March 31, 2011
Penguin Pair at Boulders Beach, South Africa

Boulders Beach in Simon's Town, South Africa, is my favorite place to photograph an iconic African bird — the penguin! Yes, penguins. There's a large colony of African penguins in the beach town, and one of my favorite places to stay in all of South Africa is Boulders Beach Lodge, right in the middle of the colony. In fact, there are two penguins nesting in the courtyard of the lodge right outside our room.

The penguins here are a lot of fun to photograph because they're so accustomed to people and they're very curious. While photographing one subject, say 5-10 yds (4-9m) away, it's quite common to have penguins walking up within 1-2 feet (30-60cm) to see what you're doing. My favorite image of the day is of a penguin pair mating. I was using my 500 f4 and couldn't back away far enough from the happy couple to fit them entirely within the frame, so I switched to portrait orientation to capture their fore bodies.

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