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Exhibition Member Highlights
Slow and Steady
About the image
This photo was taken in the Kruger National Park during what initially seemed like a very ordinary sighting. A tortoise was slowly making its way across the road in front of us, with a single blade of grass hanging from its mouth. There was complete silence around us, and something about the simplicity of the moment caught my attention. I opened the vehicle door and leaned down as low as I could, trying to capture the scene from the tortoise’s perspective. What I love most about this image is that it reminds me that wildlife photography is not always about the rarest animal or the most dramatic encounter. Sometimes the moments that stay with you are the quiet, unexpected ones. A common sighting became one of my favourite memories simply because I stopped and really noticed it.
SPECIES:
Leopard Tortoise - stigmochelys pardalis
How it was captured
Camera: Canon EOS 800D
Lens: Sigma 150-500, Settings:
150mm
1/800sec
f/8
ISO 400
Photographer:
Age:
From:
Matthew Bossenger
20
Western Cape
About the photographer
Some of my earliest and happiest memories are of being in the bush with my grandparents, surrounded by wildlife and the feeling that there was always something new waiting around the corner. When I was about 13, I picked up my grandad’s camera just for fun, not knowing that it would become such an important part of my life. Since then, wildlife photography has become the way I connect most deeply with nature. When I look through the viewfinder, everything else disappears. I stop thinking about stress or anything outside that moment. I am simply present. My favourite animal is the African Wild Dog because of their energy, character and incredible bonds with one another. For me, photography is about holding onto moments that disappear in seconds, and hopefully allowing someone else to feel a little of what I felt when I was there.
PHOTOGRAPHER'S QUOTE
The bush is the only place where I’m happy to wake up before sunrise and somehow call it a good idea.
CONSERVATION MESSAGE
I would want people to remember that not every meaningful wildlife encounter has to involve something rare or dramatic. Sometimes the smallest, most ordinary moments can remind us why these wild places, and every species within them, are worth protecting.