Nomad’s Wins Platinum
Following its release last week, the entire Nomads collection has been awarded platinum at the inaugural Muse Photography Awards.
Nomads
Following the release of Nomads last week, I was delighted to receive the news that the entire collection had been awarded the highest honour at Muse Photography Awards. Also included were Rumble in the Jungle and African Icons, images that now have five awards between them this year.
The awards attracted thousands of entries from over 50 countries, in a variety of categories, and it was in the black and white wildlife category my images were awarded - a medium I have spent the last 12 months entirely focussed on.
A huge thanks must go to Muse, for organising such a great competition. And to all the other winners, entrants and finalists. After such a torrid two years for the creative world, it is so exciting to see new work coming to the fore.
“The MUSE Photography Awards aims to redefine and push the boundaries of photography, where every aspect of a still image is carefully taken to reach international standards.”
Michael, awarded platinum following its honourable mention at the Monochrome Photography Awards
Michael
They say the definition of insanity is repeating the same process many times over and expecting different results. If this is the case, I must be insane - I suspect many people I have worked with in the field would agree with this.
I say this because my work is centred around constantly repeating the same process until I get a result that is original - in this case it took us almost four days.
Throughout this time, my guide, Eric and I, followed him, waiting for three key elements to come together; a strong cloud formation - a key element in my work. A clear view of Mt. Kilimanjaro, the world’s tallest free standing mountain. And a front on view of Michael, a future super star in the wildlife world.
The thrill when all of these came together and this shot was pulled off, is one of the most exciting I have had behind a camera. It is arguably, the headline print of the collection.
Cattle of Kings
To some it may seem strange to include an image of a cow along side those of lion, elephant and rhino. Not only do I feel it to be one of the strongest images I have taken though, I also firmly believe all animals must be viewed in the same manner as those that often hold the limelight.
Taken on Ol Pejeta Conservancy in central Kenya, this is an Ankole-watsui cow, a species whose lineage can be traced back to the time of the pharos - some are even displayed in pictographs in the pyramids.
Framing it against the stormy sky meant crawling to within a couple of feet, before pointing my camera directly up from the ground. Thankfully the cow, chosen specifically due to its striking markings, allowed me to do so and left me with a result I could not have asked for better than.
Kalite
I will freely admit getting this close to a rhino made me anxious. While I have done so many times with elephant, their behaviour is more predictable and arguably more docile.
This images was made possible because of two men; Simon Nakito, an Ol Pejeta Conservancy ranger, who was able to identify the rhino we were looking for by sight. And Sammy Kariuki, my expert guide. Between them they not only found the rhino, but got me within the proximity required to get the shot.
To do this Sammy would drive parallel to the rhino, as I walked along side, keeping the car between me and it. When I believed us to be in the right spot for a photo, I would ask Sammy to stop, then drop down to the ground and crawl under the bonnet. This way I could ensure the rhino would not distinguish my body from the car, and work below its eye level - something that’s key when creating my work.
Despite a few shaky moments, after four days we eventually got the image.
57
I have lost track of the amount of images I have taken of elephant herds. As a result, the more I take, the more I find myself looking for something different.
Last September, as I lay in the dust, a herd of 57 elephants walked towards where I remained motionless, I thought I would try creating a panorama - a technique many are now familiar thanks to camera phone technology.
The process remains similar in principle. You pan your camera in the same direction as the subject(s), taking a series of individual images, in this case three, each of a different section of the herd. These are then merged in an editing software, stitched together to turn three images in to one.
The result is an image of immense detail, unachievable photographing a herd of this size in a single frame.
Storm
This was one of the last images I took in the Maasai Mara Reserve. I had spent 18 months there working as a resident photographer, and my time was coming to an end.
I had lived there through part of the pandemic, and it was where I first earned my keep as a professional photographer. A look at my field notes show I have spent a shade over 2,000 hours on safari there, rarely though, had I put time in to photographing zebra. This changed as I knew my time there was coming to an end.
As a storm rolled in on one of my final evenings, Bernard Koros, my guide, asked where we should head. I told him to drive towards the clouds. Rather than groan, and know we were almost certainly going to get drenched, he put his foot down and, with mud spraying the sides of his car, took me towards the rain.
Clouds gathered at a rapid pace and, just as the rain fell a mile to our north, a herd of zebra crossed the horizon. They were headed towards the rain, for rain brings fresh grass. As they crossed, the last looked back at us, as if questioning whether we really wanted to follow where they were going.
That split second moment was all we had come for though. All that was left to do was race the rain back to camp.
