First Steps

Maasai Mara, Kenya 2023

The mother was teaching her cubs to walk. They were so young she had not introduced them to the pride yet. At this age she keeps them hidden and moves them from place to place, never the same spot for long. Jamlick saw the scene from a distance and got us to her position fast. The whole encounter lasted maybe ten or fifteen minutes. She moved the cubs back and forth between hiding places while I worked the frame. Without Jamlick spotting what he saw from where he was, I never get this image. Cubs at this age are a moment, not a sighting.

This image is from The Heart of the Wild, two weeks in the Maasai Mara out of a tent camp deep in the park. Up before sunrise every morning, out in the jeep with hot coffee, back when the light got hard, then out again until sunset. Two weeks of that rhythm. Tinka and Jamlick worked with me the whole time. Two Masai guides who read animal behavior in a way I never will. They knew which lioness this was, where she had been seen the day before, how far she might have moved overnight. That kind of knowledge cannot be bought on a tour. It is built over years on the same ground.

Maybe one percent of what I shot over those two weeks survived the edit. If an image did not make me feel something, it was just documentation. This frame stayed because of what she was doing. A mother teaching her cubs how to walk.