Skimmer,
I don't know if my comments would be as welcome here as on a photography forum so please don't take offense to my comment. Your photographs would appear much better if you find another copyright prtection format. The one you are using is awful and really detracts from the subject.
Ted

P.S.
What in the World is the reason for this silly post and who gives a d@mn
about your pixelpower controversy.
Ted

I think I saw a thread once along the lines of 'What brings you back to Africa?' - I think I have my answer now: no matter what you see on your last trip you always think you could have seen more and taken better photos, especially when you see wonderful photos like these (and many others posted here)!

Ted,

I am not offended by your comment after all their is freedom of speech.

The watermark like it is embedded, is the way I intended it to be.

Looking at your second post it seems that you like to provoke ... well I am not gonna play your game.

Greetz,

Johan

Great photos are always, Johan.

I was planning a return to Botswana this month, but a couple of things got in the way.

Do you have any aerial photos of the extent of the fire?

Cheers
R

Well Simmer,
You should look further. I doubt anyone would want to steal your pics
:=)
Ted

Russell,

I don't have any aerial pictures of that.

I have never seen that much fires as this year:

- the all area around Shorobe was on fire;
- fires started from NG32 came as close as one kilometer from Chitabe;
- We were driving through the Chobe forest for two hours and all we saw were burned grasses/trees. The fires were actually burning next to the road (Namibian border - Kasane);
- big fires also around Jedibe and near Xakanaka.


Ted,

I don't know who you are but according to your previous posts on this forum your presence here don't seem to add much value. So bother someone else with your stupidity.

WOW,
Hey Bud-you have some attitude problem and talk about a thin skin
(note: smiley face)
Ted

Temba,

It appears you have changed your spots

Author: Temba
Date: 08/10/2008, 06:09 am
Author: sniktawk
Date: 08/10/2008, 01:16 am
I only posted these to see if anyone on this forum was interested in Wildlife, the lack of responses speaks for itself.

I'm still very new to this forum but Geez, this guy is really too much. Why does he bother to post here at all-only negative comments and very rude.
Ted


Welcome to the grumpy old mens club.

Johan

As always your pictures are very good and some are great, I particularly like the Baclit Red Lechwe, but what do I know!

Ken,

I didn't have a problem with his/her (you can never be sure these days) first remark but given the tone of his/her second post it was obvious that he/she was trying to provoke.

Looking at his/her previous posts, it seems that he/she didn't add any valuable info to existing threads. So I was just wondering why he/she was posting here. Well he/she may probably have his/her reasons ...

Greetz,

Johan

Thanks, Joahn.

After seeing how high the grasses were in April/May, the fires are no great surprise...........

Alwyn is on a few mobiles so will pester him for an update soon......

Date: 08/10/2008, 06:09 am
Author: sniktawk
Date: 08/10/2008, 01:16 am
I only posted these to see if anyone on this forum was interested in Wildlife, the lack of responses speaks for itself.

I'm still very new to this forum but Geez, this guy is really too much. Why does he bother to post here at all-only negative comments and very rude.
Ted
Snicktawk, looks like you just proved my point.
Ted
P.S. What the He@@s a Snik?

Russell,

I met Bleu in Johannesburg early June and she told me that Alwyn was gonna do some mobiles.

It seems that most countries in Africa have serious problems with fires this year.

I'll be back in Botswana in November and hopefully the rains have already arrived by then. It seems that the CGKR in particular suffered from the fires.

Best regards,

Johan

Johan,

you not only found Elephant's heaven,also lion´s heaven,leopard´s heaven,wild dog´s heaven.....etc great trip.

And very nice collection of pictures ,as usual.Very hard to pick favorites,i like many.

Paco.

Johan, lovely photos. Looks like you had a great trip. Seeing your pictures makes me want to hop on a plane

I understand your copyright issues but it does make it a little harder to get the full effect of your images. Too bad photographers have to deal with people stealing their images. I don't think most people realize a photo taken by someone else is copyrighted by the person that took the image, even if it doesn't have a copyright notice on it.

I've been on two mobile safaris in the areas you were. Once with Ewen's father in law, Nick. Nick told us about Ewen's safari company and I'm happy to hear about your experience with him.

wonderful pictures johan - but the copyright is pretty disturbing.
and so sad for the enjoyment of the pics.

i would do it a bit more unobstrusive for the pic's sake.

div

Wonderful photos, Johan. Glad the dogs were at Chitabe for you. They apparently had just left for Moremi when we were there.

We often looked with intrigue over to the Moremi side and do want to check it out at some point. thanks to your well done photos, I'm more inspired.

Do you happen to know if the Masson people are friends with Newman? He gave us a flier for a mobile company but I can't find it. All I have is a snail mail address for Newman.

Glad you saw so many leopards as we did in Chitabe - we actually lost count - imagine.
Thanks for posting.

Hello everyone,

I am fully aware that the watermark is not in favour of my pictures.

But I took this precaution after two recent incidents. Although I don't post my favorite pics on the web, I find it pretty unnerving when people use someone elses photos for commercial reasons. It's not a money-making thing for me, but at least one can ask if they may use them. In the future I'll try to add a mark which is less obstrusive.

Cybor,

I talked with Newman about Masson safaris and I gave him their contact details. I don't think he knew them before that.

We actually saw two different packs of dogs. One with puppies: 6 adults + 8 puppies (I think the alpha female was collared) and 5 females. According to the guides, the pack of 5 recently split up. They used to be 9 (5 females + 4 males). I guess the girls were looking for some new boys. The first pack was seen at Gomoti (close to Moremi (southern side) and the second pack was seen around the airstrip.

Probably, I'll be back end of next month (switching with Xigera) cause I am good friends with some of the managers at Lediba/main camp.

The lesser crowded areas in Moremi are definitely worth a visit. We had outstanding gameviewing and all the predator sightings around the Khwai river section were spent without any other vehicle around. Ewan Masson is an excellent guide (he knows the places like the back of his hand/he's punctual and he's really determined when it comes to serious gameviewing). We met Nick at South gate when we started our trip. Certain periods of year (holiday season in SA are best to be skipped - cause there are too many self drive vehicles around).

Best regards,

Johan

Thanks Johan.
One more question - can you off road at all in these parks?

Also, I went to Masson's website and they say they'll bring out 2 - 8 people, how does that work with vehicles - how many in each vehicle?

woops, that was 2 questions - sorry

I'm also interested in the Masson setup after these glowing reports. (Bet they've had a huge rise in website hits!) But I saw this sentence which suggests a max of 6, not 8:

"Accordingly, we shall accept a maximum of only six guests for each safari. Our fixed date departures can run on a minimum of two"

So I read it as you might be lucky and get an exclusive safari with just 2, or share with 4 others, which isn't bad either.

Sherry,

Officially there is no off roading allowed in the national parks. It can be a disadvantage for predators but I am convinced that you'll have some great sightings on a 2-week trip. I have done a good number of mobile trips in these areas and always had wonderful predator sightings.

Masson safaris prefers to do private safaris. So you just contact them directly and tell them what you like. He normally has his favourite private camp sites in the parks (they are actually prebooked by the different companies - if I am correct you can use the same campsite for a maximum of 5 days). So f.e. you tell them you want to spend 7 nights in Moremi and he'll choose the campsites.

Ewan is a fan of uncrowded areas and trust me, he chooses his spots carefully.

The vehicle we used was a 7-seater (one seat next to the driver and 3 rows of two seats (the middle seat wasn't there and those empty spaces could be used for your camera bags).

Hope this helps.

Johan

As usul, wonderful pictures, Johan! Thanks for posting and I'd still like to buy that coffee table book if you publish one!

Really enjoyed your photos but I agree the copyright is distracting. I am just curious as to why you put them on the web this way this time but without in the past. Have you had photos used without authorization? My son is a professional food photographer and he is always concerned about that possibility.
Do you think it is less of an issue if you posted a lower resolution jpg for web purposes and had a watermark that covered only part of the image?
Don't take this as a negative, I am only trying to understand what prompted the change in how you post your images.
Regards,
Eric

I rarely go back and view photos posted here a second or third time, but I always do so with your photos. Outstanding!

I had two recent incidents with websites using some of my photos for commercial use.

I had three solutions for this:

- not posting any pictures anymore;
- embedding a watermark;
- posting very low resolution pictures.

I opted for the second alternative and I did put on purpose an obstrusive watermark (just to be sure).

Greetz,

Johan

Hi Johan,

Great pictures as always!!! Thank You!!!

rgds
Hari

Johan, enough said...thanks for the clarification.
Regards,
Eric

Thanks Johan

I particularly love the birds! Yes, one would have to say that the copyright is a little distracting. I use a very low resolution to put my photos up on Kodak gallery, but it is a lot of work to go back and put them back to normal resolution - not that I am aware of anyone ever stealing my photos to use!

Kind regards

Kaye

Skimmer
I fully understand your reason for adding a copyright, as when people steal your images it can be very upsetting. Some people just take it as flattery but for me it's theft, pure and simple.
Whilst the copyright does detract (a little) from the photos, that's kind of the point. I've seen people post tiny text copyright notices at the lower edge. Some image thefts will simply crop those out. They don't care that the composition is slightly less successful as a result; they have the image they need.
So, personally, I'd rather you still share them even with this copyright. I still find them extremely enjoyable.
As for Temba, I suspect he/she/it has been taking lessons from some of our other less helpful members. Just ignore: don't feed the trolls.

Another outstanding collection of photos! That's a shame that people have stolen your photos and I'm glad you are still able to share them with protection.

Can you post a little bit about what's going on with the lions at Duba. Is just one Skimmer male in charge of Tsaro or is it a coalition? Did you successfully make it to Paradise with James, I hope so as that is one of the most stunning areas.

I forgot, its almost ridiculous to try and single out any photos for you since over the years you seem to have them all but the jackal pups was special and I don't recall ever seeing a photo of full litter like that. Spectacular.

Thank you all for your appreciation of my work.

Bill,

Some notes on Duba:

Paradise can't be reached but we made it till Tawana island.

We found a herd of buffalo there - unlucky for us the lions were focusing on the other herd. The moment, we arrived at the other place, the lions had already brought down an old cow.

James hadn't been there anymore for a couple of years.

We drove through very deep crossings and if we got have stuck, we would have faced serious problems.

The skimmer male is with the Tsaro pride at the moment. The other "younger" male of the skimmer pride is sometimes joining Junior. They try to avoid to come across the dominant male.

The young female and her mother weren't seen by us. We suppose they are hunting smaller stuff (lechwe/warthog).

All the cubs are dead (killed by the females/starvation/...) and on the 9th day we saw one female with her new offspring (4 2 month old cubs) for the first time. Most of the other females are pregnant again.

There seemed to be some friction between Silver eye and the rest of the Tsaro pride and on the first day of my stay, I saw the wounds being inflicted on her. Sometimes she was on her own and other times she was seen feeding with the rest of the pride.

The skimmer pride hasn't been seen for a couple of months now and they don't cross over the Tsaro territory on a regular basis like a couple of years ago.

Kavey,

I don't know who Temba is but his/her intentions look dubious to me. Maybe it's also someone with a second id.

Greetz,

Johan

Thanks Johan, it sounds like there are some interesting changes occuring at Duba. Good to hear about the new round of cubs that is just underway. It will be very interesting to see if their survival rate goes up considerably over the last years of the Duba Boys. I was fortunate to make it to Paradise a couple times in January 2003, I had heard that it has been inaccessible for a long time now.

Temba wrote:
"P.S.
What in the World is the reason for this silly post and who gives a d@mn
about your pixelpower controversy.
Ted "

Not specifically directed to you, but to anyone reading this: Johan is not going to post a trip report for two reasons. His words:

"- pixelpower is already posting one.
- I don't want to stir much more controversy."

Those are two SEPARATE reasons. No need to link them.

My trip report is not more (or less) controversial than any other trip report here. Well, if one considers "highlighting the advantages of mobile safaris" to be controversial, that is his own choice.

Having said that, I urgently need to continue with the report. Sorry! I've been shooting for www.rockternat.be festival over the weekend...

Ciao,

J.

Jochen,

Jochen,

You are right. My reasons are not to be linked.

There was no need for me to post a trip report concerning the same itinerary. I don't find it controversial at all to read what you are saying about lodges vs mobile safaris.

In fact the controversy has more to do with the safari industry in general. But I promised myself not to discuss these topics on open forums anymore.

Greetz,

Johan

Johan, probably, there seems to be a lot of it around.