My Favorite Chateau

Many years ago when I first started earning an income from photography I did some work for a French Editor who specialized in pictures of Famous French architecture and monuments. At this time I was using a Canon EOS1n and a Canon 28-70 2.8L zoom with Fuji Velvia film. I did shots of the Chateaux de La Loire. The Chateau de Chambord I took some shots of for a postcard. This picture was later used on a French postage stamp. I was very pleased about this.
I returned to the Chateau de Chambord in 2004 and took more pictures using my first digital Canon EOS1D Mark2 and a Canon 24-70 2.8L . After returning home from one of my South African trips I discovered that one of my pictures of the Chateau de Chambord had been used for a 2000 piece puzzle http://hasbro.fr/articles/puzzles/puzzle-de-2000-pieces-geo-collections-1651-1.html. I am glad that a picture that I have taken will be displayed in such a manner and that people of all ages will build this 2000 piece puzzle in years to come.

Waterhole in Pilanesberg

After driving around in the park for a while, I decided to stop off at a hide situated at a waterhole. I found the hide rather peaceful with no one else present, so I decided to stay a while and have breakfast there. A short while after I had finished breakfast, a couple of Vervet monkeys started sneaking up on the hide. I suppose they had smelt the food, that I had been eating. I was rather surprised when two of these little creatures hopped into the hide. Out of their own choice they came within about 2 meters from me, which gave me such a great chance to take several close up shots of them. While my attention was focused on these tiny animals, I heard a rather loud splash. I turned back toward the water and was surprised to see a lone elephant drinking and playing in the water! This presented me with a couple of stunning shots of this beautiful animal. It also suggests that if one would like to see a variety of wildlife it might just be a good idea to stay put at a place where you know that the animals will come to. After all most animals need water at some stage during the day.