View our Kenya Wildlife Portfolio
Before you read our brochure, please read our 'shooting highlights' from a typical trip, two back-to-back November 1996 photo safaris.
A Leopard making a kill ... The same leopard, carrying its capturedprey, a baby warthog, directly toward our cameras.... On another day, meeting her half-grown female cub, bumping heads, twining sinuously as only cats can, then walking straight to our lenses again ...
Interested? Please read on as we list more of our 1996 trip highlights!
Our Big Cats Highlights ... Leopards - mating in the open, only thirty feet from our vehicle (virtually never seen or filmed) . A mother leopard and two cubs. 16 leopard sightings for the two trips. Cheetahs - frame-filling head shots against a blue sky, with a cat perched on a high termite mound and of a mother and two cubs feeding upon an African hare. Cubs chasing one another in play. 26 cheetahs in two trips. Lions - incredible behavior with cubs, wrestling one another, playing with their mothers' tails; closeup, clear suckling shots; at rest beneath mom's chin. With adults: lionesses butting head and mutually grooming; mating; flehmen; males and females feeding at zebra and at eland kills. Over 200 lions seen in the two trips. Serval Cats - we had five sightings and limited photo opportunities with this elusive and hard-to-find cat.
Other Predators ... Hyenas - at den, with pups; at giraffe carcass, and chasing a Thompson gazelle fawn. Blackbacked Jackal - frame-filling portraits, and feeding on a baby warthog head (it was an unlucky year for warthogs!), and with African hares Bat-eared Fox - frame-filling portraits and the tiniest pups I've ever seen, at the den. Dwarf Mongoose - troops standing on log watching a jackal; full frame portraits of adults on mound; wrestling; mating.
The Giants ... African elephants - The best activity we've ever seen. An 8 hour old baby, nursing for the first time, and greeted by fellow herd members; challenging lions at their kill; trumpeting; mud baths; playing king of the mountain; nursing; ripping down trees; and more.
Black rhino - only one, but it false charged one of our vehicles; proving full-frame portraits (even with a wide-angle lens) and grazing shots. White rhino - 'dancing' rhinos backing off from a small fight; running toward the camera; horning one another in a crossed horn wrestling match; full frame shots faces us, drinking, grazing, and full head shots (or details of muzzles, we were so close!)
Hippos - great portraits at near-water level of a pod of fifty or so; including some yawning; and plenty of bird behavior on the hippo's backs. Giraffes - all three subspecies; including two, three and four Reticulated giraffes fighing together; full-frame faces, including details of the tongue; super landscape shots.
The Hoofed Hervbivores ... Zebras - both Common and Grevy's. Lerngthy and violent stallion fights. Newborne colt suckling, cavorting. Landscapes of 1,000+ herd shots. African buffalo - full frame faces; including with oxpeckers in nose, ears. Gnus - migration herd shots. Running; nursing.
Impala - mutual grooming of bucks and does; fights; newborns; herd shots. Thompson and Grants Gazelles - full frame portraits; babies. Waterbucks - both species, full-frame. Eland - huge herds of 200 and 300. Kudu - full frame portraits of cows -- a first for our safaris!
Gerenuks - standing on hind-feet; nursing. Warthogs - grazing on knees; babies (including being eaten by leopards and jackals); tight head shots showing tusks. Dik-diks - both species; at dung midden pile; scent marking; portraits. Topis and hartebeest - on termite mound; nursing young; newborn babies. Hyrax - group shots on rocks
Primates... Colobus monkeys - several groups in trees. Vervet monkeys - newborn baby suckling; full-frame baby shots; greeting of baby; troop shots looking for snakes; feeding; in trees; etc. Baboons - with impala kill; eating doum palm fruits (full-frame); greeting new born baby; suckling; riding female's back or belly; chasing leopard.
Birds ....Kenya has over 1,000 species of birds. On a typical safari those interested in birds see at least 150 species, and typically photography twenty to fifty different species. Here's a brief list of the species we satisfactorily filmed in 1996:
Plovers - crowned, wattled, spur-winged, blacksmith. Vultures - Nubian, white-backed, Ruppell's, white-headed, hooded. Eagles - African fish, tawny, martial, steppe, black-chested snake. Hawks - pale and dark chanting goshawks, gymnogene, grey kestrel, augur buzzard, many others seen. Rollers - European, lilac-breasted. Bee-eaters - Somali, little, white-fronted. Starlings - superb, wattled, others seen. Storks - Maribou, Abdim's, European, saddle-billed, yellow-billed. Ibis - gloss, hadada. Bustartds - kori, Denhem's, white-bellied, black-bellied, buff crested. Others - helmeted and vulturine guineafowl, yellow and red necked spurfowl, various francolins, various sandgrouse, flamingos, water and spotted thickknees, owls, Egyptian geese.
Reptiles - remarkably, there are very few snakes usually seen on a trip. We saw none in 1996. However, we did film tree and common agamas; Nile and savannah monitors; and Nile crocodiles.
Scenics - great rainbows in the unsettled skies of November, with giraffes and cheetahs in the foreground; tree shots of acacias in low light, or at sunrise and sunset; migration shots of zebra and gnu; wide-angle shots of herds of elephants, and of giraffes, rhinos, and cloud scapes. Flowers in the Masai Mara.
I have several reasons why I prefer November over any other time for visiting Kenya. For one, it is not peak-season, and at times we have entire lodges or camps to ourselves and our small groups. The weather is typically brilliantly clear in the morning, with clouds building in the afternoon, sometimes accompanied by showers and rarely by late afternoon rains. Skyscapes, scenics, and great portraiture is possible in this 'softer' light than is possible under completely clear skies all day. With the chance of moisture, the dust is usually suppressed -- a big consideration.
Game can be great in November. The famous wildebeest migration (expected to be in the Mara in July, August, and September) sometimes never arrives at the traditional time. In 1996, for example, we had huge herds in the upper Mara in November and filmed everything but a river crossing (a rare event to capture even in the summer migration times). Babies seem to be most plentiful at this time, perhaps born with the expectation that new grass will be available from the rains. We typically film zebra, topi, hartebeest, Thompson gazelle, impala, elephant, and giraffe babies, as well as the young of cheetah, hyenas, jackals, and lions.
Mary and I have been doing Kenya safaris for years. Next year, my safari tally will exceed thirty trips. We know the land, the people, and the animals. We're not travelling to Kenya as 'tour leaders,' but as photographers who lead tours and who are dedicated to obtaining the best possible photographs for ourselves and our participants. We rotate our people through Mary and my vehicles, as well as through the other one or two vehicles, so that our groups do not form clicques, and on the days you film with either of us, we'll expect you to get the best shots as we 'read' behavior, anticipate action, and get into the best camera positions. And, with only THREE photographers per vehicle, you'll have plenty of room to spread out gear and to use your private roof hatch or side window.
As you may know, I've just written 'Photographing on Safari, A Field Guide to photographing in East Africa,' which details everything you need to know for doing a great trip --- provided, of course, you're doing it with us!