Mother

2024

Image Story

"Never did I imagine that I would get a moment like this in Amboseli."

This is not an image I ever expected to take in Amboseli. In the Mara or the Serengeti, perhaps, but here, where cheetah sightings are few and far between, to find a mother and her cub perched calmly on a fallen tree was far beyond anything I had hoped for.

I spend a lot of time chasing clean frames, looking for moments free from distraction. To have the cheetahs above us on the trunk, with an open sky behind and just enough light catching in their eyes, felt like nature doing the heavy lifting. So often, the hours invested in a sighting come to nothing. The animal does not move, or moves too much, or the background just will not cooperate. But this time, everything fell into place

Getting to that point, though, is never easy in Amboseli. The roads are tough at the best of times, thick dust clings to every surface in the dry months, and after rain they turn to cracked mud, impossible to predict and even harder to cross. But in the hands of a guide like Eric Ole Kalama, those challenges never get in the way. He knows the land as only someone who has grown up on it can, and he has an uncanny sense of when to wait, when to move, and where the next opportunity might be.

Without that level of knowledge and patience, I would never have been in the right place at the right time to make this frame. Moments like this do not happen often in Amboseli, and I am in no hurry to forget this one.

Enquire Now

Standard: 40" x 23" Medium: 50" x 28" Large: 60" x 34"

Enquire Contact Will

Behind the Lens

I had heard there was a cheetah on a fallen branch, whether we made it there in time though was another matter. I thought it unlikely given she had a cub with her, which I did not think she would want to keep out in the open. How wrong I was though, as despite taking the odd wrong turn we finally made it and there she was.