While preparing to go to Africa, I was reading a lot about how to capture the best images of Africa’s people and its wildlife.  What I found was that photographers, especially wildlife ones, generally seem to come down to focusing on the eyes.  In practice, I am no different from them as it turns out — no matter whether I am photographing my family, my friends, my clients, or even actors and models on a photo shoot.   It really does come down to the e-y-e-s,  because you make an immediate, emotional connection with your subject – human or otherwise.  

In fact in Africa, I ultimately found myself obsessed with capturing the eyes of Africa’s wildlife and the obsession was driven in part when I came across a Zebra poster in Monochrome in Botswana.  The poster haunted me through my tours of Botswana, Kenya, and Tanzania, as I wanted to replicate the connection I felt in the Okavango Delta with the Zebra’s eyes.  I eventually got several Zebras’ eyes, but my favorite is from the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, at almost the end of my tour.   Looking into the eyes of my Zebra made my search finally complete, and is a wonderful, preserved memory of the time I spent in Africa. As such, here it s from my eyes to yours.