Anecdotes: Experiences with Photography

[1] After I graduated eighth grade, my family decided to go to the Canadian Rockies and hike in the big national parks there.   The number one animal I wanted to see was a grizzly bear. Most people thought I was nuts for wanting to see a grizzly bear up close, but I was determined.   One day, while we were driving to our hotel at dusk on a deserted road in Banff National Park, we saw a car pull over and a man get out of it with a pair of binoculars.  We wondered what he was looking at, and we immediately saw that it was a large grizzly bear, about 75 meters from the road.  As I excitedly got out of the car, ecstatic that I was finally seeing a grizzly bear, I noticed something was following it.  At first I thought it was a little dog but then realized that it was a coyote.  What was amazing was that this little coyote was following the bear, and trying to steal whatever food the grizzly caught.   While this might not sound that interesting to most people, imagine a midget trying to steal something from Shaquille O’Neal.   This is the best comparison I can think of to describe this scene.   It was amazing to watch this tiny coyote trying to snap at any food that bear had caught, and the bear taking huge swipes with his big claws at the coyote, trying to scare it off.  I noticed my mom was trying to take pictures with her digital camera.   I asked her if I could borrow it, and try to use it.  The moment I looked through the lens I was hooked.  I was fascinated that I could capture different scenes like this in such a small frame.  Although I didn’t know how to use the camera then, photographing my first grizzly was my tipping point into a love of wildlife photography.

[2] When I was a freshman in high school, I began drivers ed.  While taking the class, I was allowed a learner’s permit which allowed me to drive a car with a parent.  One day in the Indiana Dunes, while I was driving with my dad in the passenger seat, I saw a red fox cross the road.  Immediately I jumped out of the car with my camera, trying to chase after it to get a photograph.  Unfortunately, I left the car in gear.   So, while I was chasing after the fox, my dad was frantically lunging across the car to try to prevent the car from swerving off the road.   When I returned, failing to get a picture of the fox, my dad had a very long talk with me about being a safe driver.   This was a funny drivers ed story that I will always remember.   And, while I’ve jumped out of the car countless times to photograph some wildlife, I’ve never again left it in gear.

[3] As I became more interested in photography, I wanted to get better and closer shots of the wildlife I saw.   So I decided to go to a hunting store to buy a bug suit.  A bug suit is a camouflaged suit that covers the entire body; to the untrained eye it looks like a version of the creature from the black lagoon.  My point is that while this suit was good for camouflage, it looked very strange and spooky to someone who didn’t know there was a human inside it.   One day while I was hiking the Indiana Dunes, I decided to try this bug suit out for a couple of hours, and sat down next to the trail.  When I sat down, I noticed that a lot of people passed me but didn’t notice me, because I was so camouflaged.   However, my luck eventually ran out.  One couple was walking and seemed to not notice me until the woman looked over and saw me.  Now, considering that I looked like a sinister monster I can understand what she did next.  She let out a huge scream, grabbed her boyfriend and shrieked, “Look, look, what is that?  It’s some creature!”  After the boyfriend saw me, he said, “Just get behind me, I don’t know what the heck that is!”  Immediately I took off part of the suit and explained to them what was going on.  After they realized what I was doing, they relaxed a bit but still looked at me strangely, as if I was some kind of demented child.   I decided that this was a one-time thing that I could stay in the spot, but would move farther away from the trail.  However, soon another man walked by, with a pair of dogs—I think they were bloodhounds.   They were not on a leash, and immediately started running off trail towards my vicinity.   As soon as the dogs smelled me, they started barking furiously while their owner started questioning them, asking them what they were doing, where they were going, etc.  As soon as he saw, me he went ballistic, and again I had to explain what I was doing.  This is one of my funnier experiences while trying to photograph. I’m just lucky I didn’t do this in hunting season.

[4] A few years ago, I was in Alaska with my dad photographing bears eating salmon in a stream at the Mendenhall Glacier.   One morning we got up at 5:00 am to photograph bears, and went to a bridge where we had seen some bears the day prior.   After about 5 minutes of waiting, we saw a black bear walking up the stream.  As I began getting some great shots of him with my lens, I noticed that he was getting a lot closer.  We wanted to move, but before we knew it, the bear was under the bridge, on the trail right beneath us.  At one point, the bear, about five feet from my dad and me, looked up at us in a kind of curious manner.  At that moment, we both realized how big this animal was and how little we could do if he wanted to attack us.   But this bear was just content with eating the salmon, and continued on his way. We were lucky we weren’t his dessert.

[5] In the summer after I finished 10 grade,  I took a once in a lifetime trip to southern Africa with my family.   While many of the animals I saw there were incredible, of the most interesting were the lions.   In the daytime, these cats were extremely lazy, so lazy in fact that the most they would do is sit up for a moment and yawn, and then go back to sleep.   However, at night, they were very different.   One evening, while we were observing some Cape Buffalo grazing near some water just after sunset, our Range Rover received a radio call that the lion pack were on the prowl.  We immediately raced to their location, and began to follow their movements.   As we were watching them, I couldn’t help but notice how intimidating these lions were, and how helpless I would be if I were walking down the road at night and they came across me.   We realized as we were watching the lions that they were heading towards the Cape Buffalo.  It was amazing to watch as they slowly prowled and then suddenly lunged toward their prey.  While they got close to catching one of the buffalo, it managed to get into the water just in time.  This was a thrilling event, to watch these lions hunting, but frankly, I was rooting for the helpless buffalo at the time.

[6] While we were touring Botswana with another family on a ten day safari trip, we decided to take a break in the afternoon after having gone on a safari in the morning.  A boy in the other family and I decided to go canoeing in a nearby stream (one that was not infested with crocodiles or habituated by hippos).   As we started paddling, I noticed a tiny, little bee-eater—a unique bird that is extremely small and rather hard to photograph because it flies away immediately upon noticing a human’s presence.   I suggested to the boy that I try photographing it while he continued paddling.  After the first attempt to take a picture failed, I suggested we try again.  Little did my companion or I know that we would spend nearly the entire afternoon chasing after this one tiny bird.  He did all the paddling, while I continued to try photographing it.   After finally getting one great shot of the bee-eater flying, with my companion exhausted from paddling, we decided to go back.  We arrived back at camp and realized that we had spent an entire five hours chasing after this single, tiny bird.  I don’t think my companion will forget that experience and neither will I; I’m indebted to him for his patience, humor and strong paddling arms. 

[7] While we were in Zambia, we were returning to camp one night after touring Victoria Falls all day.  Our camp guide had told us that in a nearby national park there were only five rhinos left and one was dying of old age—only four were roaming together.  With our driver, we stopped the car to view some giraffes in the distance.  Suddenly, our driver started getting very excited and said, “This is your lucky day; look at the four rhinoceroses.”  There, right before us, were four beautiful, gigantic white rhinos.  Two things we couldn’t help noticing were three men with machine guns walking next to the rhinos, and that one of the rhinos was missing its horn.  Our driver told us the story of the missing horn.  The men who follow he rhinos with the guns are the hired wildlife protectors.  They are hired specifically to follow the rhinos around to protect them from poachers.  Apparently, though, while the guards were on a tea break, poachers snuck in and killed one rhino and injured this one by cutting off its horn.  Our driver told us that it was almost certainly an inside job –that the guards were paid off to take a tea break at that particular time.  It makes me sad to think that even those who are hired to protect the rhinos can be bribed.  The rhinos really have no protectors.   It’s also sad to think that people are still killing these magnificent animals where they are critically endangered. 

[8]  On our last day in Botswana, we were driving to the airport.  For our entire safari, we had wanted to see a cheetah.  We hadn’t caught even a glimpse of one.  However, this last day would be different.  As we were driving past a herd of impala, all of us were looking at the impala while my sister was looking in the opposite direction.  Suddenly, she started freaking out, trying to get our attention, but in her excitement, no words came out of her mouth.  Finally, she was able to shout what she saw—sneaking across the road on the herd of impala was a cheetah.  The moment we all turned to look for it, we saw a yellow flash.  I have never seen any animal move so fast.  The cheetah was chasing an impala and we raced to follow it in our jeep.  After a short time, we saw the cheetah sitting, tired from chasing the impala.  We immediately started photographing the cheetah.  Our guide radioed in to tell the other jeeps that we spotted a cheetah, and they wanted to race to see it.  There is a rule in Botswana that a max of three jeeps can be on an animal, so as soon as a jeep arrived to view the cheetah, we would have to leave.  However, our guide saved us.  He radioed, ”The Anderson’s have been looking for a cheetah for nearly three weeks now and they took the time to travel to obscure places to find one, so they will get as much time as they want with it. “  We gratefully took tons of photos in the short time we had gazing at this magnificent creature.

[9]   While I was in South Africa, I heard the most dramatic and touching story.  We arrived at a new camp and heard the sad story that a young mother leopard had just lost both of her cubs.   One cub had disappeared two weeks ago and the other cub fell out of the top of a tree trying to escape a male leopard that was attacking it.  The mother had spent the entire two weeks calling her cubs with no response.  The call was so sad and forlorn.  Everyone in camp was sure they were dead.  The very next day we received a radio call of a leopard sighting.  When we arrived at the scene, we saw the beautiful sight of this young mother leopard with both of her cubs.  No one knew how or when they found each other, but somehow they did, and the young family was once again a happy family.   

[10]  While in Botswana, we witnessed a wild dog hunt.  We followed a large pack of wild dogs as they left their den for their evening hunt.  They were focused, flanking off to the sides to cover as much territory as the pack could cover.  We got ahead of them in our jeep and spotted a little Steembok right in their path.  We ached for the little creature, knowing it didn’t have a chance against the pack.  Suddenly, the Steembok seemed to disappear and all we saw was a small round rock.  In defense, the Steembok hunches down and freezes so it blends with the landscape and simply looks like a rock.  The wild dogs approached and to our amazement, passed within a few feet of the Steembok, not realizing it was there.  We couldn’t believe our eyes.  A pack of 30 wild dogs had not seen or smelled the Steembok.  We discovered later that evening that Steembok means “red rock”.  We thought that name was quite fitting.

[11]  In the Indiana Dunes there is a rare little owl called the Saw-whet Owl.  It passes through the dunes twice a year for only a week or so.  It is the size of a person’s fist and extremely difficult to find.  It is also very camouflaged, and unlike other owls, when a human is close to it, it freezes so it is not spotted. I spent an hour looking for this little owl in a small cluster of trees.  I was just about to give up, and began talking on the phone with a photography buddy, when I happened to glance up and there, right above my head, was a Saw-whet Owl.  I guess this shows that even the most difficult things to see can be right in front of your eyes.