Wildebeest migration Kenya | Great Migration explained | Masai Mara migration | Wildlife photography migration More than a million wildebeest move in a roughly circular route across the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem every year, following no visible leader, responding to no obvious single signal, yet arriving at specific locations with a timing precision that has supported predator populations and shaped the ecology of East Africa for millennia. This is not random. It is one of the

Best safari lodge for photographers | Photography safari Kenya | Safari lodge guide | Masai Mara camps Most safari lodge reviews are written from the perspective of general guests. The food, the rooms, the spa, the service. These things matter, but they are not what determines whether your safari produces extraordinary photographs or merely good ones. The lodge you choose shapes every aspect of your photographic experience: the quality of your guides, your access to wildlife,

Predator hunt success rates | Lion hunting behaviour | Cheetah hunting | Wild dog hunting | Wildlife photography tips The African predator hunt is one of the most sought-after events in wildlife photography. It is also, statistically, an event that ends in failure more often than success, and knowing why changes both how you understand what you are watching and how you position yourself photographically. The figures are instructive, and they vary considerably between species

Beginner wildlife photography kit | Canon beginner safari | Sigma 150-600 beginner | Wildlife photography gear under $2000 Every "beginner kit" guide on the internet has an agenda. Sponsored links, affiliate commissions, or the subtle prestige of recommending professional-grade equipment that signals the author's own standards. I am going to try to avoid all of that and give you the honest answer. I shoot Canon and Sigma. This guide reflects that experience. I am not going to

Moving to Kenya | Living abroad alone | Expat life Kenya | How to move abroad I did not move to Kenya alone. I want to be honest about that from the start, because the version of this story that begins with a single woman boarding a plane for Nairobi with nothing but courage and a camera is not my story, and I am tired of the dishonesty in so much expat narrative. I moved to Kenya with my husband. He is Kenyan. The logistics that defeat most people who consider the move - the

Leopard behaviour | Wildlife photography tips | Big cat body language | Kenya wildlife photography Of all the large predators in East Africa, the leopard is the one that will teach you most ruthlessly whether you are actually watching. Lions give you time. A pride moves slowly, rests conspicuously, and telegraphs its intentions across dozens of metres of open savanna. Even cheetahs, for all their explosive speed, follow a relatively readable arc from rest to scan to stalk to

Wildlife photography autofocus | Best AF settings safari | Canon autofocus wildlife | Beginner wildlife photography Autofocus is one of the most misunderstood aspects of wildlife photography for beginners. Most people set their camera to some form of automatic AF area mode, point it roughly at the animal, and hope. The results are inconsistent, sometimes the camera locks on the eye, sometimes it finds the ear, sometimes it focuses on the grass in front of the animal and the s

Amboseli vs Masai Mara | Kenya safari photography | Off season safari Kenya | Best time to visit Masai Mara. Both the Masai Mara and Amboseli are extraordinary. Both are also, in peak season, extremely busy. The Mara in July and August, migration season, can feel like a safari traffic jam at popular sightings. Thirty vehicles around a cheetah. Twelve at a leopard kill. The early morning light, which should be the quietest and most beautiful time of the game drive, interrupted

Best lenses for wildlife photography | Sigma 150-600 review | Canon 70-200 wildlife | Safari photography lenses Lens conversations in wildlife photography tend toward the expensive and the absolute. The 600mm f/4. The 800mm prime. The lens choices of photographers whose day rate exceeds the GDP of small nations. These lenses are extraordinary. They are also not what most people shooting wildlife are using, or should be prioritising. I shoot with two lenses for the vast majori

Elephant behaviour | Wildlife photography tips | Reading animal body language | Kenya safari There is a moment every photographer in East Africa will eventually experience. You are close to an elephant, closer than you planned, and the animal turns toward you. The ears spread wide. The head comes up. Everything goes very still. What happens in the next thirty seconds depends entirely on whether you know what that elephant is actually communicating. Elephants are among the mos

Beginner wildlife photography mistakes | Wildlife photography tips | Safari photography for beginners I made every mistake on this list. Some of them repeatedly, across multiple safaris, before the pattern became visible enough to correct. Wildlife photography has a relatively forgiving learning curve in one sense, the subjects are so compelling that even technically flawed images of wild animals have a certain power. But this same forgiveness can slow your development, becau

First safari Kenya | Safari tips for beginners | Kenya safari guide | Masai Mara photography safari Nobody tells you about the dust. Not the idea of dust, everyone knows it is dry out there, but the specific, fine dust that gets into everything. Your camera bag. Your lungs. The creases of your knuckles. The seams of your clothes. The gap between your camera body and lens. I spent the first afternoon of my first Kenyan safari gently panicking about my equipment and missing the