face to face
with wild Africa
Contents Where it all began 18 Pictures that matter 26 Face to Face With Wild Africa 34 Acknowledgements 154
THIS SPREAD – Kafue National Park, Zambia This camp in the middle of Zambia’s Busanga Plains isn’t called ‘Shumba’ for nothing. ‘Shumba’ means ‘lion’ in the local dialect. The local lions are known for hanging around on the balconies and walkways. PAGE 14 – Chobe National Park, Botswana A pied kingfisher erupts from the shallow backwaters of the Chobe River after an unsuccessful dive for a fish.
12
PAGE 15 – Mashatu Game Reserve, Botswana A tiny elephant calf peers out from the safest place in the herd – between its mother’s legs. RIGHT – Makgadikgadi Pans, Botswana With the responsibility of keeping watch while its family feeds, a meerkat surveys its territory in the heart of the vast Kalahari Desert for signs of predators.
16
T
he stallion’s mane rippled rhythmically with every step. Nostrils flared, eyes wild with excitement, the black and white beast trotted alongside our vehicle. It was so close I could almost touch it. Through my open window I could hear it breathing. I sat forward in my seat, not quite believing what I was seeing. Just metres inside South Africa’s Kruger National Park, on my first visit to Africa, I was face to face with one of the continent’s most iconic wild creatures.
Where it all began
RIGHT – Kariega Game Reserve, South Africa A view like this one – face to face with a zebra, one of Africa’s most iconic wild beasts – was my first experience of wild Africa as an eight-year-old boy and will always be etched in my memory.
18
But this wasn’t how it was meant to be. I remember being told that wild animals wouldn’t be easy to see. My parents and friends went to great lengths to explain that the African bush was not like one of the safari parks I had been dragged around on school trips as a child growing up in northern England. Africa’s animals would be busy doing their own thing, finding enough to eat or avoiding becoming food. Granted, when I encountered this friendly zebra I had less than one minute of safari experience under my belt but, at that moment, the Kruger National Park pretty much resembled one of those British safari parks with animals parading just outside the car window. I was eight when I experienced wild Africa for the first time. But, looking back, I realise that I had been exposed to it visually and emotionally for as long as I can remember. On Sunday evenings in our house in Sheffield, my brother and I would sit on the lounge floor while my parents projected onto the wall above the fireplace photographs and short films of their life in Africa in the 1970s. I understand now that, for them, this family ritual was as much about holding on to their memories of Africa as it was about entertaining two young boys. It was no surprise that less than a year after our first family holiday in the Kruger, my parents uprooted our life in England and moved us to South Africa. For the next 14 years, every weekend, school trip and holiday was spent seeking out Africa’s new and exciting wildlife, studying bird books and churning through rolls
21
to spread her message of courage around the globe. Thandi became the hero at the heart of the rhino poaching crisis, and the face of the fight back against poachers. People were so moved by her plight that they donated essential funds to help protect Africa’s rhinos and travelled from all over the world to see Thandi at Kariega Game Reserve. Being part of Thandi’s story highlighted for me one of the key principles of conservation photography – that the cause is more important than the photographer. I was not responsible for breaking the news of Thandi’s ordeal that fateful night, nor did I have an exclusive. I simply knew that my photographs could help create an emotional connection between this brave rhino – so cruelly and callously disfigured – and people who had never even seen a rhino in the wild. I could help to expose the true horror of poaching to as big an audience as possible. Magazine editors are always reluctant to publish stories that have been ‘done to death’, but while commercial viability is, of necessity, an important consideration to any professional photographer, there are times when you know you just have to do whatever you can to help. By 2011, my photojournalism had brought me to the attention of BBC Wildlife, a magazine world renowned for telling conservation stories. As a result, I was offered a commission to photograph wild European badgers being vaccinated against bovine tuberculosis. This project would teach me a second way to tell stories that stand out from the background noise – to present a solution. It’s relatively easy as a conservation photographer to find subjects that shock – death in its many bloody forms does just that. It’s much harder to identify people and activities that make a real difference to the future of species and wild places. This commission gave me the unique opportunity to show a viable alternative to the badger cull that was being, controversially, proposed by the English Government. The
whole experience reminded me that people are central to solutions – not just problems – and that it is just as important to celebrate them in my conservation stories as my wildlife heroes. The lessons I have learned – to put my subject first, to identify a hero, to offer a solution and to let people shine – have all served me well in my career. Yet, there is one rule that has come to guide my decision-making above all others. That is to be patient. Today, the worlds of photography and publishing have become increasingly about speed and immediacy. Conversely, I have come to value time and the quality of experience it brings. These days, I find myself spending more time conceiving and planning images than photographing in the field. As a result, my pictures have become more creative, they have more impact, and the stories I tell benefit from greater depth, subtlety and a clearer direction. It is this clarity of purpose, I believe, that conservation needs from photography if the bold actions necessary to halt wildlife declines are to find understanding and support from a worldwide audience.
LEFT – Mashatu Game Reserve, Botswana A lion cub reaches up to its father in a fleeting moment of intimacy. Shortly after I made this photograph, this adult male was lured over the border into South Africa where he was shot illegally by farmers. This will almost certainly have spelled disaster for his cub, as new males will have moved in to the territory and killed any youngsters so that they could father their own offspring. OVERLEAF – Kariega Game Reserve, South Africa The distinctive outline of Thandi, a female white rhino who survived a brutal attack by poachers. As well as her horns, she lost 20 litres of blood before wardens found her. Revolutionary veterinary care by Dr William Fowlds has enabled Thandi to return to a near-normal life in the wild.
31
FACE TO FACE WITH WILD AFRICA
PREVIOUS – Kariega Game Reserve, South Africa A lone lioness flashes an impressive arsenal of teeth yawning in an early morning ray of sunlight. RIGHT – Selinda Reserve, Botswana An elephant flings a cautionary glance in the direction of my canoe when we meet in the middle of the Selinda Spillway. There’s no better reminder of your own insignificance than when you find yourself this close to an elephant with nowhere to go. PAGE 38 – Selinda Reserve, Botswana Okavango robber fish navigate their way through reeds and lilies in a backwater of the Selinda Spillway, a temporary channel that links the Okavango and Linyanti river systems.
36
PAGE 49 – Chobe National Park, Botswana The milky cataract in the eye of an old, blind, mud-clad buffalo bull is caught by golden early morning light breaking over the Chobe River. RIGHT - Mashatu Game Reserve, Botswana A mother spotted hyena stands over her pup while grooming it vigorously at the entrance to their den. Although hyenas are often vilified, I never tire of watching them and seeing the most powerful jaws in the animal kingdom being used in such a caring, nurturing way.
50
RIGHT – Selinda Reserve, Botswana Focussed on its target, an African fish eagle swoops low over the surface of the Selinda Spillway as it prepares to snatch a meal in its powerful talons.
78
RIGHT – Kariega Game Reserve, South Africa The mutilated face of Thandi the female white rhino who survived a brutal attack by poachers. Thandi lost both her horns in the assault in which two other rhinos died. Since her recovery, she has become the face of the fight against poaching and a symbol of hope throughout South Africa.
130
RIGHT – Kariega Game Reserve, South Africa A pair of blesbok antelope gallop over the floodplains of the Bushmans River, creating a vision similar to those painted by our Bushmen ancestors on the rocks of their caves and shelters. PAGE 134 – Venetia Limpopo, South Africa In an impressive feat of strength and navigation, a dung beetle rolls a tightly-packed ball of elephant dung off into the bush – all while facing the wrong way.
132
RIGHT – Savé Valley, Zimbabwe A skittish young cheetah turns and looks for the source of a distant noise as it hunts with its family in the early light of a winter’s morning. PAGE 146 – Chobe National Park, Botswana Regarded by many as the iconic sound of wild Africa, an African fish eagle throws its head skywards and calls from the riverbank.
144