That’s me, on a photo safari across the Kalahari. Nearly 52 years old, rolling in the dirt and photographing meerkats. It’s pretty incredible.
I have wanted to trek across Africa since the first time I watched Wild Kingdom back in the 1970s. I wanted to be up close with elephants, drive alongside running ostriches, and watch mighty lions hunt speedy gazelles across the savannah. When I was little, I thought I’d be a scientist doing that. Turns out, though, I’m better at telling stories with words and pictures.
In 2023, when I turned 50, I came to Botswana for the first time at the shoulder of the green and dry seasons. Wide-eyed, I found magic everywhere I turned. The lush greenery of forests, the stark dryness of desert environments, an Okavango Delta that teemed with life. As part of a group of passionate naturalist photographers, I felt at home and knew I needed to come back. I just didn’t know when.
2024 rolled around. My family sold a beloved cottage on Cape Cod that had served as a photographic destination. A trip to Nova Scotia was nearly scuttled by weather. Our apartment was cramped and uninspiring, and I started planning a return to Africa. Dave Shaw, the photographer I traveled with previously, told me about his plan to go to the Central Kalahari in January 2025 and encouraged me to join him. This would be an adventure – bush planes landing on remote air strips, trans-desert crossings through the lands the Cry of the Kalahari described, meeting San Bushmen, and traversing salt pans in search of meerkat colonies and zebra herds.
Of course I had to go.
That’s been my philosophy. It’s more than a “say yes” attitude. It’s soul-searching for what I really want to see and photograph. It’s seizing opportunities and making my own. It’s fighting back insecurities to make images that first appeal to an audience of one and then two and then more. It’s understanding that taking the time to live an interesting life is less selfish than you would think.