There is a kind of wildlife image that has always spoken to me deeply. If you have been following my photography for more than a month you would have noticed that I often share these kinds of images. I like to call it “The Animalscape”. The animal in the landscape. The landscape with the animal(s) […]
Author: Morkel Erasmus
Since picking up a DSLR camera for the first time, a little over 3 years ago, Morkel has been invigorated with an unbridled passion for the photographic art form. He has grown at a tremendous pace and put immense energy into the creation of his images.
He absolutely loves spending time in the wild places of his native Southern Africa. From a young age he has been visiting legendary wildlife and outdoor locations, including the Kruger Park National Park and the Drakensberg Mountains, with his family. Now that he has found a way to share the natural beauty of his homeland with the rest of the world he is regularly out on photography trips.
An Industrial Engineer by profession, and an accomplished artist in genres like music and poetry, Morkel has always enjoyed whatever allows him to express his creativity to the fullest. Photography turned out to be the perfect "marriage" between his engineering brain and artistic soul.
"I hope that in some way I can raise awareness through my imagery of the plight of not only our wildlife but also the fragility of the last remaining wilderness areas that they call home.”
Morkel was recently honoured for his commitment to his craft by receiving a "Highly Commended" for one of his images in the 2010 BBC Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. He is based in Mpumalanga, South Africa and even though he prefers going on safari with his family and friends, Morkel also leads the odd photographic safari and has recently begun presenting workshops in post-processing techniques.
Sixteen Scenes from 2016
Hello my friends! Firstly – I want to wish you a very happy and blessed 2019! It’s that time of year, eh? If you follow a plethora of photographers you will no doubt see many of them put out some sort of “best of 2016” image collection. I’ve outlined in previous posts why I think […]
A mother’s devotion
Here we go: my first photographic story after my return to blogging!In January of 2018, we headed to one of our favourite safari destinations: The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. This is where a great deal of our time in the bush is spent, and we have been making a tradition of returning every summer for the […]
Wildlife Photography with the Nikon D810 and 400mm f2.8
When Nikon in South Africa approached me in September 2015 to test out the Nikon D810 and the new lightweight Nikkor 400mm f2.8E FL VR lens I was relishing the opportunity – you see, I was heading to the Mara Triangle in Kenya (part of the Maasai Mara ecosystem) to host a photographic safari in […]
The Essence of the Beast
We are, by nature, story-tellers. I don’t care what your chosen medium of expression is – a good chunk of people alive today want to tell their story in their own way. This is also true of wildlife photographers. But what makes for better wildlife story-telling? I often conduct workshops to inspire other wildlife photographers […]
South Africa: Rich in National Parks
During my (relatively short, I might add) lifetime I have had the privilege of visiting the majority of South Africa’s national parks and game reserves. What a wealth of natural heritage we possess! When people from abroad look at some of the work in my photographic portfolio, they are amazed at the diversity of wildlife […]
An ode to the Impala
The Impala – stately, graceful and plentiful. This third quality I listed probably contributes to its undervaluation as a wildlife sighting or photographic opportunity. In areas like the Greater Kruger Park I will give you a surety of 100 to 1 in odds that your first sighting upon entering the park will be impala. They […]
Take me to the place where the white boys dance…
To kick off this post, I have to apologise to the band “The Killers”, whose song title made a perfect title for this photo and its resulting blog post. As you may know, we recently returned from an amazing family safari-camping-roadtrip through some of the most iconic places in Namibia. One of the destinations was […]