During my trip to South Africa, I had in my mind some main projects, like some nice Milky Way landscape, Rho Ophiuchi, the Magellanic Clouds.
Indeed, I started to shoot them (as soon as the full Moon went away), so on August 9th I already had multiple images of them, with different lens and focal lenght.
So I was trying to calm down about those subjects and, more relaxed, I went on others beautiful targets.
Lagoon and Trifid Nebulae were in fact on my to do list - I was never able to make good pictures from my backyard.
On August 9th, we had a beautiful location: a tend in a desert, far from villages, with a majestic landscape, to enjoy the great experience to sleep with the sounds of the Nature.
And far, of course, from any light pollution. A real dream.
During the day we've been trying to make pictures of lions, cheethas and other glourios animals; it was an unforgettable experience.
But why do I tell so, and how's connected with this picture? Because...
at night (obviously, given the location) I brought all my setup in the desert outside the tent, to shoot to the pristine Sky.
But for a joke of the destiny, after some minutes, clouds rolled it.
I was waiting for 5 years a night like this, without taking into account the price and the miles done, so I simply didn't give up and started to sleep near the setup on a comfortable chair, waiting the clouds to go away.
BUT!
At a certain point, while sleeping, I heard distinctly the noise of a nose smelling me, very near, behind my back!
I woke up in a second like in a nightmare, frozen, fearing it was a kind of African wild cats!
I knew I had to run away, but believe it or not, in a fraction of a second I saw that the Sky was finally clear, and I was fearing to leave the setup thinking it could be broken by the animal.
In a half of a second I jumped away from the chair and turning myself I saw some scaring shadows so near... in my imagination I thought to a hyena!
With cold fingers and without breathing for the fear, I switched on the head light to see the beast, ready to run.
There were 2 of them. But luckly not aggressive... they were harmless, kind, beautiful herbivores!
Oh you can't imagine how I was happy to see them.
So I sat down again, I restarted to shoot, but I never used my head lamp so often like that night. Always scared to see or hear someone else.
So this is the story behind this image.
It's not the first time it was a little bit scaring to do AP, but I will never forget the exact moment I turned my head with the light switched on, to see the animals.
So, I hope you enjoyed the story and I hope this image is worthy of such adventure (you can check the location and the... surprise in the revision images).
I shot at 200mm so the field was quite wider than this, but I decided to crop to my taste. Also, during the night, the clouds came back again, so I couldn't take so much frames (actually very few to tell the truth), but that wasn't a problem anymore
Thanks for watching and reading, and Happy New Year!