The Beauty And The Beast by Marsel van Oosten

The Beauty And The Beast by Marsel van Oosten

For a plethora of reasons I don’t particularly enjoy photographing small subjects. Most birds are small, so I tend to not shoot them much. This has not gone unnoticed. There’s a running gag amongst the guests on our photo tours: Marsel doesn’t photograph anything that weighs less than a kilogram. I understand why people may get that impression, but there are moments when I do photograph small subjects like a tiny bird. When it’s part of a 750kg buffalo for instance. This is the last one of my three images that were awarded at the international bird photography competition ‘Festival de l’oiseau et de la nature’ in France. This one features an oxpecker perched on the horn of a cape buffalo, photographed in Botswana with a 600mm lens. Oxpeckers are after the ticks on their hosts, so originally they were thought to be an example of mutualism. However, recent evidence suggests that oxpeckers are actually parasites. Marsel | squiver.com WEBSITE | FACEBOOK |

Marsel van Oosten: Photos