Category: Marcus’s Photography
Our Stories:
-
Never Gets Old
70mm, f/5, 1/250s, ISO400 As much as we try to focus on highlights, attractions and activities other than gorilla tracking, this remains — undeniably and deservedly — the region’s top drawcard. I am fortunate enough to have lost count of the number of occasions I have been out with gorillas. My first time wasn’t exactly conventional.…
-
Congo Sunrise
20mm, f/8, 1/50s, ISO100 One of the reasons I enjoy immersive travel so much is that it’s too easy to miss out on powerful experiences if your trip mainly focuses on “highlights”. I am almost always up before sunrise, no matter what, because … well, why would I want to be asleep when a new day begins?…
-
The Charm
200mm, f/2,8, 1/400s, ISO1600 Though gorillas and chimpanzees understandably receive most of the spotlight, the Virungas have some other interesting primate inhabitants too. Among these is the golden monkey (Cercopithecus kandti), found in all three countries. They are endemic to the Gorilla Highlands region, living in the bamboo forests found along the mountains. Because of…
-
Tracking Time
38mm, 1/250s, f/5,6, ISO400 The Batwa are in many ways the Gorilla Highlands region’s forgotten people. The original inhabitants of this part of Africa, the Batwa are — or at least were — traditional hunter-gatherers, living in and off what used to be extensive forests. Marginalised by later arrivals, they were ousted from their final…
-
Misty Mornings
63mm, 1/160s, f/8, ISO400 What Rwanda lacks in size, it makes up for in variety. Of the country’s three main national parks — there are actually four, but not even the Wikipedia entry for Rwanda’s national parks remembers the existence of Gishwati Mukura National Park — Nyungwe Forest was the last I would visit, in 2019.…
-
Four-Legged Guardians
31mm, 1/250s, f/8, ISO250 My conservation and travel photography don’t always mix quite so readily as at Akagera National Park. Miha had asked me to spend some time here when the Gorilla Highlands region expanded to include all of Rwanda, and African Parks — the NGO in charge of the park — wondered if I…
-
Showered Siblings
500mm, 1/400s, f/4, ISO800 Well, this takes me back quite a few years! My first gorilla experience was actually in DR Congo, in Virunga National Park. I had just spent a few weeks in Uganda, where I met Miha and a few other members of the Gorilla Highlands team who are still part of the…
-
Underappreciated Ungulates
500mm, f/4, 1/400s, ISO400 Antelopes are probably among the most underrated safari attractions. How often have you heard guests come back from a game drive saying that they “saw nothing except antelopes”? Well, I suppose that depends on how much time you spend in safari camps, but I can tell you it happens a lot,…
-
Big 1
500mm, 1/500s, f/4, ISO500 I’m not sure if you have come across the New Big 5 Project: basically, an initiative to come up with, obviously, a new big five. The old big five list — lions, elephants, buffaloes, rhinos and leopards — actually originated with hunting, as they were considered the most dangerous of Africa’s…
Wish to move on to another category?