Built around the light.
Cut-side vehicles, ground hides, off-road permission, and a guide who will hold a position for four hours because the cubs will move at six.
Eight nights built around light rather than distance: cut-side vehicles, ground hides, off-road permission, and four guests to a car.
- From
- $15,600 pp
- Duration
- 8 nights
- Best months
- Feb, Jul–Sep
- Party size
- 2 – 4 guests
Everything on this journey is arranged around two twenty-minute windows
A photographic safari is not a normal safari with a longer lens. The itinerary has to be built around light rather than distance, which means very few camp changes, permission to be out before and after legal park hours, and a guide who understands why you will decline a leopard in bad light and sit with an empty waterhole instead.
So the whole of this journey is on private conservancies, where off-road positioning is permitted, night work is allowed and vehicle density is capped by lease. Two of the three camps have ground-level hides at waterholes. The vehicles have cut sides, bean bags, gimbal mounts and inverters at every seat, and we cap them at four guests — three if you are working at 600mm.
Your guide is one of two people: our own photographic specialist, or a Maasai guide with fifteen years of driving photographers, who will position the car on the third attempt without being asked.
- Cut-side vehicles with bean bags, gimbals and inverters, four guests maximum
- Two ground-level hides at waterholes — eye-level, dust-level work
- Off-road positioning and pre-dawn starts, permitted on conservancy land
- Night photography with controlled spotlighting, where it is legal
- A full day at a single sighting whenever the subject justifies it
- Kit hire arranged in Nairobi and delivered to your first camp
Ideal traveller
Serious amateurs and professionals. Patient travellers. Anyone whose spouse is not a photographer should be warned honestly — the days are structured around light, not comfort.
The itinerary
Nairobi, and a kit check
Met airport-side, driven to the Karen hills, and an afternoon with your guide going through bodies, cards, cleaning kit and what will actually fit in a Caravan. Anything missing is hired that evening.
To the first conservancy
A morning flight west. The afternoon is a reconnaissance drive rather than a shoot — light angles, where the pride is lying up, where the sun will be at six tomorrow.
Cats at first light
Out at five-fifteen, before the park gates would allow. Cheetah on the open grassland east of camp, and a return to the same subject at four for the reverse light.
The hide
A full day in and out of a ground-level hide at a waterhole: elephant at eye level, sandgrouse at eleven, and whatever comes to drink at four. Lunch is carried in.
A day held open
Deliberately unplanned. If the leopard is showing, you spend the day on the leopard. If nothing is showing, you drive to the escarpment and work landscape and weather instead.
To the second conservancy
A short flight north to Laikipia. Different country entirely — lava ridges, ranchland, Mount Kenya on the southern horizon, and a second hide.
Rhino, and black-and-white country
Black rhino at close quarters with the ranger team, on foot, which is the one morning you will want the shorter lens. Afternoon on the ridges for graphic, high-contrast work.
Night work
A late-afternoon start and a night drive with controlled lighting: genets, aardvark, and cats hunting. The images most guests are least expecting and most pleased with.
Homeward
A dawn session if the light is there, then the flight to Nairobi, day rooms, backup checked and copied before you fly.
Two conservancy camps, both with hides and power
Both camps on this journey were chosen for three things nobody advertises: inverters or mains power at the bed for overnight charging, a ground-level hide within driving distance, and a management that does not mind guests leaving at five and returning at ten.
The first is a photographic camp on Ol Kinyei — eight tents, two hides, and a workroom with a large table and good light for going through cards. The second is a stone-and-canvas lodge in Laikipia with a waterhole hide and Mount Kenya from the terrace.
Neither is the most luxurious property on our list, and both are on it because they are the right tool. If a client wants the finest bed in Kenya and the best photography in the same journey, we will explain the trade honestly and then build whichever they prefer.
What the price covers
- Eight nights as described, all meals and house drinks
- A cut-side photographic vehicle and photographer-guide throughout
- Four guests maximum per vehicle — three at 600mm on request
- All internal flights, with photographic luggage allowance negotiated
- Conservancy fees, off-road and night-driving permissions, and the levy
- Hide access, including exclusive hide sessions
- Backup drive and card copying at camp; airport day rooms
- 24-hour Nairobi concierge, answered by a person
What it does not
- International flights and visas
- Travel insurance — must cover equipment; we will check yours
- Kit hire, quoted at cost from our Nairobi supplier
- Balloon flights and helicopter photographic legs
- Gratuities, at your discretion
February for cubs, calving, green grass and dramatic sky. Late July to September for the crossings, dust and long golden light. April and May are the connoisseur’s months — storm light, empty conservancies, and the lowest rates — if you can accept losing a morning to rain.
Shall we hold the dates while you think?
Tell us the month and we will send a costed draft of this journey, with the camps held provisionally at no charge. A written reply within one working day, from the specialist who will run it.
On photographic safaris
Do I need my own long lens?
Bring one if you have it. If not, hire in Nairobi rather than carrying weight through three airports — our supplier stocks 200–600mm zooms and 400mm and 600mm primes for Canon, Nikon and Sony, delivered to your first camp and collected at the end.
How many guests to a vehicle?
Four, so everyone has a row and a clear side. Three if any of you is working with a 600mm prime, and two on request at a supplement. A photographic vehicle with six people in it is not a photographic vehicle.
Can a non-photographer come?
Yes, and we will tell you both honestly what the days look like: five-fifteen starts, long static periods, and no interest in ticking off species. Many couples prefer the version where one of them has a second vehicle for two of the eight days.
What about dust and gear?
It is worse than you expect. Bring two bodies, change lenses as little as possible, and use the rocket blower rather than a brush. Every camp on this journey has a covered work table and power at the bed, which is why they were chosen.