Kruger National Park 2019 // Nature Photography

This year I drove to Kruger from Cape Town, an 1800km excursion across the whole of South Africa. Put simply, it was beautiful landscape after beautiful landscape and has made me anxious to explore South Africa in more depth over the coming years.

Kruger National Park holds a special place in my heart. It has days of open wilderness, nature, and some awesome animals.

I’ve been birding and interested in animals since I was a little boy, so it was a natural jump for me to start photographing them a few years ago. Lots of the principals of landscape photography still apply: get up early (no really, get up early), photograph during the best light of the day, be creative in your compositions (get in close but also get the wide animal-in-landscape shot).

This particular week was like nothing I’ve ever experienced in the bush. The wildlife was not only prolific but each siting felt special in some way: a particularly intimate scene or the feeling of a lion looking at you right in the eyes. It was fantastic to see Kruger recovering from the droughts of recent years. Here are some of my favourite photos from a week in the park (fair warning, some images may contain graphic content):