Capturing the moment

Best of Getaway Gallery
(Jacana) R248.95

What started out as a small added-value service for magazine readers has become the platform for some of the finest wildlife and landscape photography South Africa has to offer.

This hard-cover, high-gloss coffee table book collects – as it says on the cover – some of the highlights of that impressive collection, and seeing this country and some of its inhabitants from the perspective of some talented, passionate lensmen and women is a revelation.

What you may have thought was an ant turns out to be a little long-horned grasshopper, looking like some emotionless alien against a bright orange background. Elsewhere, the moment a huge wave thumps into a False Bay breakwater makes you want to head to higher ground to finish paging through the book, and a blood-spattered wild dog with the muzzle of an unfortunate impala in its jaws reminds you of the unfolding drama behind the split-second moments captured in these pages.

Review by Bruce Dennil for the CITIZEN, Citi Vibe in March 2012.