RONELLE VAN LOGGERENBERG

Canon PowerShot SX60 HS

RONELLE SAYS: I photographed this master builder at work in the Helderberg Nature Reserve outside Somerset West. I wish the reed wasn’t in the way, but I’m not a Photoshop fan. To me, you photograph what you see, and there’s no changing that afterwards. My settings: shutter speed

1/2 000 second; aperture f6.5;

ISO 500.

TOAST SAYS: This is a Cape weaver. You’ll know when you have them in your garden – they’re a noisy bunch. Because of their gregarious behaviour, they’re easier to photograph than some of the more furtive weaver species that are too shy to hang out near suburbia. During mating season, male Cape weavers put on quite a show to attract female partners. They weave nests with great enthusiasm, only to have a decidedly unimpressed female sometimes rip apart the nest with even greater enthusiasm.

I’m with Ronelle when it comes to Photoshop. It’s like state capture. It might start off with someone nicking a stapler off the desk at work, but if you don’t keep it in check, it ends up as a dairy farm with no one to milk the cows. What

I’m trying to say is: Take it easy with Photoshop. Don’t be tempted to start deleting irritating twigs. Next thing you’ll be adding two more weavers to the scene, just because you can. Use Photoshop to tweak the exposure and colour saturation. Crop your image. But don’t go overboard – it will affect the authenticity of the photograph. The reed doesn’t bother me because the bird’s eye is still visible. If the eye had been obscured by the reed, Ronelle could have taken another 20 shots and I’m sure sooner or later she would have one where the eye was visible.