Meet The Pro: Hannes Lochner

Meet The Pro Episode 5 with Hannes Lochner. In this episode, Toby interviews renowned wildlife photographer and explorer Hannes Lochner. Known for his immersive experiences in Africa's wild landscapes, particularly the Kalahari, Hannes shares his techniques and stories behind some of his most extraordinary photographs. 

Here is the link to the images chosen by Hannes for the episode: https://pangolin.smugmug.com/SmugMug-Website/Website-Pages/Meet-the-Pro-Hannes-Lochner

They discuss the challenges of capturing the perfect shot and the intricacies of wildlife behaviour. Hannes also reveals his favourite images and the planning that goes into his innovative photography. Join us for an insightful conversation about the beauty and challenges faced by Africa's wildlife, and don't forget to subscribe and leave your comments!

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Chapters

• 2:39 1st Image: Night Photography with Lions
• 12:24 2nd Image: The Lunar Moth
• 17:00 3rd Image: Sleeping Lion in a Storm
• 20:00 4th Image: Spotted Genet and Carp Fish
• 29:34 Inspirational Image: Motion Blur Leopard by Heinrich van den Berg

Transcript

Hannes Lochner MAIN 

Speaker: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to episode five of the Pangolin Podcast. I'm your host, Toby Jermyn. Thank you very much for joining me. 

In each episode, I've invited a professional wildlife photographer to imagine themselves in a remote location, and along with their camera gear, they're allowed to bring five photographs to hang on the wall of their humble dwelling. Four of these must be their own, and the final image is one they admire by another photographer. 

Now if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see the images as we talk. But for audio listeners on other platforms, there is a link in the description to a gallery. Thank you to everyone who's watched and commented on our first four episodes. We are delighted that you're enjoying them. I have noticed, however, that quite a few of you haven't yet subscribed to the channel, so please do so and turn on the notifications. 

Otherwise, you might miss one on today's 

Speaker 2: show. You have to be there. You can't just set things up with, for example, sensors and [00:01:00] stuff. You have to be hands on whenever a know drags away your gear, you gotta recover it again. I've lost so much gear in my life before 'cause of animals, but hey, that's the glamor of the game. 

Speaker: My guest today is a highly respected wildlife photographer and explorer, renowned for his extraordinary ability to capture Africa's most dramatic and intimate moments. He has spent years, often, months, at a time immersing himself in the wild landscapes of the continent, especially the Kalahari. And as a result, has published several acclaimed photographic books including Planet IV Vango Once Upon a Time. 

The dark side of the Kalahari. His passion for storytelling and dedication to sharing the beauty and the challenges faced by Africa's Wildlife make him a truly inspiring guest. So welcome to the show, Hannahs Lochner. 

Speaker 2: Thanks. Happy to be here. 

Speaker: Well, where do we find you today, Hannah? Unusually you are not in a tent somewhere in the wilderness of Africa. 

Where are you today? 

Speaker 2: No, I'm [00:02:00] actually enjoying the weather in South 

Speaker: Africa 

Speaker 2: and 

Speaker: um, 

Speaker 2: yeah, I'm at home. Not a excellent, not always home, 

Speaker: so it's great to be home. And when's your next trip? Plan? When are you off again? Next? 

Speaker 2: I'm flying actually tomorrow morning to the Kalahari. I'm there for 

Speaker: a week and then off to another, back to back Safari. 

So busy safari season, isn't it? And we asked you to select some images. These are the images which will be on your humble ting. I, I know you've had several humble dwellings in the past. You are renowned for spending a lot of time out in the field, photographing months at a time. So without further ado, shall we start with your first image please? 

Speaker 2: This was taken on the Quiet River in Ang Delta, and it was basically a photograph at night where two Lion are sitting busy eating a hippo while another hippo is coming out of the river from the side with the Milky Wave in the background. One of the things I love doing is night photography because um, golden owls is so short. 

So night [00:03:00] photography is basically the whole night. You get eight hours to work in and it gives you time, and I always try when it comes to style photography. To try to get on one raw file, the final image. You know, it's not a composite of a foreground and a background altogether. Obviously it's a lot easier when you do a composite 'cause you just take two different photographs. 

To try to get everything together in one image. That always the challenge. And these was luckily taken long before AI existed, so it's the real deal. So 

Speaker: it's the real thing, isn't it? This isn't some prompt that you put into to chat GPT. Tell us how you took the photograph. 

Speaker 2: Well, basically I was, I was busy scouting for a new project of us, uh, locations. 

And this was actually on the choir River. I bump did two, two hippos that was fighting the one killed the other one, and it was also crocodiles in the river. So it was busy chomping away. The hippos has got this strange behavior where they, when something dead floats down the river, they always swim towards it [00:04:00] and, and bite on it and leak it and stuff. 

And it's exactly what happened that afternoon. So I was sitting actually basically photographing crocodiles, eating a hippo carcass. And then later that evening, uh, at sunset, uh, hyenas actually walked into the river and dragged the whole carcass. Then this was probably taken about 12 at night, so I basically spent the whole night there and then I saw lines that were roaring on the other side of the river, and then they swam across it, and then they basically just arrived at the scene. 

S ran away and the lines started eating, and basically I set up, 'cause the milky wave was rising, it was a beautiful portrait and I could see the possibilities and everything. I like it because it's basically all that, all three subjects is looking at me. Basically posing under the Milky Way, but just after the photograph was taken, the lines was chased around by the hippo. 

So that was quite entertaining. But this was for me, just a nice portrait, you know, and it tells a story at the end of the day as well. So 

Speaker: what was the technique you used? Obviously you've got a longer exposure for the [00:05:00] Milky Way, and then you lit up the lions and the hippo 

Speaker 2: briefly. It's basically just a flesh, but I don't. 

Do direct flash because it, certain animals don't like it, lion don't really care. But, um, when you work with nocturnal animals with the technology of today, even when this photograph was taken in, I think it was 2016, you could go really high with your eyes early was and stuff. So I had a control of that basically from the camera talking to three light sources, which is basically because I'm taking a photograph of the 14 mil lens and it's very wide. 

So if you're gonna use one light, so you'll just get a arch of light before you and the corners will be dark. So you need three different strokes to be able to lit up the corners as well. And they will obviously be different strengths 'cause they need to light further in the distance. And the front is obviously a little bit less strong because I'm sitting basically two and a half meters from the, the lines eating the hippo. 

It's very close. You're shooting at a [00:06:00] very high, high eyes, so, so you don't need a lot of. To be able to let up the foreground in front of you. When you take the photograph, the foreground is already taken, so that happens within the first half a second. So I'm in the car and I'm in a mounting system on the side of the car. 

So you have to sit still. Otherwise, your stars will not be stars. It will be lines because there will be movement, but the foreground doesn't matter what happens in the foreground. The photograph is already captured. The lions can walk, the hippos can run. Nothing will change in the foreground, and that's where you get the milky away within the next 30 seconds. 

So it's a little bit technical, but I mean the more you do it, it's become second nature. And that's why I went back. I was really hoping that there will be either heena or anything coming and maybe there can be some interaction later at night. 

Speaker: Well, that's why I like is the fact that you say, you know, the golden hour is so brief and fleeting, but then you've got the whole night. 

To work. And this was in 2016. Which book was this that you were, that you were shooting? This was in plan. [00:07:00] Planet Ang was a real labor of love, wasn't it? That was several years in the making. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. Two and a half years. We lived in, uh, 10, quite four kilometers outside of third bridge in the Maria gang reserve. 

So basically in the heart of Ang, 

Speaker: this is the dream that everybody wants, wants to live. They all have ambitions of being able to live in. They're humble dwelling. I mean, you of all people have actually lived in the humble dwelling, haven't we? So I know with the BBC, when they make planet Earth and things, so they reckon they take about a month to get five minutes of footage for planet Earth. 

What would you say, I mean, out of all the time that you spent, do you have a rate at which you hope to be able to get the the keeper images, or do you just think this, I'm gonna do this for as long as it takes. 

Speaker 2: Well, at the end of the day, it's all about money because selling in a place for two and a half years, getting the photographic permits and everything is very costly. 

So you've gotta be self-sufficient for basically two years. You gotta have income in the back and five tanks of diesel every month, and you, you gotta put [00:08:00] the time in every day you up with the spares and. Working at night, and you know, when we were working there, we, we still had our Land Rover and Land Rover needs a little bit more love than any other vehicle, so you need a lot of parts. 

So you need an air strip close by. Luckily there was few air strips we can drive to. Took us about an hour and then whenever there's a problem. You gotta put the part in and off you go. Again, it's not for the faint heart that do this kind of seclusion for two and a half years. Like you said, it's a labor of love kind of thing. 

Speaker: It's a commitment, isn't it? I think that there must have been lots of days of, uh, of frustration. So what time in your life did you decide that this was going to be your full-time job when you decided wildlife photography, making these amazing books, leading tours and things like that. When, when was the moment that you decided and what took you to that moment? 

Well, was there a moment? Well, 

Speaker 2: I wanted to do it since I was a student. You know, it was always the passion of mine to do something in the wildlife industry, but to be able to disappear for two years to do [00:09:00] a project, you gotta have the gear, the proper gear, and you gotta have the vehicles, you gotta have the money to disappear. 

I wanted to do it at the age of about 24, 25, but it, I wasn't financially there yet, so it took another. Basically 10 years to be able to get there. So I think around three, four years old, I was at the right place at the right time. I can basically sold the house to be able to disappear for two and a half years to do my first project, my left to the Kalahari. 

Yeah, I got stuck. There we go. For six years it got stuck 

Speaker: in. Stuck in the Kalahari. There's worse places to be stuck. And now you're going back. I'm going back. Always go 

Speaker 3: back. Yeah. 

Speaker: Always delivers. You share this with Noah. Who is your partner, your filmmaking partner, your spouse, your, I don't know, support my everything. 

Yeah, I met her in the kri 

Speaker 2: actually. 

Speaker: You met her in the K See, there we go. So when you say the Kalahari always produces, it's actually produced more than just images for you, hasn't it? 

Speaker 2: [00:10:00] Exactly. Yeah. 15 years ago. Yeah. 

Speaker: 15 years ago. Well, that, that makes a difference, doesn't it? On those, those lonely evenings when you're sitting there, nothing's come good. 

At least you've got somebody to moan at, I suppose. And what, what is it about the Kalahari, you know, you obviously have done several books about the Kalahari. What is it about the Kalahari specifically that keeps you going back 

Speaker 2: to Toby? It's a difficult question. Well, it's an easy question for me, but it's, I think it's difficult. 

A lot of people ask me, why do you go there? Because it's just this, you know, if they. Start, for example, in a place like the Serengeti or the Masa Mara, the Kruger, the diversity is just so much more in certain areas in in the world. And if you go to the Kalahari, it's it's arid region, which basically means it's cat orientated and predator orientated. 

There's a lot of interaction between species, number one. Number two is there is nothing more beautiful than a black man color line on a red dune. The lipids there is just [00:11:00] wild. I mean, I can. I remember my publisher asked me, why on earth did you do your leopard project in the, it's one of the most difficult places in the world to actually try to follow a leopard, and you did it for two and a half years. 

Why? I didn't just do it in so Sands, we see leopards every on, every drive. But I mean, my answer was very simple. It's just that no one's ever done it before, number one, and and number two is. The lipids and the kalari still, they still for me and wild kind of thing, they don't get a vegetated really. And. I, I think it with the Browner Heino and the Cheetahs and the leopards and the Wildcat and the Carle, you get all these different cats there. 

There's always something else to entertain you. I mean, at the end of the day, you want everything to fall on your lap or you wanna really work for something. You know? I always like to challenge and with, no, obviously the challenge has become a lot easier. It was now four eyes instead of two. And yeah, it was the company as well, you know, sitting on a [00:12:00] bonnet of Land Rover, having a. 

I run a Coke in those days. Looking up the stars moments like those is what you look back into and, and what basically makes a, a place, um, special. 

Speaker: It makes you forget all the missed opportunities and the getting stuck and everything. That else that goes with it. All the, all the, the things that don't work behind the scenes. 

Yeah, exactly. Those are the bits you remember. Okay. Let's move on to your, um, to your second image. Can you tell us a little bit about this image and why you chose it? 

Speaker 2: This was when my journey started. Basically the first two years of my wildlife photography career, it was a moon moth, which landed on the side of an elephant, and it's a macro kind of image where you can just see the skin of the elephant and the moon moth with the shade. 

This was taken at a private game reserve. Next in the Greater Kruger's, a reserve called Ali. They're doing elephant research at the time, and they were busy darting elephants. And Luna Moth ended up in one of the elephants. So I was lucky to get this image. And that was actually the cover of my first publication called Colors of South [00:13:00] Africa. 

Speaker: So it is, it's a lunar moth. I'm not sure I've seen a lunar moth. So this, this was an elephant that had been darted. Was it being translated or was it up and about? What's the story about that? They were doing 

Speaker 2: contraception and they were busy darting all the females to prevent them to get pregnant. They basically used contraception in those days for controlling numbers. 

I think. 

Speaker: I love the fact. That it's very obviously identifiable as being an elephant because very, very, very little has a skin texture that's similar to an elephant. So what were you thinking here? Were you just photographing the elephant's skin and then happened to see the moth? Or did it, did it chance upon the elephant? 

How did, how did it come about? Do you remember? 

Speaker 2: Yeah, I was running through the, it ended up on there. It was absolutely chaos because I mean, you can imagine. The rest of the home is trying to protect this female. No one can get close to the vets, can't get close to anything that's just hac. This must ended up on top of the alley. 

It was when my journey actually started. So this is the day that I decided I'm actually [00:14:00] leaving, um, for the Bush for a couple of years. For me, it was a striking front cover of a book I like interesting front covers. Like front covers that tells stories. 

Speaker: So you've published several books. That must be an agonizing decision to decide what is the front cover. 

I mean, that, that, that can have a huge impact, can't it? On, on the potential cells. Where do you start to begin to pull the, the book together? Do you have a book in mind and then take photographs or do you then format the book as the photographs? Come along. 

Speaker 2: Well, I think with the first publication it was just me getting out in the bush and trying to create something at the end of the day, after two and a half years. 

So you basically accumulate as much material as you can over a certain time and pick and choose your best options. And trying to choose a cover is always a paint because if you look at all the covers of wildlife books out there is. A lot of the iconic big five that pick and choose one of those. But I don't always go for the obvious kind of thing. 

And my first [00:15:00] book was a Moss. I mean, the last thing that I would've thought I'm gonna have on a front cover is a moss. And then you get the Vangogh, which was uh, elephant trunk. Just showing my, my background is actually me and Noah, both me graphic designers. So a lot of time and stuff goes and it's not just picking a front cover for that matter. 

It's, it 

Speaker: can also be okay and drag that one in and there we go. That'll do, that's fine. Let's move on to the next task for the day. Yeah, I mean, we always talk and we've spoken. Several people on this podcast about the fact that you know, there's no real money left in stock. Imagery is publishing books, the last sort of bastion of retaining ownership of your images and selling them and commercializing your photographs. 

It's very difficult to copy a physical book in the digital world, would you say? 

Speaker 2: Yeah, look, it's, it's, I think it's also a personal journey. It's like getting a degree at the university. You know, it's, you work four years with something and then you get rewarded. [00:16:00] I love setting out goals and I like to make my deadlines and give myself, right, two years time, this is what's gonna happen and this is the kind of imagery that I want. 

So I think as long as it's there, I'll probably do it, but I think we've slowly but surely. Well, I used to do every two years of book nights every four or five years, you know, so it is. I think if, if I'm gonna go that route again, I think it will probably be the last, 

Speaker: I mean, just as a, as a side note, we'll leave links in the description down below so that you can, um, go to Hannah's website. 

You can see his books there. I can ask him nicely. Maybe he'll sign one for you. Who knows? Tell him, tell him we sent you. Um, okay. We're gonna take a quick break and then when we come back we are going to chat to Hannah about his third image. Welcome back to part two of the Pangolin Podcast with my guest today, Mr. 

Hannahs Lochner. Hannahs and I are now going to talk about his third image, Hannahs, would you describe this for the listeners, please? And tell us a little bit about this. This is actually one of my favorite shots of [00:17:00] yours. Just saying 

Speaker 2: thanks to this is of a lime sleeping and long grass in the Kalahari desert. 

Oblivious to the tornado. That actually appeared in the back with lightning and everything and he just slept through the whole storm, although it looks far, but it was actually very close 'cause it, it was just taken with a wide angle shot. So you get the line in the long yellow grass and fast asleep with lightning bolts and twisting and thunder and everything going on crazy in the backdrop. 

And he's just sleeping through everything. 

Speaker: Not bothered about this massive storm that's going on behind me. Now, the reason I, I quote you, I think you did a talk for us back at the Cape Town Photo Club where we talked about this image and what really struck home is the fact that you were the first person I'd really heard talking about how much you enjoy photographing during green season, rainy season, Emerald Seas and whatever it's called. 

But this is, this embodies that, that whole philosophy, doesn't it? 

Speaker 2: Yeah. So this was. At the end of the rainy season in the Kalahari. So the grass is not as [00:18:00] green as it should be at that time of the year, but it was a very dry year. But you still get these incredible lightning storms and it usually starts with a big dust storm and then the lightning comes, and then after the lightning, the rain comes. 

I knew there was a storm coming and uh, I knew where the line was sleeping, so I just tried to put a and B together, you know, where I mount a camera on the side of the vehicle. Slow shutter. A very soft, full flash in the foreground and keep the shut open for the lightning bolt. It wasn't open that long. 

It was only open about a second or so, and I kept my finger basically down 'cause the lightning bolts were coming. So basically just trying to get a, a bolt on the same image. So again, the foreground background, one rule file. 

Speaker: It's amazing, isn't it? Because most people, you know, they, they come in Africa, say, I wanna see a lion. 

I wanna see a lion. And this is basically what lions do for most of the time. They're just lying down on the ground, doing nothing. And so to try and make that interesting, this, this is anybody watching, this is how you make a lion sleeping. Interesting. You just gotta wait for a, you've just gotta wait for a massive thunderstorm. 

Exactly. [00:19:00] But also 

Speaker 2: this time of the year is great because. Every afternoon there might be a, a rainstorm or a thunderstorm. You just hang around these cats, they will be sleeping, but when those things come, you get dust storms, you get rain. Probably 90% of the time it doesn't, but that's where you have to sit sometimes and wait for it. 

Speaker: This, this is the only time where a lion's natural behavior becomes quite compliant and you just go, well, he's not moving. That's fine. All I have to do now is line up, line up a, a thunder strike. So you said you were just waiting, were you just sort of going, okay, I'm gonna go, go, go, go, go. And hopefully a lightning strike will come. 

Did you see a building up or something like that and you think, okay, it's coming up. Oh, there was 

Speaker 2: definitely gonna be, I've got, I've gotta hold. A lot of the images with different lightning bolts. This one was my preferred one because you can see there's like circles around the bolt and that actually formed a twister all the way down with more bolts on the right hand side. 

Speaker: It's a beautiful photograph. Again, completely different and completely original, which is words that I would use to describe your, your imagery. [00:20:00] Right. So we are now onto Hannah's final image. Hannis. This is an extraordinary photograph. Can you please just explain to people what's going on here? 

Speaker 2: It's basically a spotted Janet coming in for a drink of water with carb fish swimming underneath it. 

It's a 50 50 shot where you can see the fish and then what's happening on top of the water. It's basically a photograph night, and this was quite a lot of planning involved here, and it took me quite a few years to perfect. 

Speaker: I dunno if you saw Janine's, um, episode when she came on here, but she featured one of your images, which was the blue image with the elephant silhouetted through the leaf. 

And the reason she chose that is to remind herself to visualize an image and have that in the back of your mind so that when the situation arises or the opportunity arises, you go for it. Now, this is really your trademark because you invest a lot of time and energy. In planning these shots, thinking about these shots and trying to figure out how to get them, [00:21:00] and this is a perfect example of that. 

So can you tell me how you did this? 

Speaker 2: I basically had this idea when I was working with the leopards in the Kalahari and obviously also tried this. Um, but the water holes in the water is very dirty over there. So you, you're obviously not gonna get the results you're after. Uh, this was taken, there's a certain water hole in the area that I live. 

It's on a private game reserve here in the Greater Kruger. And the water hole was clean 'cause it's not the rainy season, which basically means everything settles at the bottom. You can see all the foliage. Hopefully, if I'm lucky, I'm gonna get a few of the carbs in the fish because it was quite shallow as well. 

But I could mount a waterproof kind of box and I had to weigh it down and all these kind of things. So position it basically to where I get a 50 50 kind of. View, so this was a, a water hole where in the dry season, you can see from the tracks in the river bed there's, that's coming down. There's German, there's porcupine. 

I was hoping basically for a [00:22:00] leopard, but obviously this is a, you know, smaller cat. So. There's a light actually underneath the camera and there's a light behind the camera, and there's also three strobes basically in different angles. 'cause this was shot with an 11 millimeter wide lens, so it's extremely wide. 

So I'm quite a distance away and basically can see what's coming to the water. Now there's two different ways of doing this. You can either work in a remote, so whenever something comes to the water, you can take a photograph of the remote or you can have a, obviously, where you have a sensor. So whenever there's movement in front of the camera sensor, it goes off to take the photograph. 

I like to basically be a little bit more involved and, um, use the remote controls. 'cause I, I know exactly when he points his head down. Poof. I take a photograph and I keep the finger down. Now this is at a very low shutter speed as well. It was lit up in the foreground, so it was for about 60th of a second. 

So this is a thing I took in COVID. So I was lucky. I got stuck actually on a game reserve [00:23:00] in COVID, so I can trial and error basically every single night, which we did, and half the gear was dragged away and stuff like that. So it's, it's not an easy kind of thing. You, you have to be there. You can't just set things up with, for example, sensors and stuff. 

You have to be hands on whenever. Away your gear. You gotta sort of. Try to recover it again. You know, 

Speaker: SOPA occupational hazard, isn't it? Oh yeah. I've lost 

Speaker 2: so much gear in my life before 'cause of animals, but hey, that's the glam of the game, and I got the image I was after and it was a front cover of my latest 

Speaker: book. 

I'm really glad that it's a Janet, because it's one of the less celebrated animals that you, you get folk calls of. Exactly. What I, what I really like about this is there's a bit of an optical illusion where it looks like there's a world underneath where the gen lives and the gen's looking at you. And he also doesn't believe that there's a world underneath or something like that, which is going on. 

But what I really like is the fact that you must have sat there, waited for a subject, [00:24:00] taken a photograph going, well, the gen's there. But you had no idea if there were fish in that photograph until you got the camera? 

Speaker 2: No, no. That was sort of a, just holding thumbs kind of until the next day. 

Speaker: So, yeah, just to clarify, you weren't sitting in a water hole at night where there's leopards going around the planet. 

No, you're not that, not that daft. We're just gonna sit nearby, which must have been lots of long evenings. There's easier ways of 

Speaker 2: doing this and unless we need to control the light very carefully and yeah, it's a lot of trial and error. I'm not done with this technique actually. I'm actually have quite a long list of things that I'm still doing with this kind of technique, so, but that will come in good time. 

Speaker: So your pre-visualization, what's the image? What's the one that's yet to evade you that's been sitting on your list for so long? Or are you not gonna, you probably aren't gonna tell me. 

Speaker 2: You'll see it in my next book, I promise you. 

Speaker: Hopefully. Okay. Tell me about the one that got away, that it was so close and you thought you had it, [00:25:00] and then something about it isn't quite right. 

Is it still on the list or have you abandoned it? 

Speaker 2: No, no, no. It's, you know, we as photographers, we miss so many images on every trip and on every project you miss lots and lots of stuff. So I've learned very early in my career that you don't dwell on these things. You move on tomorrow's another day, and you focus on the things that you do get and actually can get. 

So I remember the first time I were experimenting with remote photography, it was. When I was basically following the leopards and I got all the gear and art together and I got all the remotes and I set everything up and I remember I set a camera up to the carcass of a springbok of one young leopard killed, and I was sitting about, I'd say about 400 meters away with the remote and the leopard came and so I could see the bounce of the flesh of the stroke goes off. 

So it means. Camera saved me photographs. What happened then was the brown AIDA came, which is also quite a [00:26:00] scarce animal. They both basically were standing right opposite each other, and they were eating on the caucus at the same time. And my flesh, the strobes would just so I knew, but what I didn't realize is when I set everything up is when I pressed the button, my lens at those time were refocusing every time. 

Which basically means I forgot to put my lens on manual. I didn't do the focusing part. Correct. So that was the biggest probably of the mistake. So I got, I got fantastic images. They were just very soft, so I had to delete basically, but then I fixed it and I went back again. But I did get images of the two animals again, but it wasn't where they were eating together. 

You know, like I said, it's you, you have to learn at some point in your life and you're gonna make mistakes. And these things is good that it happens because now I don't make [00:27:00] these mistakes anymore. 

Speaker: So when you, when you do these, do you, I know you're an artist and you enjoy drawing and sketching and, and charcoals, do you often sketch out the ideas beforehand and sort of try to visualize all mind? 

Speaker 2: Oh, I've got, I've got about, I've got two books just for that. I have little comical kind of images that I. I draw the picture and I explain it, and I write the settings down. So I've got a book with hundreds of these things still in there, and it'll happen hopefully, and you'll be surprised actually how many of these things one can get. 

If you know certain behaviors of certain species in certain areas at a certain time of the year, you can put these things together. If you're gonna go and spend a month there, you'll probably end up having one of those images. You know, so it can be done. And people say you can't plan wildlife photography, but it's a lot of elements that one can plan. 

I mean, one of the biggest things I really wanted when I was in the Kalahari was I wanted lines in a rainstorm. [00:28:00] It's one of the big things that I, I was hoping that I can get. Also, sun. When there's sun or when it's raining, you get these beautiful back lit water droppers. Mm now. Me and Noah were driving in the north and we saw a big storm coming where, you know, where the lion were sleeping, so we just went in and sit with the lion. 

One hour later there was a big rainstorm. The sun came out and I got the image I wanted, but I had that idea a few years earlier and I draw the picture and I read. But those elements only came together a few years later. So I get reminding myself, because I have this booklet, it keeps reminding me when I go, for example, and I go and spend a month or two months or six months in a certain area. 

I know exactly, you know, what is the chances of certain images that I can get. So planning can very well help you a lot when it comes to art photometry. 

Speaker: See that? That would be a really good book. I'd like to have a look at the image on one side and the sketch on the other side. There you go. And then you can say, look, this isn't just, this isn't luck. 

This was planned. And then have a [00:29:00] date. I did it this day. This is when I thought of it. Roll forward nine years and I got it. You know, it's a, it's a lesson impatience. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, all dotted down. 

Speaker: Thank you very much. All I want is a very small credit at the back. Very small. Thank you very much to Toby German for this amazing idea. 

It's recorded. It's in perpetuity. Okay, listen, we've come to the end of all of your images and we are going to take a quick break and when we come back we're going to look at the image that's taken by another photographer that you admire. So we'll be back in a second. 

Welcome back to the final part of the Panga Podcast with me, Toby German, and my guest today, Hannah Lochner. And this is the part of the show where we've invited HNIs to select an image taken by another photographer who he admires and he wished maybe he had taken himself. So, Hannah, please, can you introduce the image, tell us a bit about the image and who took it. 

Speaker 2: This was taken by a hundred from about, it [00:30:00] is a motion pan image of a leopard where it's yawning with a dark backdrop later in the evening, and the spots becomes lines. It's a basically a panning shot. I love motion shots and I, on every safari with a light gets low. Bernard Bernardo went up my eyes, so I just go. 

Play around with motion shots, you know, and one of the cats that's always been elusive when it comes to the perfect motion shot for the, for that matter, is a leopard. The great thing about a leopard is when the spots move, you get basically lions, but the head's always bopping with a cat, you know, when it walks, the only time it'll actually, when you can get some sort of detail within the head or the eyes for that matter, you want that part shop is when it yawns. 

I've had it with Lion, but I've never got it with a leopard and leopard's obviously by my favorite animal. So I've never got that shot. And a, actually, with this [00:31:00] image he won the sub photographer, the, uh, it was quite a while ago. 12 years ago or something like that. 

Speaker: We'll get Heinrich on the podcast and we'll ask him himself. 

But that's even more remarkable then, because it's not even utilizing modern technology, which would help you, you know, animal eye tracking and stuff like that. So it's an even more difficult shot to get. And also, I don't think, I've, very rarely have I seen a leopard or a lie walking along and yawning. 

Usually they're static and they yawn, aren't they? 

Speaker 2: You see this sometimes, but it's not a daily occurrence and it's perfectly taken the photograph, you know, the right speed, and it was just. Enough detail within their head and 

Speaker: the ton. I love panning shots like this because they look like they're sort of watercolors or they've been, you know, painted rather than photographed. 

And they're incredibly difficult to take because you always miss it. You always miss everything or some bits in focus and it's the wrong bit. Yeah. But you must have seen lots and lots of panning shots like this one. So what is it that really, really draws your eye to this image that really makes it stand out from the rest? 

You know, [00:32:00] 

Speaker 2: for me it's always about the, that just that first impressions, you know, the moment you've seen the photograph of the first star immediately, you know, it just wakes something in you. It just talks to you immediately. And it's that first kind of impression, emotion, it awakes, you know, no mark's so saturated at the moment. 

You've really gotta go out of your way to basically get your name out there. And it's, I think when I started, I was still taking. Form in combination with digital because it just came on to the market and everything, but it was, it was a little bit easier, I should say. Nowadays, every person out there can take an incredibly beautiful photograph, but when it comes to techniques like this photograph we're talking about, and for example, the one that we discussed earlier on, where 50 50 underwater and stuff, when it comes to that, then it moves into a sort of category where. 

You need to know a lot more than just pressing a button, you know? So you need to know the behavior. You need to know the [00:33:00] different techniques. I think it's just that, for me personally, it's that first impression. You know, it just immediately 

Speaker: speaks to you. The wow factor. There we go. The wow factor. No, it certainly is a very, very striking image. 

So we'll get Heinrich on the show actually, 'cause he's got some stunning images and we can chat to him more about publishing as well, because he publishes a lot of amazing books. Yours included, obviously s Yeah. Okay, well this brings us towards the end of the show. I want to thank you very much, Hannahs, but before I let you go, before you disappear back off to the Kalahari again, we have to ask the question. 

We posed the question in the beginning that you get these images hanging on the wall of your humble dwelling, but we also give you the opportunity to tell us where that humble dwelling is going to be. Where are you going to photograph in perpetuity? Anywhere in the world, over to you. Where is that gonna be? 

Speaker 2: It's gonna be in Africa 

Speaker: because I 

Speaker 2: love Africa and I'm from Africa. And I'm African, so it's, I think I love the arid regions, so anything in an arid area. It can be in the Kalahari. It can be in [00:34:00] Noco, Vango. You know, I think at the end it'll probably be. In the Kalahari. 

Speaker: There we go. We, we, we had to wait for it. 

I just thought I'd let you say it. We all knew. Everybody watching this knew you were going to say it, but I like the fact that you pretended you were thinking about other places. That's, that's very good. Just keeping us all on 10 to hooks as you went round all the other places and went No, no. Definitely the Kalahari. 

No, the Kalahari is very, very special. We, we often include it in, in our saari, which do so Chobi, Avago, and then into the Kalahari specifically because. The subject matter is so different and so unique. Yeah. And it's same country, but could be a different country, in essence. Russian, Botswana, Hannahs, I want to thank you very much for making time in your busy, busy schedule to come on the podcast. 

It's been great chatting to you. Um, I hope that I get to run into you at some point. We seem to be ships in the night and I never see you when you're around. Absolutely. The choy and everything. Um, but we'll try, we'll get on timing right at some 

Speaker 2: point. 

Speaker: At some point it will work. Anyway, it'd be lovely to see you again, but thank you [00:35:00] very much for joining me on the show today and have a good safari. 

Speaker 2: Thanks, man, and stay in touch. 

Speaker: Thank you very much for joining me on episode five of the Pangolin podcast. We hope you've enjoyed this episode. Thank you also for the brilliant suggestions on who else to interview. Rest assured, we are busy tracking them all down and we will feature them soon. Please take a moment to leave a comment or write us a review in the comments. 

Your feedback means a great deal to us and helps us to continue to improve and grow the channel. And while you're there, give us a thumbs up 'cause the algorithm likes that. Finally, don't forget to sign up to the Pangolin Photo Safari Friday Focus newsletter. You can do that by heading over to pangolin photo.com or scan the QR code on your screen now. 

I look forward to seeing you on a Pangolin photo safari soon. And that's all that's left for me to say is that the Pangolin podcast was hosted by me, Toby German, and produced and edited by the Bella Falk.