Amboseli on the Kenyan/Tanzanian border is one of the best canvases to work with in the world. I must have visited 15 times over the last five years and I almost always return to Nairobi with something. The amphitheater has an elemental starkness that suits my clean, ground up style of photography – the backdrops are rarely that busy in this arid dustbowl. The name Amboseli means ‘place of dust’ and that is instructive. To most lovers of East Africa, the ecosystem lacks the beauty and the glamour of other National parks such as the Serengeti and the Mara. Amboseli is just a flat and raw terrain albeit nestling below the towering Mount Kilimanjaro.
The range of animals in Amboseli also lacks breath – there are just a handful of cheetahs and lions, no leopards or rhinos, and there are no crocodiles because there are no rivers. However, what Amboseli does have is the best elephant viewing in the world. I go to Amboseli for one principal purpose – to work close to elephants as they cross the dry Lake Amboseli in search of water in the park. When a big herd crosses, it is as serene a spectacle in the natural world as I have ever come across. That is why Amboseli holds such a special place in my heart. It offers the chance to capture evocative imagery of elephants in a barren and remote wilderness. These are also not small elephants, they are some of the biggest tuskers in Africa.
10 years ago, lake crossings of large herds were common, especially at the end of the summer dry season when the surface water was scarce and the elephants traveled from the Kilimanjaro foothills across the lake for the remaining sources of water. There is no greater friend to a wildlife photographer than repeat or predictable animal behavior and late October tended to offer the best opportunity for this. With the first rains arriving there were rarely tourists around and it often felt as if I had exclusive access to write the stories for the ‘daily elephant news’. The evening skies would often have a menacing dark countenance, which compliments the scorched earth below.
But recently the elephant behavior in Amboseli has been affected by the growing number of Masai moving to the area with their cattle. This has impinged on the elephant’s way of life as cattle come with human tenders and also attract more lion. We were told as kids that elephants have great power of memory and increasingly there must be a disconnect between their memories and the current habitat. They are unsettled by change and Amboseli is changing. Cattle now dominate Amboseli and this is a story repeated throughout many of the parks in Kenya. The Masai are a powerful landowner in the country whose own needs along with their cattle are the prevailing variable in much of rural Southern Kenya.
For 3 years I had not seen a big herd cross the lake and my regular guide has started to greet me at the landings strip with eyes of resignation. He knows what I want and this means working out of the jeep, on the ground on the dry lake with a big elephant herd approaching. Since 2013, I had not had the privilege of seeing this and I have certainly put the hours in. There have been special vignettes with giraffes, zebras, wildebeest and small elephant groups but no big elephant crossings. Until October 2015, in the middle of the day, my ‘look out’ scout saw something that had the shape of a big herd starting to cross the lake – they may have been 5 miles from his vantage point, but through his binoculars his premise was con­ firmed – and the herd numbered over 25 – the biggest group the locals had seen for sometime. Being outside normal filming time, I was sitting writing at my camp when the news quickly came back to me while I was only wearing loafers and casual clothes. There was no time to change and I picked up my cameras and we drove the 7 miles in record time.
As we sped to the west side of the dry lake, I was emotionally focused but equally aware that the light was patchy with the sky dominated by localized rain cloud. I knew that this could compliment any ground content perfectly – much better to have threatening clouds at midday than a high sun. Those 20 minutes I spent that Sunday with the herd were spectacular and it was not hard to take something good. But one image ‘The Circle of Life’ stood out and the reaction from those I quickly showed it to homed in on the image’s grace and serenity. The composition has spirituality to it and in retrospect I made good quick decisions on both camera bodies and lenses. The photograph has a very good chance of passing the test of time. The detail is very pleasing and the composition is a gift that perhaps the hours of persistence deserved.

Amboseli, Kenya 2012

This was a pivotal split second in my photographic journey. Elephants are big animals and their enormity tends to be poorly conveyed by a camera lazily occupying a four-wheel drive – but equally to lie on the ground so as to capture a more menacing ground up angle is highly irresponsible to the point of being potentially fatal. The solution is afforded by remotes, but these have to be placed in the ground and personally checked with the lead elephant still 120 yards away. So much can go wrong – the elephants could change their path, dirt could blow into the lens or – as on this occasion – the positioning can be too good, and £7,000 of gear could be trampled on. I thought that the camera would be lost and with it this image as the lead bull came within one final step of the remote.

My savvy guide told me to keep on firing the motor drive – just with added intensity – and as he suspected, the bull was sufficiently conscious of unfamiliar noise in the dirt to stop and sidestep the camera. It all happened within ten heart-pounding seconds and when the full herd passed by, I rushed expectantly to gather the camera.

As soon as I saw this frame, I knew I had a gem of an image. The 35mm wide-angle lens was able to capture the whole elephant from foot to eye in sharp focus and the composition around it was extremely fortunate. I have tried dozens of times since then to take another remote control image, but nothing in content, light or composition touches this lucky photograph – which is now with us forever.

Amboseli, Kenya 2019

This is the right title for this congested scene around a watering hole in Savute, Botswana. I needed a vista that could offer depth and the bank here was perfect. Finding the location was key to a concept that had been on my “mood board” for some time.

There is a timeless authority to the photograph and monochrome lends to that authority. We had a preconceived notion of what we wanted and it was not far off this image, though I never expected giraffes to play a part.

The first trip we failed because the location was quiet and so I came all the way back – from Brazil – to try again. The key was for the elephants to come when there was enough light for meaningful depth of eld, but not so stark a light that facial shadows impinged on the quality of the narrative.

So 11 o’clock was a good time. It is never going to happen much before then as it takes time to warm up in Savute in August and elephants – like humans – bathe and drink when it is hot, not cold. The light at 11 am is much kinder than the hottest period of the day – around 3.30 – 4 pm.

I was as close as I could be without altering behaviour and the 58mm was the perfect lens – at F11 or F16 it allowed for pin sharp focus in the lead bull, but also crucially for the elephants and giraffes way in the distance to be in the focal field.

​This photograph plays homage to the romanticist’s Africa.

Much of my work in America has been played out on the canvas offered by ghost towns or communities that have been largely abandoned. I have long felt some sort of visceral pull toward this kind of narrative – it speaks to the fragility of mankind and the constancy of evolution. In 2020, these thoughts are central to us all.⁣
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In Amboseli, Kenya, a large tourist accommodation complex closed due to financial issues many years back. As is common here, it was never demolished and simply fenced off and left to ruin. There was no access for man nor animal and we used to just drive past and look at what we could see of the decaying village. But recently the weather and Covid 19 have taken hold and the deterioration appears to have markedly accelerated. Most significantly, the fencing has fallen apart and animals have taken over the facility. Buffalos are inside bedrooms and zebra graze on the football pitch.⁣
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I immediately saw a huge opportunity to make a picture, but for the ultimate visual disconnect, we needed to wait for an elephant family to pass through main street. For three days, nothing and then at 7.30am one bright morning, with Kilimanjaro towering above the ruins, it happened. I could barely contain my excitement at the narrative that was being created.⁣
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The end result is an authentic and symbolic image. The lead female cuts a powerful and dominant figure. I wonder whether this scene portends to what one day may come to pass. Elephants would consider that to be the ultimate justice.