Our annual pilgrimage to the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in South Africa/Botswana was very successful from a photography point of view in November 2021.
The photography highlight of this period was however a leopard mother with newborn twins that was very difficult to photograph but eventually paid off after 8 days of hard work.
A month during October/November 2022 in the Kgalagadi was very quiet. We had a terrible and scary experience when a veld fire with very strong winds surrounded us at the Rooiputs campsite, where we were the only ones camping that specific night this year. Big parts of the park were severely burnt by the fires.
I participated actively during 2022 in some of the major international photographic competitions (eg UK Natural History Museum WPoTY, NPoTY, BPoTY, Natures Best) and made it into the finals with some images in all of them.
My images were also selected to represent South Africa in the FIAP Biennial and 2022 annual 4-Nations competition between South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Australia (I am also a member of The Australian Photographic Society) selected one of my images in 2021 as part of the Australian portfolio for the same competition that year which Australia actually won.
One of my images was selected as one of the top ten Nature entries of the Africa Photographic Awards 2021.
I am very honoured to have been selected as one of 5 judges for the Photographic Society of America’s Distinction panels. It broadens my horizon regarding the judging of panels.
Most enjoyable was the privilege to visit and photograph aircraft (as a press photographer) at the biggest airshow in the world at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, USA in July of his year. One of my images was selected for the front page of the third biggest aircraft magazine in the world.
More news in a few months’ time….
Johan