This is such a rare treat in the working world that employees start planning their sabbaticals before they’re even hired. I, however, didn’t really start planning mine until about seven months before it was scheduled.

After kicking around different – very expensive – ideas, I decided to take my company’s tour to Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe. I live in one of the most expensive cities in the country and I make a Photo Editor’s salary, so my budget was a huge consideration in planning what to do during my sabbatical. I knew that the only way I could afford to go away to an exotic location for a month, without sleeping on a beach somewhere, was to take advantage of my employee discount and travel with my company.

I also had to consider whether I wanted to spend my time off from work on one of our tours. I knew that once the other group members discovered who I worked for, they’d start asking me questions that I wouldn’t be able to answer: Why did they have to stay on hold for 30 minutes every time they called? Why didn’t they get a day room at the hotel at Heathrow on the way to South Africa? Is there an American Express office in the Johannesburg airport? Fortunately, the questions stopped after day two of the trip. Also, there was the age difference: our client’s average age is 67 and I’m 31. I have directed several photo shoots for my company, so I already knew that I have no problem spending two or three weeks with a group of people over twice my age. Also, my friend, Laura, a copywriter with my company, came along as my traveling companion (she’s only 26). So, by the end of January I had booked my departure for August 2, and I didn’t think about it again until the end of May.

I’ve been slow to embrace digital photography. I was finally won over by it on my last photo shoot; I could see the results of our work every day! However, I had no plans to make the transition to digital, myself. My original plan was to bring along my old 35 mm film camera and invest in a new medium format camera, perhaps a Rollei. After having to buy a new dishwasher and bathroom sink early in the summer, I decided to ditch the plan to buy a Rollei and ended up with a $30 Holga instead. During the week before I left I happened to mention my trip to a photographer friend. He told me I was crazy going away for a month without a digital camera. Especially since I had to deal with a luggage-weight limit of 26 pounds, and the film I’d need to take with me. He kindly offered to loan me his back-up camera, a Nikon D50, along with four different lenses and two one-gigabyte memory chips. Five days before my departure someone in Korea managed to get a counterfeit MasterCard with my ATM debit card number and charged enough within twelve hours to cause a $5000 overdraft on my bank account. That was all straightened out pretty quickly, but the stress that it caused made me confused enough about packing that I left two of my camera lenses behind, and only packed the wide angle and the telephoto.

I admit that I am not an eloquent speaker or writer, and I’ve tended to say only one thing when someone asks me about Africa: “It was awesome!” I have read (looked at, actually) National Geographic since I can remember, I’ve watched countless nature specials on PBS and I had even read “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” by Alexander McCall Smith, the first in a series of books about a private detective in Botswana, but I really had no concept of what it would feel like to be in Africa myself.

The tour group got off to a slow start, recovering from our flight with an overnight stay at a Holiday Inn at the Johannesburg Airport and a three-hour, afternoon tour of Soweto. On the second day in Africa we flew to Victoria Falls, which is known to all locals and savvy travelers as Vic Falls. We met our tour leader, Eddie Chicukwa, a native Zimbabwean who has led tours for my company for six years. Sixteen of us, plus Eddie and a driver, piled into a van for the three-hour drive to our first lodge near Chobe National Park, Botswana. (Three was to be the magic number for our tour: three nights at every lodge or camp, three-hour siestas every afternoon, and three-hour game drives every morning and afternoon) I knew from talking to other people at work who had been on this trip that I’d have a good chance of seeing wildlife on this first drive from the Vic Falls airport to our lodge. Laura was the first to spot an elephant coming out of the trees. I actually shrieked with excitement when I saw the giant quadruped lumbering towards the road. An elephant! Just walking around in the wild, not in a zoo! I had my camera ready, and shot my first picture of an elephant through the tinted window of our van. I had the opportunity to photograph more than 5,000 of the beasts during the course of our eighteen-day tour.

The following day was our first full day of safari. I quickly learned the biggest challenge in getting the shots that I wanted - I constantly had to switch lenses in a dusty, open-air environment. There were so many photographic opportunities for both lenses, from close-ups of the ubiquitous impala to great open vistas with groups of elephants drinking from the Chobe River. During the many switches, my camera’s chip inevitably got specks of dust that showed up in many of my photos, but were easily removed in Photoshop. I unfortunately missed a couple of great shots because I couldn’t change lenses quickly enough.

We saw lions in the wild one time while on safari. Another safari guide had radioed to our guide the location of two male lions. Zach, the guide, stepping on the gas, drove quickly past impressive herds of zebras and wildebeest, which we would have stopped to admire were it not for the promise of seeing some big cats. I had my long lens on the camera because our earlier big cat sighting of a leopard guarding a recent kill had required a telephoto lens. As we neared the lions, however, I realized that I had the chance to get the ultimate brochure shot - the adult male lions lounging on the ground in front of a safari vehicle. The presence of two safari vehicles was too much for the lions to bear; before I could even start changing lenses they got up and disappeared into the bush. All I got was a boring close-up of one the cats’ heads in profile as he stalked away. On my next trip to Africa I will definitely take two camera bodies so that I don’t have to waste precious time changing lenses while rare and exciting animals stalk out of sight.

I learned another lesson about my photography equipment - In Africa you need a HUGE telephoto lens. I had a 300mm telephoto lens, which my digital SLR camera increased to 450mm. I eyed with open envy the lens belonging to a man in a neighboring Land Rover when we came upon the leopard that I mentioned earlier. With frustration, I saw the man take some pictures and show them on his digital display to his wife, who exclaimed, “That’s perfect!” Although I managed to get close enough with my telephoto lens to capture the leopard’s gorgeous coat and face it wasn’t close enough to get an interesting shot. The only reason I didn’t delete the photos from my camera was that he was the only leopard I saw in Africa. Aside from leopards lurking behind bushes and trees, there are dozens of colorfully plumed, tiny birds that you can only capture with a long lens: tiny bee-eaters, parti-colored lilac-breasted rollers, jewel-toned malachite kingfishers, which are all smaller than your average blue jay.

The most exciting photographic moment of my safari happened at our last lodge, Linkwasha, in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. Laura and I, along with a couple from Oregon, had just started on our evening game drive with Simeon, the only guide at the camp who has a license to do game walks. We stopped at a point on the road opposite the main lodge, which was picture-perfect in the setting sun. Suddenly, a herd of hundreds of buffalo appeared, headed towards the water hole in front of the lodge. It would have been a great shot if we were a hundred yards closer, but from where we were the buffalo looked like ants. Simeon offered to take us closer, on foot, but he’d have to go back to the lodge to get his gun. Rifle in hand, Simeon led us on foot in single file towards the buffalo. At several spots, where there was low cover, we had to crouch low to the ground so as to appear smaller and less of a threat to the animals. We got as close as we could, just in front of a scrubby bush on the edge of the open area where the buffalo were gathered. As luck would have it, a lone, bull elephant appeared on the scene just as I raised my camera to take the first shot. The elephant, towering above the buffalo, definitely added some additional drama to the pictures. Stalking up on the dangerous animals on foot was the best adventurous moment of my trip.
Southern Africa has a wealth of spectacular photographic opportunities, from breathtaking Victoria Falls to the tiny birds along the Kwando River in Namibia. I see my recent time there as only a taste of more in-depth trips that I’d like to make in the future, when I will be armed with more cameras and an 800mm lens.