One Photo, One Story: My Favorite Shot as a Travel Photographer
August 19th is World Photography Day. A day that we celebrate the art of photography, but also the power a photograph can have in communities. For me, photography is more than taking a picture; it is the ability to freeze an emotion & a memory; a way to tell stories. But this wasn’t the case for my entire career. To mark the day, I’m sharing the story behind an image from when photography was still just taking a picture for me. When stories were happy accidents. This photo holds a story I will never forget.
2016 was an important year in my photography career: it was the year I fell in love with photography. My family, consisting of my adventurous parents, older sister, and me, travelled far down south to South Africa. Despite having been photographing for years already on a compact camera, this trip was my first time with a mirrorless camera. With my limited knowledge, I took thousands of pictures in the 4 weeks we were in South Africa, only a few of them were usable.
It was the second of August, and after already having visited various wildlife parks, we drove into Addo Elephant National Park. Despite it being in the name, it took us a while to see elephants here. That is, until we did. If you’ve ever been on a safari, you know that when you see a car parked in the middle of the road, there’s probably something to see. And so we stopped right behind another car, endlessly searching for what they were looking at until they suddenly drove away. We took over their spot, hoping to get a better view of what they were seeing, and a better view we got. From the bushes alongside the road, a bull of an elephant walks out barely half a meter from the car.
Slight panic ensues in the car, after all, this can be dangerous. Although my panic was induced by something else, I had the ‘wrong’ lens on my camera! Afraid I won’t have enough time to change the lens before the moment passes by, I take a quick 4 photos with my telephoto lens at 300mm through the windshield from the backseat. 3 photos were close-ups of the elephant’s detailed skin; only one photo was taken of its tusk before it skimmed the car, walking off.
Without much photography knowledge, I had taken a photo that was not only sharp, but it also told a story. A story of resilience written in the scars embedded in this bull’s tusk. It is a photo I’ve been proud of ever since. And I can be because I had the ‘wrong’ lens on my camera and because my dad noticed it in a sea of 5000 photos. The unedited version went on to be nominated for the Frans Lanting Photo Award hosted by WWF, an honour for a 12-year-old budding photographer.
I recognise this photo as the rocky start of my photography career. Now almost 10 years old. I have taken many new favourite photos over the years, but none as powerful and important to my eyes as this one.
