you stop to blink, they’re gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. The night shot you take of a baby elephant crossing the road with his mother in the moonlight doesn’t come out at all.  So you have to use one from the daytime, which just isn’t as magical.

 

 

 

 

 

2. As you drift off to sleep, you can hear lions roaring, hippos grunting, crickets chirping, and hyenas laughing outside your tent — but no photograph in the world can communicate how it feels to hear those sounds, so you just take a picture of the campfire instead.

1. Then at last, after three days of waiting to see a lion, you suddenly catch this soulful expression from behind some tall grass… and you almost stop breathing!