Photography Fellowship Honours Zoologist’s Lifetime of Work

The University of KwaZulu-Natal’s (UKZN) Emeritus Professor Rob Hart has been awarded a Fellowship of the Photographic Society of South Africa (PSSA) for a panel of 25 images featuring insects and spiders that reflect his lifetime of work in zoology and ecology.

The technically challenging nature of macro photography and the high standards of assessment make receiving the Fellowship all the more gratifying for Hart, and it is his background in biology and ecology that enabled him to perceive invertebrates’ remarkable and varied survival strategies. He is one of only 96 members currently holding a PSSA Fellowship, with only a handful of these awarded for macro photography, and Hart is the first from the Maritzburg Camera Club to achieve this recognition, which he calls “a cherished milestone”.

A PSSA judge noted that, “Macro photography is probably one of the most difficult fields of photography in which to succeed in an honour’s application. The standard for macro photography is very high, setting a very high bar for success.”

Hart has received several accolades over his decades-long career, including the prestigious Southern African Society of Aquatic Scientists (SASAqS) Gold Medal in 2017 in recognition of his contributions to aquatic sciences.

Hart, originally from what was then Northern Rhodesia, grew up in sandy teak forests and wide-open grass plains alongside the Luanginga River, which flooded seasonally. The untouched natural environment and his parents’ encouragement nurtured his love for the wide range of animals and insects he could observe. He developed basic taxidermy skills, enabling him to contribute bird specimens to the Rhodes Livingstone Museum, where Mr Constantine Walter Benson became a mentor to the budding scientist. As a schoolboy, Hart was granted special permission to collect bird specimens in an exclusive hunting preserve of Barotseland’s Paramount Chief Lewanika – the Liuwa Plains reserve. Partly through this, he achieved a notable academic milestone by publishing a joint paper and having two lark subspecies named after him.

Keen to photograph the diverse organisms around him, Hart’s enthusiasm was tempered by limited equipment until, during his studies towards a Bachelor of Science in Botany and Zoology at the then University of Natal, his 35mm Pentax camera allowed him to explore this interest while on a visit with eminent ornithologist Dr Gordon Mclean to a research site in the Kalahari Game Reserve, and Hart’s contributions to the University’s Wildlife Society included photographs of their outings. Gordon’s quip that Hart was only happy when he had captured a sighting on celloidin was a true reflection of his growing photographic obsession.

Initially keen on a career in ornithology or mammalogy, an opportunity to relocate to Rhodes University’s Institute for Freshwater Studies field station on the shore of Lake Sibaya with his new wife, where he would study plankton, led Hart to bypass a master’s degree to obtain his PhD in just four years. His work comprised the then only South African contribution to the International Biological Programme on Freshwater Productivity.

Studying the diverse microscopic plankton also developed Hart’s eye for minute organisms, and he made the most of the Lake’s photographic opportunities, contributing photographic illustrations for textbooks such as Inland Waters of Southern Africa: An Ecological Perspective (Allanson, Hart, O’Keefe & Robarts 1990), in which 17 of the 38 photos were his.

At Rhodes University, Hart held an endowed Chair of Postgraduate Limnology for five years, returning to the University of Natal, where his diverse lecturing portfolio gave him an ecological and biological eye for invertebrates, while his photography focused more on conventional wildlife subjects.

After retiring in 2007, Hart purchased an entry-level digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera and joined the Maritzburg Camera Club, enabling him to pursue photography more seriously, refining his skill during the Club’s outings and topic-based projects. He joined the PSSA in 2012 and was awarded an Associateship of the Society in 2014. Honing his skills in close-up or macro photography as his ability to visit wilderness areas grew increasingly constrained, he appreciated the biodiversity offered by even a modest suburban garden.

“‘Life’ is essentially underpinned by two evolutionary fundamentals: live to maturity, and leave offspring. For animals, living to maturity requires finding food of sufficient and suitable quality, avoiding death (by predation, parasitism and disease, or by environmental stressors like weather) and thereafter – breeding. Invertebrates provide an enormously wide variety of strategies in all these arenas. Awareness of these fundamentals gained through my learning and teaching experiences enhanced my ability to see and perceive the fascinating photographic prospects provided by invertebrate subjects,” said Hart.

Post-retirement, Hart’s research on the ecological impacts and management of eutrophication in reservoir lakes (South Africa’s main water source) led to a unique comparative study of long-term satellite data on chlorophyll levels in managed and control reservoirs, showing how ineffective the costly but fundamentally flawed ‘biomanipulation’ management strategy had been. He continues with various projects, including the analysis of painted reed frog thermoregulation during daytime ‘roosting’ site selection, a synthetic historical evaluation of limnological studies on Hartbeespoort Dam, and the assessment of the management implications of South African reservoir morphometry and bathymetry.

Words: Christine Cuénod

Photographs: Christine Cuénod and supplied

I try and make the pilgrimage to KNP at least once a year, but preferably twice a year.  This year, sadly, due to personal reasons, it has only been once.  This means that I had to make the most of it. My trip ran from the 1st to the 12th of September.

On the morning of the 1st of September, while leaving Maritzburg, just two kilometres from home a car bashed into me at the Athlone circle. This made me have second thoughts about going any further. Well, I thought, 2 kilometres down and 700 to go, I may as well do this, and I’m so glad I did.

When I go to Kruger, I usually reside in a timeshare unit just outside one of the gates. This time I spoilt myself with 4 nights inside the park at Berg-en-Dal camp, in the south.  The reason I don’t stay in the park very often is the cost.  A bungalow costs just short of R2000 per night, and that adds up pretty quickly if you have four or five nights there.  Yes, it does have its advantages and it also has it’s disadvantages. There is no radio, no TV, no Internet connectivity and no cell phone reception so you really feel as though you are isolated. Some people will say, “Oh well, that is wonderful!” but sadly, I do like to be in contact with the world!  I suffer from FOMO!!

Although September heralds the start of Spring, the park has not seen rain for many months and everything is crispy dry!  It was also noticeable that there had been a lot less veld burning than in previous years. This meant that there was a lot of long, yellow grass, which made game viewing exceptionally difficult.  Most animals just disappeared into the grass, and the camouflage – even the zebra’s…made it very difficult to spot them.

Luckily, most of the major dams still had a bit of water. Sunset Dam was probably the fullest I have ever seen it but I am told that they do pump water into this dam from boreholes. Lake Panic was probably 10% of the size that it normally is, so bird viewing there was almost non-existent. One good thing about a severe lack of water is that the animals have to come there sometime to drink. So if you are patient enough, and are prepared to sit and wait at a dam, you will probably see most of the animals.

One thing that is almost guaranteed is that if there is water, there are going to be elephants. I am aware that the elephant population within Kruger is getting unsustainably high and this I can attest too, because of the huge herds of elephants that congregate. They are social creatures and they do move in herds, so it is not uncommon to see 100 elephants at one spot at one watering hole. Really quite spectacular. They are so entertaining to watch, because of the love of water, and are heavily dependent on it. They love swimming, showering and dust bathing.  Such a privilege and a pleasure to see.

I didn’t travel any further north than Tshokwane picnic site.  As in the past, again I had a scary moment with a troop of baboons.  One mid-morning, at Tshokwane people were sitting around picnicking and having brunch…as one does there and a troop of baboons arrived and chased everybody.  They then grabbed all the food they could and went off with it. This is pretty scary, considering that the huge Alpha male has incisors the same size as a Lion’s.

Another reason why it was pretty difficult to see a lot of game is because of the weather.  In the 12 days stay I had a couple of days when the temperature was 41°…and if it wasn’t 41, then it was 35 or 36. This does not help the cause of finding game. They just hide away, under trees in the shade.  If you are in tune with the veld you quickly learn where to look and how to spot game in difficult situations. (Last year there was 1 day that was 50 degrees!!).  The Berg-en-Dal area was a bit sparse on any game and a lot of the roads were closed, so that didn’t help matters.

Most of the game sightings that I did have were pretty spectacular. This might freak you out, but I had a pregnant female baboon sitting right in front of me and she ate a whole Scrub Hare that she had caught.  I did know that baboons were Omnivores, but I didn’t realise they would eat so much meat in one sitting.  I also had a Hyena come whizzing past me carrying the remains of a carcass of an unborn Impala. Yes, gruesome I know but wonderful to see.

One strange observation that I did make was, I found there to be a lot fewer raptors around, but one good thing was I did manage to see a Verreaux’s Eagle-Owl – a first time for me in the park.

After my 4 days at Berg-en-Dal I spent a week at Ngwenya Lodge.  Such a beautiful place and just 10km from the Crocodile Bridge gate.  On 2 separate occasions, at exactly 6am when the gates opened, a herd of about 40-50 Impalas chose to walk over the access bridge in single file….at a snail’s pace.  So strange to see this line of Impalas walking across the bridge.  It’s a narrow, single lane bridge over the Crocodile river so everybody just has to wait patiently.  In KNP the animals have right of way!

The second week was Lion week.  There were Lions everywhere and on 1 specific day I had 7 Lion sightings.  The problem is, when there are Lions, there is not much else…..everything hides, for their own safety!   One thing that does not dissipate are the number of cars and traffic jams!  HORRID!

No matter if the viewings are good or bad, or if the weather is cool or hot, it is ALWAYS a wonderful experience to be there and to be given the opportunity to recharge one’s batteries!

PS – my next trip is already booked…ie May/June 2026!  Roll on May!