Goodday everybody,

In follow up to my former post, there’s some more things I wanted to share with you regarding tracking and photographing gorilla’s. Not the easiest task, with pitch black animals under often cloudy conditions and a heavy forest cover, with an absolute interdiction to use the flash. So know your camera before going out there, or you’ll come back frustrated like there is no tomorrow.

As I mentioned in my former post, their looks are moving and I don’t even have to think about the people that kill entire families to get 1 baby for a rich bastard’s private zoo.

Seeing a silverback emerge from the bush is quite an impressive sight, makes you wonder how the first ever encounter between these great animals and an explorer developed?

This silverback belonging to the Suza group (the largest group, comprising over 30 animals at the time of my visit) decided to impose his authority by snapping a few trees upon our arrival. This power display cought me slightly off-guard, hence the sharp bum 😉

This being said, as I indicated in the first part of this post, it’s not all about the perfect picture, go out and enjoy, my favorite gorilla picture is not sharp, yet it captures the emotion and the way I look back at my gorilla experience better than any other picture of the trip, an emotion I accentuated by turning it into B&W.

This young female was playing in the foreground when we approached, as if seducing us with her play. The silverback did not enjoy this and after demonstrating he’s the boss by snapping some more trees as if it were matchsticks, he kept an eye on us, while the female now took on a posture, watching off in the sky, dreaming away, as if it wasn’t her who had been playing around a few minutes before that.

One last tip, just make sure not to point your lens to the silverback’s face for too long, since that is seen as a big eye by him, and staring directly is considered an act of aggression. No need to point out who’d be loosing out in that confrontation 😉

All the best,

Guy