Images of East Africa

In November 2012 I was fortunate enough to go on a photo safari to East Africa with Wild 4 African Photo Safaris, run by photographer Stu Porter. Stu runs a great safari operation aimed principally at photographers. With a maximum of six participants in three vehicles, each pair of photographers shared a landcruiser, leaving plenty of room for lots of gear and giving each of us unrestricted access to shots in any direction. We left camp at the crack of dawn each day to catch the morning light, and stayed out past sunset each day--with the sun setting we were often rushing around madly looking for good subjects in the late afternoon "golden light" in what Stu calls "shoot and scoot." I would highly recommend Stu's operation for serious photographers looking for great opportunities to capture wildlife images. Wild 4 has a great website with lots of information and images Stu has shot on his many safaris:

On this trip we visited four different reserves/game parks. We started out in Samburu Reserve in central Kenya, where we spent four days watching grevy's zebra, the wonderful red elephants and a host of other wildlife, before driving to our next destination, Lake Nakuru. One of the star attractions of Nakuru were the white rhinoceros, who could often be found feeding on the flats near the edge of the lake. There are normally thousands to millions of flamingo at Nakuru, but rising water levels have caused the flamingos to move elsewhere. Our thirst for flamingos was satisfied with a single-day side trip to nearby Lake Bogoria, where we found the flocks of pink birds. Our final nine days were spent in the famous Masai Mara in southern Kenya. To me the open grasslands of "the Mara" were what I had always pictured Africa to be like. The lion activity alone was worth the entire trip, and everyday brought something new and entirely different. In its entirety the trip was fantastic, and probably the most productive photographic trip I've taken.