Photo of the Day - Maasai Warrior
Maasai Warrior, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania. February 2011
Nikon 85mm f/1.4, 1/640 @ f/2.5, ISO 250
I am an avid adventurer, conservationist, teacher, and outdoor photographer whose photography celebrates the African landscape and its rich wildlife, people, and culture. My photographic safaris allow my travelers to not only enhance their understanding of photography, lighting, and wildlife, but to develop a life-long admiration for Africa ‘s beauty and culture.
Banana Republic recently used my photographs as the cornerstone of their Urban Safari campaign, and my images were seen in all 750 stores around the globe, as well as in their billboards, catalogs and annual report. I was also the winner of the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year in the ‘Wild Places’ category in 2008 and a highly commended in the ‘Creative Visions of Nature’ category in 2007.
I launched Gura Gear in 2008, in an attempt to deliver lightweight camera bags to the market. I was looking for a lightweight camera bag to hold all of my photographic gear, and there was nothing desirable on the market that suited my needs. After spending 2 years with many prototypes, the Gura Gear Kiboko bag was born. More products are now available on the Gura Gear web site.
Maasai Warrior, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania. February 2011
Nikon 85mm f/1.4, 1/640 @ f/2.5, ISO 250
Troy Covey, my assistant, shot some very compelling photographs of the Maasai last month when we were both in Tanzania. We spent some time at a Maasai village in the Ngorongoro Higlands, and I acted as Troy’s assistant with his lighting on the first afternoon there. I love Troy’s use of space in his panorama portraits, as it helps paint a picture of where the images were created.
The Maasai are a very colorful and proud people, and I absolutely love spending quality time with them. As many of my guests can attest to, we all crack jokes together, laugh together and have genuine cultural exchanges with each other. Heck, I even know some Maa so we can communicate without Kiswahili or English. Troy’s portraits reminds me that I need to get back to shooting more portraits of people, and his work inspires me to do a better job of it.
Maasai Moran at a local and temporary manyatta in Loliondo, Tanzania. October 2007
Canon 1DsMkII, 24-70mm f/2.8, 1/800 @ f/2.8, ISO 500