Sweetwaters game reserve, Kenya
Taken on safari mere hours ago.

This subspecies of giraffe is known for it’s dark spots separated by cream coloured lines. As we drove up in our safari vehicle this giraffe stared at us blinking with her huge eyelashes then continued browsing on the acacia tree after determining we were of little importance.

Photographic Details: I wanted to get a more unique photo of this giraffe while still expressing the daily life of this graceful animal. I liked the curve of the neck while she reached out parallel to her body on the top of the small tree, the open mouth and purple tongue clearly illustrating she was munching away.

I cropped the bottom of the image and kept the sky in the top third of the image, the giraffe in the middle and the green foliage in the bottom, conforming with the rule of thirds for this composition.

Canon EOS 7D 1/320s f/7.1 ISO100 400mm (35mm eq:640mm)

Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Animal Orphanage, Nairobi, Kenya, Africa

This photo just taken hours ago is of a baby Elephant who lost his mother. Elephants are prone to sunburn too, and as a result the caretaker follows this little guy around with an umbrella on top of the sunscreen applied to him. In the wild elephants use mud to help prevent sunburn, but the young ones haven’t learned how to properly slather on some wild mud sunblock yet. In addition a baby elephant is used to being in the shadow of his mother, being orphaned a caretaker with an umbrella is the next best thing to the sun protection his mother can provide.

To watch this little pachyderm bumble around while his caretaker hastily chases after him with an umbrella is hilarious, but entirely necessary to emulate the loving family environment that an elephant needs to survive. Without love and attention the elephants will to live wains eventually leading to death. It’s this formula of creating a family of caretakers that created the first successful rearing of an orphaned african elephant, a program that has rescued over a hundred elephants from the loss of their families due to poaching.

For more on the animal orphanage see http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/

Camera gear, luggage and 50 pounds of medical supplies destined for a slum hospital in Kenya. These supply drops are all organised by health partners international. A little bit of humanitarian aid while on a safari makes it all the more meaningful! Flying out to Nairobi right now, I really can't wait.