Pride of Botswana

At the end of April 2024 I travelled to Botswana to embark on a mobile camping safari, exploring all that the Okavango Delta, a place renowned for it’s bird life, had to offer.

I went into this trip thinking i’d be able to resist the draw of the big 5. Thinking that the highlights would be the subtler moments, the flight of Oxpeckers on the neck of a giraffe or the crossing of an Elephant beautifully silhouetted against a classic African sunset. I was wrong.

Instead i became obsessed with the lions, these beautiful animals that command both respect and every single ounce of attention whenever you are within their presence.

Instead of my focus remaining on the bigger picture and championing both animal and environment, i became obsessed with capturing the smallest details of these cats.

Punching in with my lens to it’s absolute limits. Throughout these 10 days i think i successfully convinced myself to swap lenses the once. I remained at 600mm as often as possible.

The eyes became such a massive focus for me, one of the unique opportunities that jeep safaris allow is an incredible close proximity to animals.

Where often distance limits the possible compositions of wildlife photography, here the lions were simply too close for me to get a full face portrait never mind full-body.

I could of course have swapped lenses, but instead I seemingly forgot any other option existed. Instead I settled on getting as much detail out of these faces as I could. Trying to capture emotion shown through the eyes of these big cats.

We were lucky enough to have 8 days of encounters with various prides across Botswana.

Every single encounter got the heart racing and when i think back to this trip, it is the pride that stands out as most memorable.

I doubt there’s a single person who can experience an African safari and be satisfied with just the single visit. I left Botswana with zero doubts that i’d be back, maybe next time i’ll be able to resist the draw of the pride and zoom out, but i doubt it.