Born Wild

2023

Tanzania

Image Story

"You can plan but with wildlife it doesn't mean a thing. Sometimes the best images just happen by accident right in front of you."

Throughout my work I have always tried to photograph wild subjects from within 10 meters and crucially, always by hand.

This meant to get a shot like this, with the animal silhouetted against the stormy sky, I was going to have to get as close as I thought safely possible to a wild lion. No easy task.

Taken in the Serengeti, one of Africa’s largest national parks, we spent days around this male lion, sometimes staying close for hours at a time, others leaving him well alone. Eventually we saw him start to mate with a lioness, a process the lions perform on and off for several days, we knew we had a window.

Anderson Kale, my exceptional guide, suggested we wait for the couple of seconds just after they’ve mated when he’ll stand tall and survey the area around him for competitors, before slumping in a heap.

We watched and we waited (somewhat anxiously) until, as predicted, they finished mating and he stood proud, giving us just enough time to manoeuvre the car in to position and as I frantically composed the shot he opened his mouth wide, showing me every tooth this tough old boy still had (while sending a wave or two down my spine), and giving me the shot I had been waiting for. Although even this is far beyond the expectations I had had.

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Behind the Lens

As the minutes slipped in to hours which, in turn, gave way to days I lost track of the time we had spent watching this beautiful lion sit, sleep and stare at us. It did give me a fair chance to practice though which, in fairness, is never a bad thing.