Racing Stripes

2022

Image Story

Having always strived for an element of motion in my images, a racing zebra is not a bad place to start.

For the last few years my portfolio has lacked a strong zebra image. As with giraffe, I find them challenging subjects, their natural scepticism of people makes it difficult to get the required proximity I usually try to work within.

Earlier this year I was back in Amboseli, as I often find myself these days, and while waiting for a herd of elephants to cross the now famous lake bed, my guide, Eric Ole Kalama and I watched a group of four zebra running at speed on the horizon.

For animals that usually look to conserve energy this was unusual, but the dust their narrow hooves kicked up in their wake gave I us both a simultaneous ‘light bulb’ moment.

“That’s our shot”, I said to Eric who as ever, just smiled and said, “Kabisa. Twende.” (Absolutely, let’s go)

We followed the zebra, who had slowed to a trot as we drew near, and waited for the race to resume, positioning ourselves against the sun so the light rays would add an additional dimension to the image and illuminate the eventual dust.

As we repositioned, trying to stay parallel to the group at all times, the lead zebra took off, followed swiftly by the next two. It happened so fast I missed all three, but the fourth, the one pictured here, took an extra second to get going and as a result gave me just enough time to get the shot - crucially all four hooves are off the ground, as if flying, the only evidence it ever touched the ground the puff of dust in the background.