TOP MAY PICKS: Sunday Times Lifestyle/Green Life Photographer of the Year Awards
Sunday Times | 26 May, 2012 15:46
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Photograph by: Mike Walsh
WINNING IMAGE: A herd of hundreds of springbok walk into an ambush by a female cheetah and her three sub-adult cubs. Taken by Mike Walsh in March near Mata-Mata Rest Camp, Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. The cheetah is the world’s fastest land mammal. It preys mostly on medium-sized antelope like impala and springbok. The high point of the hunt takes place when the cheetah strikes its quarry with a blow to its rear, the impact often sending both animals hurtling through the air. The masterful hunter will then grab the prey’s throat, and suffocate it.
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Photograph by: Mike Walsh
COMMENDED BY THE JUDGES: The judges were so impressed by May winner Mike Walsh’s entries that they felt compelled to also commend his image of a pearl-spotted owlet feasting on a hapless gecko. “This owl perched above our roof rack every morning. On this occasion it was killing and eating a newly captured gecko,” says Walsh, who took this shot in Zimbabwe’s Mana Pools National Park in October.
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Photograph by: Warren Keith Dick
READERS’ CHOICE: This image of an eyed-flower mantid had Green Life readers abuzz and was voted as the most popular image for April on our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/stgreenlife). “When creating a sci-fi movie, you don't have to look any further than God's awesome creation,” says Warren Keith Dick. He took the shot in his Durban garden. “These are really common in gardens, however seldom seen due to their camouflage.”
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Photograph by: Rainer von Brandis
CONCERNED SEA CITIZEN: This tawny nurse shark appears to be reading the “toxic-warning” label on a drum that was thoughtlessly discarded in a Seychelles coral reef, early May. By Rainer von Brandis.
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Photograph by: Stuart Bellamy
OLD AS TIME: Landscape photographer Stuart Bellamy woke up early one March morning last year to catch the sunrise at Deadvlei, Namibia. “This is an unbelievable place. I found a composition that used the dead camel-thorn trees in a triangular shape as the sun hit the back dune.”
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Photograph by: Isak Pretorius
LEAP OF FAITH: Crossing the Mara river is the most dangerous time of year for the 1.5 million wildebeest that migrate across East Africa’s grass plains. “The river is full of hungry crocodiles; it’s also deep and fast-flowing. Many wildebeest drown, often jumping straight into the water from high cliffs. I tried to capture the mood, and each animal’s different approach to entering the water,” says photographer Isak Pretorius.
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Photograph by: Geraldine Mullon
JEWEL OF THE WILD: Geraldine Mullon did a masterful job of highlighting the beauty of the insect kingdom by capturing this shimmering green critter in macro detail.
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Photograph by: Isak Pretorius
EYE CLEANER: Isak Pretorius snapped this image near Swakopmund, Namibia, in April last year. “I was lucky to find a web-footed gecko on the dunes in the morning mist. They are nocturnal, and I knew I didn't have much time before the sun would force this gecko underground. I slowly approached it with my macro lens, he licked the moisture off his eyes and then dug his way into the protection of the sand.”
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Photograph by: David Richardson
STING: David Richardson from Bantry Bay went moseying about Devil’s Peak, Cape Town, in January last year. His mission? “I went out that day intending to find scorpions. I spent several hours turning over rocks and logs until I found this specimen – a common burrowing scorpion,” he recalls.
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Photograph by: Nic Andrew
KING OF DARKNESS: Nineteen-year-old Nic Andrew took this arresting black-and-white portrait of a “massive” male lion in Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Nature Reserve, KwaZulu-Natal, in April. “The lion stared intently into the distance as another's roar echoed down the riverbed. A spotlight was used as the lighting source, instead of a flash, as it helped to emphasise the darkness.”
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Photograph by: Aaron Gekoski
TORTOISE MAFIA: An endangered radiated tortoise looking out over a cliff in Lavanono, Madagascar. According to Aaron Gekoski, a new threat awaits Madagascar's five endemic tortoise species: the “tortoise mafia”, who are exporting them "in their millions" for Asia’s exotic pet trade.
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Photograph by: Lauren Geldenhuys
PUFF, THE MAGIC ADDER: While surfing Pringle Bay, Lauren Geldenhuys saw what looked like a “strange” piece of “seaweed” swimming towards her. An hour later, she came close enough to see it was a 1.5m puff adder resolutely fighting a riptide. It eventually slithered ashore, where Geldenhuys captured it on film. “Then I called Cape Nature – Puffy seemed a little disorientated by her long, cold swim.”
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Photograph by: Fiona Fourie
LAUGHING ZEBRAS: Fiona Fourie was lucky enough to stumble across these playful zebras in the Riemland Eco Park, Free State, in March. “They did not mind me,” she says. “It seems like they were sharing a good joke!”
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Photograph by: Mary Hunter
RAW DEAL: A black-backed jackal at the scene of an abandoned lion kill in the Addo Elephant National Park, Eastern Cape, in July. Photographer Mary Hunter has dedicated this image to “all the jackals that are caught in gin traps. Gin traps should be outlawed”.
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Photograph by: Frank Haymann
FLIGHT OF FANCY: Egyptian geese fly in perfect formation over their water home in Alberton’s Rondebult Nature Reserve. By Frank Haymann.
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Photograph by: Geraldine Mullon
HOT BIRD: A yellow ladybird, by Geraldine Mullon. As cute and tiny as they are, ladybirds are also formidable bodyguards of the bush, apprehending and destroying plant pests like aphids wherever they go.
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Photograph by: Percy Mitchell
PLAY AS YOU GO – “The wild dogs had just made a kill and were busy feeding,” says Percy Mitchell. “I alighted from the vehicle and spent an hour and a half with this pack of 18 wild dogs in Mana Pools, Zimbabwe (you are allowed on foot here). I made sure I remained outside their comfort zone and they accepted me. The privilege of capturing images of these “painted warriors”, as I call them, is one of my photographic highlights.”
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Photograph by: Lucas Jansen van Vuuren
SPLASHING OUT: A water thick-knee shakes brilliantly while taking a bath in Sunset Dam, Kruger National Park. The photograph captures a feather that dislodged from its plumage in mid-air. By Lucas Jansen van Vuuren.
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Photograph by: Brian Welman
POTATO FAMINE: Shot at Manta Reef near Inhambane, Mozambique, in January. A potato bass, surrounded by glass fish. The potato bass is a “red-listed, no-sale” species in South Africa – this means it is threatened, and illegal to sell or buy the species anywhere in the country. By Brian Welman.
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Photograph by: Claire Butler
BLOOM WITH A VIEW: A southern double-collared sunbird rests on a stalk in between feeding on flowers at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens taken by Claire Butler.
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Photograph by: Ryan Green
CUB DETECTIVE: This hyena den in Botswana’s Moremi Game Reserve was a huge attraction for photographers, but Ryan Green says he wanted to capture something different – from a hyena cub’s perspective. So he put his camera on a beanbag about 10m from the den, attached a remote trigger, and disguised it all with elephant dung. When the cubs emerged, the clicking pile of dung attracted their curiosity for a few moments, allowing Green to shoot some frames.
OUR latest batch of entries represent a varied and vivid exploration of Africa’s mesmerising natural charisma. While vast swathes of the continent are, no doubt, creaking under the weight of human consumption, our May entries prove just how much wildness there still is to celebrate, to inspire — and to conserve.
But it was Mike Walsh from Cape Town who most impressed the judges this month. His image of a springbok herd under siege by four cheetahs bags him R5 000 in cash, courtesy of the Sunday Times. This makes Walsh our photographer of the month, which also puts him in the running to become the Sunday Times Lifestyle/Green Life Photographer of the Year, to be announced in December. The year’s overall winner and two runners-up will win amazing photographic equipment worth R140 000, courtesy of Canon. For more prize details and info on how to enter, visit www.facebook.com/stgreenlife and click on the “like” button at the top of the page, or visit
Here are our top May picks, including the Reader’s Choice image, as voted by Green Life’s Facebook fans.
