Clash of the Continents
Africa is the worst continent to visit apart from all the others…
"Behind you!"
I’ve taken pictures in 36 countries on all seven continents, so I thought I should talk about the best one to visit for wildlife photography. Is it North America for grizzlies and polar bears, South America for jaguars and pumas, Antarctica for penguins and seals, Europe for bears, wolves and birds, Asia for tigers, Oceania for kangaroos and duck-billed platypuses or Africa for God’s colouring book, full of predators and prey in their infinite variety?!
North America
Bear Gills
Wildlife
Brown bears salmon fishing in Brooks Falls, Alaska
Brown bears at Lake Clark
Grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park
Polar bears in Arviat on the Hudson Bay
Polar bears on Barter Island or in Barrow, Alaska
Polar bears in Wapusk National Park, Canada
Polar bears at Seal River Lodge, Canada
Polar bears on Baffin Island
Black bears at Alligator River, North Carolina
Elk rut in Rocky Mountain National Park
Frogs and birds in Costa Rica
Bears at Tweeds Muir Park Lodge, Canada
Pros
Great for brown/grizzly and polar bears
Huge variety of landscapes
Friendly locals
Good facilities with hot running water, Wi-Fi etc
Cons
Hard to see wildlife in places like Yellowstone (except in winter)
No big cats (except the cougar)
National parks can get very crowded
15 kg carry-on limit on local flights
Hard to get to Brooks Falls or Churchill (for European visitors)
I went to North America when I was 10 years old for my very first foreign holiday with my family, and it made a big impression on me with its big cars, enormous houses and friendly locals—plus the air hockey table where we lived in Cincinnati!
I spent five months in Texas in my year off before university, and I’ve been back several times to see friends in New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, Toronto and Montreal. I also visited Glacier, Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks, saw the brown bears catching salmon at Brooks Falls, Alaska, and watched the annual polar bear migration around the Hudson Bay.
The trip to the three national parks was a disappointment, but that was mostly because it wasn’t really a photographic expedition. We ended up doing a lot of hiking up hills (to the point where one guest just sat down in tears and refused to carry on!), but there was almost a complete absence of wildlife. Even in Yellowstone, I saw several signs warning of bears but not a single bear…!
The Alaska trip was the highlight, and it was one of the very rare occasions when I visited a place with a particular shot in mind and actually managed to take it! This picture of a brown bear catching salmon (see above) is probably my best ever—even though it obviously owes a lot to Thomas D Mangelsen’s famous Catch of the Day.
(I think of it as an ‘hommage’ rather than a copy…!)
Too Close for Comfort
The expedition to Arviat on the Hudson Bay was a real challenge in terms of journey time, luggage limits and extreme cold, and I only managed one five-star image (see above), but there was at least no shortage of polar bears, as well as Arctic foxes and hares. We were also able to take pictures on foot, which was much better than being in a Tundra Buggy in Churchill or on the deck of a cruise liner in Svalbard!
I haven’t been to North America that often recently, but if you include Central America, then I certainly plan to visit Costa Rica at some point.
South America
Tortoise Crossing
Wildlife
Galápagos tortoises, marine iguanas, Galápagos sea lions etc on the Galápagos Islands
Jaguars in the Brazilian Pantanal
Pumas at Torres del Paine
Pros
Great for jaguars, pumas and Galápagos tortoises
Easy to photograph the wildlife in the Galápagos
Unique species found nowhere else
Cons
Few photogenic species, so it’s all about the cats (except in the Galápagos)
Language problems (unless you speak Spanish!)
Hard to get to the Pantanal or Torres del Paine (for European visitors)
In 2016, I was supposed to be buying a flat in my mansion block in London, but the vendor died, and probate took so long that my mortgage offer expired, and, sadly, the sale fell through.
I was left with a pile of cash that should have been my deposit, so, rather than buy another flat, I decided to fritter it away on new camera equipment and trips to Antarctica, the Galápagos, Botswana and the Brazilian Pantanal!
I’d never been to South America before, and the first place I visited in January that year was the Galápagos Islands. I hadn’t been too keen to go there as I didn’t think the volcanic backdrops would be very photogenic. However, a couple of friends went on holiday there and managed to convince me that it was ideal for wildlife photographers as most of the animals just sat there posing in the sunshine!
I ended up going on a cruise around the islands on a small boat with five other guests, sailing overnight to each destination and then spending the day there taking pictures. The obvious animals to see were the Galápagos tortoises, and we went to a sanctuary where I took the shot shown above. For some reason, people seem to like it very much, and it’s now been downloaded 349 times!
Jurassic Bark
In September, 2016, I went back to South America to see the jaguar in the Brazilian Pantanal. Andy Skillen was a good tour leader, and we were lucky enough to get several sightings. We even saw a kill. Unfortunately, lunch arrived just at the wrong time, so we missed the initial encounter, but we did see the rest of the action.
Pulling Power
A young jaguar had grabbed a 10-foot caiman (a kind of crocodile), but it had a problem. Lions suffocate their prey around the throat, but jaguars drop down on caimans from the river bank, so they tend to grab the back of the neck. This jaguar had got it the wrong way round and didn’t know what to do! It didn’t know how to kill it from the front, and it was worried that the caiman would escape if it tried to change its grip.
Mum wasn’t around to help, so it dithered for about 10 minutes before finally striking the coup de grâce. After that, it wanted to hide its kill from other jaguars, but it couldn’t find a way up the steep, 10-foot bank.
It ended up dragging the caiman up and down the river for around 25 minutes before eventually finding a way into the bushes. By this time, guests in about 15 boats had gathered to watch the action, and everyone gave the jaguar a round of applause!
Puma
My most recent trip to South America was to see the puma in Torres del Paine. The puma (or cougar, mountain lion or catamount) was the last big(gish) cat that I hadn’t photographed. It took me a few years to arrange, but then I heard about a workshop led by Hector Astorga, who had been recommended to me by a friend.
Hector’s a great photographer in his own right, and he’s also friendly and efficient. We didn’t have any great sightings, and bad weather stopped us from visiting a condor roost, but we saw plenty of pumas and guanacos on almost every game drive and even a South American gray fox!
We had to hike uphill to reach the cats, but the benefit of being on foot with smaller, less dangerous cats was that we could get closer and lower than if we’d been in jeeps all the time. I could never have stood a few yards away from a lion or tiger!
Antarctica
Eddie the Penguin
Wildlife
Whales off Enterprise Island, Antarctic Peninsula
Adélie penguins on Brown Bluff, Antarctic Peninsula
King penguins at St Andrew’s Bay and Salisbury Plain, South Georgia
Albatrosses and chicks on West Point Island in the Falklands
Pros
Great for penguins, seals and icebergs!
Different from any other continent in terms of environment and wildlife
Filled with history (especially if you’re a Brit!)
Cons
Limited variety of major species
Too many days at sea
Constant danger of being ‘weathered out’
Expensive and hard to reach
I’ve been to Antarctica a couple of times, and I have to say it’s probably the continent that gets the biggest reaction from the people I meet. There’s just something special about Antarctica that you don’t get from anywhere else.
Partly it’s the distance (from Britain, at least), and partly it’s the noble but tragic history of the Scott and Shackleton expeditions. I found that out first hand when we drank a toast to Shackleton by the side of his grave on South Georgia and tossed the dregs of our whisky on his final resting place.
There’s also the dramatic seascape, with icebergs and ice floes everywhere you look, dramatic sculptures in a hundred different shades of blue, from cerulean to aquamarine.
Antarctica was the last continent I visited. When I finally set foot on the Antarctic Peninsula after several ‘days at sea’ according to the itinerary, it was a very special moment that brought a smile to my face.
The first time I went there in 2016, I took a ship from Ushuaia in Argentina and stopped off on the Falkland Islands and South Georgia before swinging round to the Antarctic Peninsula and then travelling home.
We did visit a black-browed albatross rookery on West Point Island, but the weather was too bad to get the most out of the Falklands, and the wind almost blew us off the beach at one point! Some guests visited Port Stanley to have a pint in the local pub, but I made my excuses and found something better to do…
South Georgia was a different story. Paul Goldstein reckons it’s the most photogenic place on earth, and you wouldn’t argue with him if you’d seen the cute Antarctic fur seals on Prion Island, the enormous male elephant seals in St Andrew's Bay or the thousands of king penguins on Salisbury Plain!
"Come on, darling, it's just a rock..."
The sightings were just as good on the Antarctic Peninsula. We saw a leopard seal tear a penguin inside out on a Zodiac cruise around Elephant Island (where Shackleton and his men were stranded for months), and I took this picture of an Adélie penguin (see above). It’s now my top-selling photograph, with more than 3,000 downloads!
The second time I went to Antarctica in December 2021, it was considerably cheaper! A friend of mine knew the owner of a tour operator, so she got a discount on her fare. When I found out about it and offered to come along, she managed to negotiate a similar discount for me as the Resident Photographer. Job done!
Getting the Hump
This time round, we saw plenty of penguins and seabirds again and even a humpback whale. However, the whole experience was rather spoilt by Covid. There were a couple of cases almost as soon as we set sail, and the rule was that another three cases would mean we’d have to turn the ship around and go back to port.
The Covidiots in charge used that as an excuse to turn our whole routine upside down. It was the equivalent of lockdown. We weren’t allowed to sit with our friends at mealtimes, and we had to get tested every day. Unfortunately, the staff hadn’t been given proper training, so they didn’t know what they were doing. One of them stuffed a swab up my nose so far and so hard that I actually cried out in pain!
Still, it was good to have some company, and my friends and I learned how to ‘manage’ the situation so we could eat our meals and go on Zodiac cruises together.
The two that stick in my mind are the one when we saw a humpback whale in Foyn Harbour on Enterprise Island and the one when we made a landing on Danco Island and then had to cope with a snowstorm and a Force 9 gale! The wind was so strong that I couldn’t even turn round for fear that the snow would fill up my lens hood…
Europe
"Who turned out the lights?"
Wildlife
Estonia hide in May for bear cubs and wolves
Flatanger, Norway, in summer for white-tailed eagles
Seabirds on boat trips (with fish) in Norway
Tromso, Norway, for orcas
Dalmatian pelicans on Lake Kerkini, Greece
Various exotic species in the Parque de la Naturaleza de Cabárceno, Spain
Finland for bears
Britain
Richmond Park or Bushy Park for deer
London Wetland Centre (or others) for otters and birds
Bempton Cliffs for gannet, guillemot, puffin, razorbill, kittiwake, fulmar, shag and herring gull
Slimbridge Wetland Centre, Gloucestershire, for kingfisher, ruff, sandpipers, warblers, whimbrel, grey plover, cuckoo, Mediterranean gull and cranes
The Wick, Skomer Island, Pembrokeshire, in July for puffins, guillemots and razorbills
Lackford Lakes, Suffolk, for kingfishers
Minsmere, Suffolk, for red deer, adders, stoats, bitterns, marsh harriers and bearded tit
Ranworth Broad, Norfolk, for ospreys, common terns, Cetti’s warblers
Gigrin, Rhayader, or Bwlch Nant Yr Arian in Wales for red kite feeding stations
Horn Mill Osprey Hide, Rutland, for ospreys, kingfishers, grey herons, red kites and buzzards (£80 for dawn to 0830 or 1630 to dusk)
Lakenheath Fen or Lackford Lakes hide near Cambridge
Seal colony on Norfolk coast
Loch Marie, Westeros, for rutting deer in September/October
Ospreys in June or July at Aviemore Osprey Centre, Aviemore Ospreys hide or on the River Spey
Pros
Good for polar bears, brown bears, wolves and seabirds
Great variety of habitats
Nearest, cheapest and most convenient (for Europeans!)
Cons
No big cats
Limited range of other animals
No exotic wildernesses like the Serengeti or Masai Mara
Until recently, more than half of the photos I’d ever taken had come from the United Kingdom—for obvious reasons. I even took a picture of a golden eagle during a falconry display at a reenactment of the Battle of Hastings!
Little Brown Job
Outside my home country, I’ve taken wildlife photos on three main trips: to Svalbard, Cabárceno and Lake Kerkini.
Svalbard was a good place to see polar bears—although a lot of the bears we saw were at least 100 yards away and therefore hard to photograph. We also went in summer, so we had 24-hour daylight rather than the chance to photograph the bears at sunrise and sunset.
I went on an Exodus cruise with Paul Goldstein, and it was a success in terms of the number of sightings, but not in terms of my ‘keeper’ rate. The problem was that I was using a Sigma 50-500mm lens, and I hadn’t fine-tuned the autofocus. That meant that just about all my images were too soft.
I remember one day in particular when we saw a mother with two cubs put on a show for us. It lasted for a good couple of hours, and I took thousands of shots. Unfortunately, when I got back on board ship to check through my images, I had to throw them all away! They just weren’t sharp enough. That was a huge disappointment.
I immediately fine-tuned the AF systems on all my lenses (on the advice of one of the other guests) and then, eventually, I decided to stick to name-brand lenses…!
I had a better experience at Cabárceno. Not many people have probably heard of the Parque de la Naturaleza de Cabárceno, but it’s a safari park near Santander in northern Spain. A couple of friends invited me, so it was nice to take pictures with people I knew.
Black and Blue
It was also very cheap. We went for a long weekend, staying in a local B&B, and the whole thing only cost us a couple of hundred euros—including flights, car hire and entry fee!
There was a wide range of animals there from every continent, from tigers to rhinos, and all we needed to do was drive around to each enclosure, getting out to take pictures wherever and whenever we wanted to.
I was particularly proud of this shot of a giraffe (see above). I’d been getting frustrated with the results I was getting, so I decided to do something different. I underexposed by two stops and used Lightroom to create what I call a ‘sunny silhouette’.
Now, you might say all this wasn’t really ‘wildlife’ photography, but it was still a great opportunity to take thousands of shots of exotic animals without having to spend thousands of pounds on long-haul flights and four- or five-star lodges on a whole different continent!
My last big European trip was to Lake Kerkini in Greece to photograph the Dalmatian pelicans. As I said, I prefer predators to most other forms of wildlife, so this was the exception that proved the rule!
Again, I was invited to go with a friend, so I wanted to show support, but it was also a good chance to take a lot of bird-in-flight shots in a controlled environment.
Feeding Frenzy
We took boat rides every morning, and the driver attracted the pelicans by throwing fish to them, so you might again argue that it wasn’t true ‘wildlife photography’, and most competitions wouldn’t accept photos taken in those circumstances.
Bird Bank
However, the birds were still wild, and it was a great chance to practise taking portraits and slow pans during the golden hour against a fantastic background of snow-capped mountains. All we needed to do was tell our driver what we wanted, and he’d point the boat in the right direction and persuade the pelicans to comply by offering them the only thing they really wanted: fish!
Asia
"Tiger, tiger, burning bright…"
Wildlife
Bengal tigers in Tadoba, Ranthambore and Bandhavgarh National Parks, India
Kabini, India for Saya, the black panther
Ladakh and Spiti Valley, India, for snow leopards
Polar bears, seals, walruses and birds on Wrangel Island, Russia
Elephants, leopards, crocodiles and birds in Yala National Park, Sri Lanka
Tigers, leopards and panthers in Nagarhole NP, India
Clouded leopards in Deramakot Forest, Sabah, Borneo
Snow leopards in Ladakh or Mongolia
Tigers at Pench or Kanha National Park, India
Pros
Great for tigers
Easy to photograph the wildlife in the Galápagos
Safaris in India cheaper than in Africa
Cons
Sole focus on tiger in India
Lots of frustrating bureaucracy in India
Hard to reach (for Europeans)
The only place in Asia I’ve visited for wildlife photography is India. I’ve been on three trips to see the Bengal tiger, visiting Tadoba, Ranthambore and Bandhavgarh and then Bandhavgarh.
Seeing a tiger for the first time is really something special. In my case, I was on a game drive in Bandhavgarh when a call came in over the radio. Our guide suddenly shouted, “Tiger!” at the top of his voice, and the driver jammed his foot on the accelerator.
We raced away at about 60 mph, and we all had to hold on for dear life as we rounded a 90° turn! When we finally saw the two young tigers playing by a waterhole, it was all worth it—even though it wasn’t actually a great sighting, and we didn’t see a single tiger on the rest of our trip!
The difference between a tiger safari and an African safari is that, in India, it’s all about the cats. You might stop for a sloth bear, but if it’s ‘only’ a sambar deer or an Indian roller, your guide will just drive straight past it!
The only other place I’d like to visit in Asia for wildlife photography is Sri Lanka. Yala National Park is on my bucket list for leopards and Indian elephants, so I hope I make it there one day…
Oceania
Australian white ibis
Wildlife
Great Barrier Reef, Queensland for scuba diving and snorkelling
Fraser Island, Queensland, for dingoes, turtles, dugongs and whales
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, Queensland, for koala bears
Kangaroo Island, South Australia, for kangaroos, bandicoots, sea lions, echidnas, koalas and wallabies
Maria Island, Tasmania, for kangaroos, wallabies, pademelons, possums, wombats, echidnas, Tasmanian devils and many different species of birds
Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia, for whale sharks
Phillip Island, Victoria, for little penguins
Wilsons Promontory, Victoria, for echidnas, emus, kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, penguins, Australian fur seals, dolphins and humpback whales
Montague Island, New South Wales, for seabirds and fur seals
The Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, for cage diving with sea lions, dolphins or great white sharks
Pros
Great for marine life, especially on the Great Barrier Reef
Many species unique to Australia and New Zealand
Incredible to see duck-billed platypus for the first time
Cons
No predators (unless you count snakes and spiders!)
A long way to go (from Europe)
Internal distances are vast
I’ve spent a lot of time in Australia over the years, living in Melbourne for three months and Brisbane for over a year. I even visited the Great Barrier Reef with my girlfriend. However, I’ve never been there on a photography trip and this is the only wildlife shot I’ve ever taken!
There’s plenty of local wildlife, of course, but I saw kangaroos, echidnas, wallabies and duck-billed platypuses in Melbourne Zoo, and I don’t think I’ll go back to Oceania unless it’s to visit my friends…
Africa
He-Lion
Wildlife
Big Five in Kenya and Tanzania
Rhinos and leopards at Ol Jogi
Zimanga for local wildlife at waterside hides
Cheetah sanctuaries in Namibia
Kruger in September, eg Shingwedzi Kamp
Kicheche with Paul Goldstein for cheetah hunts (and Giza panther in Laikipia)
Lewa in Kenya for cheetahs and rhinos
Lentorre Lodge in Kenya for backlit hides
South Luangwa, Zambia, in November for carmine bee-eaters
Leopards at Sabi Sands and in South Luangwa, Zambia
Pros
Great for Big Five
Variety of wildlife, including lion, leopard, cheetah, rhino, elephant, giraffe, hippo etc
Hunts, especially with cheetah
Cons
Problems with local facilities, eg Wi-Fi, hot water
15 kg carry-on limit on local flights
Expensive (unless you’re happy to camp!)
Hard to reach (for Europeans)
On my very first trip as a professional photographer, I went on a week-long safari in Laikipia and climbed Mount Kenya. Since then, I’ve been on 11 trips to Africa, including one to Tanzania and Kenya that lasted four months! In that time, I’ve been on over 300 game drives in Botswana, Kenya, Namibia and Tanzania and spent two days with the gorillas in Rwanda.
What keeps tempting me back there is the density of exotic wildlife species and the thrill of the chase. I love predators, and seeing a cheetah kill is just about the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me in photography!
I had to wait until my sixth safari before I saw my first cheetah kill, but in the week I spent with Paul Goldstein at Kicheche Bush Camp in the Masai Mara, I ended up seeing five! I’ve since seen one more, also at Kicheche, and I’m going back there in January 2024 with my new Sony ⍺1 mirrorless cameras—so fingers crossed!
I’ve never seen a leopard kill from start to finish, but I have seen various lion kills, including one in which four male lions took down a Cape buffalo! I’ll never forget that as long as I live…
If you’re a bit squeamish, you might not like the idea of seeing a kill, but it’s hard to make a final decision until you’ve seen it for yourself. The chase is the exciting bit, and, in the case of a cheetah, it only lasts a few seconds.
The big cats all suffocate their prey, so there’s very little blood to be seen until the predators start to feed. At that point, even I don’t particularly enjoy it. Watching animals eat is just a bit boring, and it’s hard to take a decent shot of it.
When people ask me if I take pictures of birds, too, I usually tell them that I do—but only if there aren’t any animals around! In fact, I love taking bird-in-flight shots, and the African fish eagle, little bee-eater and lilac-breasted roller are three of my favourite species.
"Ah, grasshopper..."
Verdict
Eye of the Rhino
If you asked me if I wanted to go to my favourite restaurant or the one I’d always wanted to go to, I’d choose the latter. There’s something about the new and the unexplored that’s always appealed to me.
Having said that, you eventually reach the point where you’ve been to most of the places you really want to visit, so you have to think about the best places to go rather than just the ones on your bucket list.
Let’s take the continents in order…
There are obviously other places to go for wildlife photography and other sights to see, but the fact I haven’t gone back to North America recently or ever visited Central America should tell you that, for me at least, it doesn’t have the depth of opportunities offered by some of the other continents—unless you like taking landscape shots of the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls on the side! One day, I might visit Costa Rica, I suppose, but it’s on the back burner for the moment…
The Galápagos Islands are great if you like reptiles, and mainland South America is good for the jaguar and puma. However, there aren’t many other good wildlife opportunities, and it’s a heck of a long way to go…!
Antarctica has a lot of history, and I still find the stories of Scott and Shackleton incredibly moving. Most of the wildlife is unique to the region, and everybody seems to love a jumping penguin! However, it’s incredibly expensive and time-consuming to get there, and you don’t get the density or variety of species that you do in other continents like Africa.
Until recently, I’d taken the majority of my wildlife photographs in Europe (for obvious reasons!), and it’s clearly very convenient if you live there as I do. However, quantity isn’t quality, and only three of my Top 100 images came from European destinations before I photographed the pelicans on Lake Kerkini. The main problem is that I just prefer predators. Without the possibility of seeing a big cat, European destinations tend to leave me cold.
Asia is cheaper than Africa, and it’s always worth going to see the Bengal tiger, but there isn’t much else that might tempt me. Even tiger safaris get a bit frustrating sometimes if you don’t see any cats or you can’t take any decent shots because all the grass and trees get in the way!
I admit that Oceania is a bit of a gap on my photographic CV, but I just can’t motivate myself to go there for the wildlife. Yes, there are a lot of unique species in Australia and New Zealand, for example, but, again, you don’t see any predators.
And that leaves us with Africa. I’ve visited Africa more than any other continent since I became a wildlife photographer, and there are good reasons for that. I’ve been to most of the countries on my bucket list already, but I keep going back to Africa as it has such a wide variety of beautiful, dangerous and exotic animals. It also offers me the best chance of getting dramatic action shots of cheetah hunts and other once-in-a-lifetime sightings I seem to get every time I go!
My feelings may change in future, and you may disagree if you don’t share my love of the big cats, but, for the moment, Africa beats the competition hands down!
Dustbuster