Here are my top five moments as a wildlife photographer.
Olympia
5. Kaboso leopard
My first great moment came when I was staying at Kicheche Bush Camp. I was on an Exodus trip led by Paul Goldstein, and we went on a game drive into the Masai Mara National Reserve, looking for leopards in the trees by the river.
Lo and behold, we found the Kaboso leopard in all her glory!
She was lying on a branch watching us with faint curiosity, but she didn’t seem to mind as we all started taking pictures. I had my 800mm lens on my D850, and the leopard perfectly filled the frame from around 25 yards away.
She ended up giving us quite a show, jumping from branch to branch and ‘modelling’ herself for us, first on the left side, then on the right.
It was Heaven!
Often, I enjoy looking at the pictures I’ve taken later more than the moment when I take them, but this was definitely an exception. I have a whole host of images to choose from, and I’ve never taken better pictures of a leopard in a tree.
This is my favourite. I call her ‘Olympia’ because she reminds me of the woman in the painting of that name by Edouard Manet, lying naked and shameless for all to see.
Shot with a Nikon D850 in the Masai Mara in Kenya in July 2018.
ISO 320, 800mm, f/8, 1/1600
This image won an Editor’s Choice award, a Guest Editor award, a Readers’ Choice award and 10 user awards on ePHOTOzine and an Honourable Mention in LightSpaceTime’s Nature Art Exhibition.
Bear Gills
4. ‘Catch of the Day’
Way back in 1988, Thomas D Mangelsen took a famous shot of a bear catching a salmon in its mouth at Brooks Falls, Alaska.
He called it ‘Catch of the Day’.
I first heard about Brooks Falls from the mother of my best friend at Oxford, who came right out and told me that she’d just been watching bears catching salmon in Alaska!
Ever since that moment, I’d wanted to see them for myself, and I finally made it in late July 2015.
That’s the month when a million salmon come back to the Brooks River to spawn, and Brooks Falls is the first barrier they come to as the arrive from the Pacific Ocean.
It’s definitely one of the most spectacular wildlife photography experiences you can hope to have - although you have to be prepared for cold, grey and wet weather even in the local ‘summer’!
I only managed to get two shots of the bear with its mouth open and a salmon in mid-air during my entire stay at Brooks Falls, so this was a special moment.
Having said that, the picture itself is more heart-warming than the moment when I actually took it as I didn’t know at that point how it would turn out!
I should also mention that the best wildlife moment of that whole trip came when I was walking through the woods to the waterfall on my own early one morning when I suddenly came across a bird that looked a bit like a grouse or a ptarmigan.
We were both walking in the same direction, and it was only a few feet away, but it didn’t seem bothered in the least by my presence. Now THAT was a truly priceless moment of communion with Nature, but I didn’t take any pictures of the bird, so…
Anyway, a large framed print of my bear catching a salmon is now hanging behind me, but the printer at Genesis Imaging had to do quite a bit of work on it to make it look this good…
Nevertheless, it’s still probably the best shot I’ve ever taken, so that must count for something, right…?
Shot with a Nikon D800 in Alaska, USA, in July 2015.
ISO 400, 300mm, f/9.0, 1/1600
This image won the Sunday Times/Audley Travel Big Shot competition in January 2017, won a Gold award from The Societies and led to me being shortlisted for Photographer of the Year) won Best of Show in Grey Cube Gallery's Nature exhibition (see video), won first place in Art Room Gallery's 'Nature' competition in March 2018 (see video), won SINWP's 'In the Wild' Photography Competition, won Picture Frames Express’s ‘All Creatures Great and Small’, won Readers' Choice, Guest Editor and Highly Commended awards on ePHOTOzine, won Best of Contest in 35 Awards' Wildlife: Mammals competition, was a finalist in Fusion Art's 3rd Annual Animal Kingdom Art Exhibition in January 2018 (see video), was National Geographic's Photo of the Day on 2 August 2017 after being chosen in their Daily Dozen and was among the editors' favourites for Week 10 of their Travel Photographer of the Year competition. It also received nearly 25,000 likes on their Instagram page!
"Timing is everything in photography, and this image is a great example of that. Excellent use of your 300mm lens to capture this moment right here. I love how you composed the image and went with a medium frame and didn't get too close or tight on the bear. There's some nice spacing around the subject and this makes for an excellent wildlife image." Matt Adams - Producer, National Geographic Your Shot
It was also third in the Xposure 2017 Wildlife Photography Competition, commended in Photocrowd's 'The Colour Brown' competition, Highly Commended in Pursue Pictures’ Great Outdoors competition, SINWP's Wonders of Wildlife competition, given an Honourable Mention in Pursue Pictures' The Great Outdoors competition and the 2017 Neutral Density Photography Awards, chosen as an Editors' Pick in the ZEISS Photography Award 2018 and awarded a Mark of Excellence by the judges for the I SHOT IT Wildlife Photo Competition 2017.
"Well it is a well known spot for grizzly fishing but you have timed this perfectly earning a well deserved mark of excellence."
Judge's comment
“So this isn't a landscape image, but this image is great! Wildlife photography is tricky: you rattle off a ton of shots, hoping to get a few good ones. This shot was captured at the perfect time, is composed well and is tack sharp, which can be hard to do with animals. It also tells the story of both the bear’s hunt for survival and the fish’s fight for survival.”
Judge’s comment
"Ah, grasshopper..."
3. LBR
It’s not often I press the shutter and I know - I just know! - that it’s going to be great shot. This was one of those moments.
I was on a game drive with a lovely lady called Karen whom I’d met in the airport on the way to Tanzania. It was a freak coincidence that we both happened to be heading to exactly the same place, but we got along pretty well, and we spent most of the trip together.
I saw this bird only a few feet away, and I didn’t want to disturb it, so I very carefully set up my camera on the window sill, resting the 800mm lens on a beanbag.
I checked my settings, and I was just about to take a standard ‘bird on a stick’ portrait when, suddenly, the roller fluttered its wings.
That was an enormous slice of luck.
Instead of getting a 10-a-penny shot of a bird perching on a branch, I got an action shot that actually shows the spectacular, iridescent turquoise of the roller’s wings. And to top it all off, it was actually carrying a grasshopper in its mouth!
I guess I’d rather be lucky than good…
Anyway, I knew I’d taken a good shot, so I checked the image on the back of the camera and immediately showed it to Karen.
Moments like that are important to share.
Shot with a Nikon D810 in Tarangire National Park in Tanzania in January 2018.
ISO 640, 800mm, f/8, 1/1000
This shot won a Readers’ Choice award and three user awards on ePHOTOzine, won second place in Art Room Gallery’s ‘Animals’ exhibition, was chosen as the first-placed entry of the week in Africa's Photographer of the Year 2018 and received nearly 1,000 likes on Instagram. It was Highly Commended in SINWP’s Joys of Nature, In the Wild and Bird Photography competitions, was a finalist and won an Honourable Mention in the Fusion Art Open Art Exhibition (see video), was a finalist in the 2nd ROYGBIV Color Awards and Fusion Art’s 2nd International Photography Exhibition and won a Special Recognition award in LightSpaceTime’s Animals Art Exhibition. It also appeared as the Opening Shot image in Outdoor Photography and made the shortlist in Outdoor Photographer of the Year 2018.
"Behind you!"
2. My first cheetah kill
My heart rarely races with excitement, but it was certainly pounding away inside my chest when I saw this cheetah chase down a Thomson’s gazelle.
I was on the same trip to Kicheche Bush Camp I mentioned earlier, and I’d been getting a bit frustrated. I’d spent a total of six weeks on safari, but I’d never seen a kill!
I was desperate to see one, and it turned out I was going to get my wish. In fact, I saw not just one but FIVE cheetah kills that week!
All credit to Paul Goldstein for sending out spotters, getting us to the right place and then having the patience to stay with the cheetahs for hours on end.
There might have been a few boring bits when we had to fill the time telling jokes or playing parlour games, but at least we were guaranteed to see the cheetahs hunt.
When the moment came, it was incredibly exciting.
It was a female cheetah with a few cubs, and she was stalking a couple of Thomson’s gazelles.
I got myself ready and made sure that I had all the right settings dialled in: 1/600 of a second at f/8 using Auto ISO.
The cheetah was over a hundred yards away, so I was glad to have my 800mm lens attached to my D850.
When the cheetah suddenly accelerated, it was incredibly exciting!
The whole chase lasted less than 10 seconds, and I found it incredibly hard to maintain focus on the cheetah.
I took a burst of around 20 shots, but this was the only one that was even half-way decent - and it needed a LOT of work in Lightroom!
I had again been lucky.
I had indeed lost focus on the cheetah, but my camera had instead locked on to the gazelle - perhaps because it was closer to me than the cat.
That did the shot no harm at all, and it was helped by the fact that the animals were racing straight towards me. It’s not often you get that kind of good fortune.
The gazelle wasn’t as sharp as I would’ve liked, and I had to clone out another one that had wandered into the shot, but Lightroom and Topaz Sharpen AI can solve almost any problem these days!
Shot with a Nikon D850 in the Masai Mara in Kenya in July 2018.
ISO 320, 800mm, f/8, 1/1600
This image won two user awards on ePHOTOzine and was favourited by one of the editors of National Geographic on the Your Shot website.
Three's a Crowd
1. Four lions take down a buffalo
I was lucky enough to spend three months working as the Resident Photographer at Klein’s Camp, on the Tanzania-Kenya border, and then another month at Cottar’s 1920s Safari Camp in the Masai Mara.
It was a great opportunity, and I was secretly hoping to see a few kills.
Unfortunately, I only really saw two, but this one was the best and most exciting I’ll probably ever see in my life!
Quality beats quantity, I guess.
I was driving with a couple of guests in the Serengeti National Park when our driver suddenly called out, "There's a lion fighting with a buffalo!"
It was a couple of hundred yards away, and we weren't allowed to go off-road, but that didn't stop him!
We hurtled over the bumpy savannah, and at one point my bean bag flew into the air. I was just glad that I was hanging on to my cameras for dear life, otherwise they would probably have gone out the window!
When we reached the scene, a male lion had the hindquarters of the buffalo in its teeth and was grappling it from behind.
I started taking pictures, and I took so many on continuous that my camera started slowing down!
I suggested to one of the guests to take some video, so Yvonne took care of that while I machine-gunned away, desperate not to miss a moment of the action.
Finally, another three male lions joined the hunt, and they managed to bring the buffalo down.
One of them applied the coup de grace by suffocating it, first by biting it round the neck and then over its mouth.
When it was dead, the lions all lined up behind the carcase as they began to feed.
We could't stay long as the driver was worried about being spotted by the park rangers, so we hightailed it out of there.
Finally! A proper lion kill. What a day...!
Shot with a Nikon D810 in the Serengeti in Tanzania in April 2019.
ISO 1250, 260mm, f/11, 1/1250
This image was Highly Commended and won a Readers’ Choice award and six user awards on ePHOTOzine.
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