The Timing was Perfect

ANGELINA

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NOMINEE ANNOUNCEMENT

6th Annual Photography Masters Cup

 Dear Baroness Danuté,

 CONGRATULATIONS on being a Nominee at the 6th Annual Photography Masters Cup with: Nominee in Wildlife | Love This FaceNominee in Wildlife | Swan LakeNominee in Wildlife | Too Close for ComfortNominee in Wildlife | Portrait 8,521 entries were received from 86 countries and your work received a high percentage of votes overall. Certainly an achievement, well done! The Awards Jury represents the industry's biggest names and tastemakers who reviewed the entries online before making the nomination shortlist and honoring 239 title awards in 18 categories. The Awards could not have wished for a better group of professionals to work with. Congratulations once again on being a Nominee and we wish you a most successful photography year. 

Best regards,Basil O'Brien
Creative Director

Too Close for Comfort

Swan Lake

Portrait

Love This Face

To view all of the nominations, click here.

SAD STORY OF GIRAFFE IN THE WILD

A mother giraffe gave birth to her baby when a leopard was in the area.  He attacked the baby giraffe but was chased away by a pack of hyenas.  

The mother could not do anything to help.  She was standing and protecting her baby.  Her baby was dying in front of her and the hyenas had surrounded her, waiting in the bush, waiting for her baby to die. (Hyenas do not eat live animals.  They are scavengers.  They steal dead animals from lions, leopards, cheetahs, and so on.) 

The baby giraffe, as you can see in the picture, still has the placenta attached to her.  I was taking these pictures and tears were rolling down my face.  This is life in the bush.

The next morning we drove into the bush and back to the mother and baby giraffe. 

We got stuck in the mud going there.

You can see our safari car and the other emergency vehicle that came to pull us out of the mud.  

By the time we got to the mother and baby, 

the mother had left the area and the hyenas were eating the baby.   

We had 2 days of continuous rain so the soil was very soft.  Every day was a real adventure getting wet, looking for animals to film.  If it wasn't the rains that detained us - it was the animals themselves that we wanted to photograph.

The next day, instead of the mud holding us up, we were held hostage by a herd of elephants for 3 hours. They blocked the road and we could not move.  We were surrounded. It felt like we were captured by them. One elephant came up to our car and tried to put his trunk under the hood to turn our car over…  

As you know, I love danger.  It was very exciting.

I have best pictures of leopards!  This was my best trip for leopards.  It is once in a life time that you get so many good shots.

A very sad story of this baby giraffe…  She was just born and the leopard attacked - then he was chased by hyenas so he left the baby to die.  The hyenas waited until the baby died and then went and started to eat the baby.  That’s what happens in the wild.

I have so many stories to tell about my trip.   I am addicted to Africa.
Cheers,
Danuté

Lioness Stalking Impalas