I love to work with only the light that is available and with no camera support. I do have a tripod, but I used it only twice. One time for a fashion shoot and one time to make pictures of storks. For me a tripod just does not work. Especialy with wild animals, you must be able to move fast to frame them right and get the good angles. 
That's why I bought myself two lenses with image stabalizer and a mini tripod. I put my mini tripod on a natural support such as a fence, tree trunk, chair or whatever is available. If there is nothing, I sit down on my butt and put the tripod on my knee. All this to prefent camera shake.

When on safari in a car, the mini tripod is usefull as well, because the three legs fit perfectly on the door with the window down. Together with the image stabalised lens, I was able to get some amazing shots. The photo of the leopard during a night drive for instance. Very poor light from only two lightspots. I used ISO 1600 and the fastest aperture but the shutterspeed was still very slow. The tripod was resting on an iron bar of the car and I didn't knew the picture was good, until I saw it on my computer!!
When you are on a safari drive, make sure the driver shuts down the engine, because the running engine can be responsible for camera shake.

                       

The best time to do outdoor photography is during early morning and late afternoon/evening. On these times of the day, the light is soft. The so called "golden light". This means you have to be up early and work late....

I am not all that much of a photoshopper. I do work on my photo's like cropping, white balance, contrast and colour brightness. But I just love it when a picture is good by itself. What you see is what you get. That's my motto

                                                 Stock agencies

Recently I joint several stock agencies to have my pictures earn some money for me.
The one that works the best for me is Dreamstime. If you are a photographer too, then go over there and let your pictures work for you!  


Another one where I am registerd is Bigstock. Also a good one, but haven't sold that much as with Dreamstime. Go check it out, register and start selling!