WINNING PHOTO
MARLENE BERNHARDT
Canon EOS 650D
Canon 15 – 85mm lens
MARLENE WRITES: Bowkerskop is a hill near Mopani rest camp in the Kruger Park, with a beautiful baobab on its side. I was there in June 2022 and I wanted to get a pic of it. When I looked closer, I saw the giraffe!
How special to see these two species together? For centuries, both have fascinated us by their strangeness: the long neck of the one; the upside-down roots of the other.
I used these settings: shutter speed 1/640 second, aperture f5.6 and ISO 250.
TOAST SAYS: It's not that unusual to see a giraffe and a baobab in the same photo, but the koppie makes Marlene's photo a winner. Bowkerskop has the outline of a wave, with the baobab at the base and the giraffe at the crest. The resulting sense of scale is fantastic — the size of the baobab and the giraffe, and both in relation to the much bigger hill. The tree and the animal are also so clearly defined against the sky.
So many things came together in this shot!
Best of all? The giraffe is facing the baobab. It's like he's been on a
