Patience is a trait that almost all wildlife photographers possess in abundance. To capture the perfect shot, photographers usually spend countless hours researching animal behaviour, scouting locations and waiting in the hope that it all comes together. When a shot turns out as planned, it looks something like this …
It took wildlife photographer Will Burrard-Lucas a month to capture this remarkable photo of a black rhino under a starry night sky in Kenya’s Tsavo West National Park. The reserve’s mountainous terrain and thick vegetation make for perfect black rhino habitat, but spotting the behemoths in the dense bush is a tricky task. “I have still yet to catch a glimpse of one in daylight!” Burrard-Lucas explains on his blog.
Black rhinos prefer to move about under the cover of darkness and typically stroll along the same paths each evening, making their movements somewhat predictable. Burrard-Lucas strategically placed five Camtraptions camera traps along game paths in August last year in the hope of capturing something special. Despite some setbacks (one particularly cantankerous rhino took exception to the camera traps and stomped on any that were in his territory), the traps worked and Burrard-Lucas was able to capture some candid rhino shots.
The frame he really hoped to capture continued to elude him, however. So he adjusted all of the cameras to snap a unique low-angle shot of a black rhino beneath a star-strewn Kenyan sky. “Two nights before I had to remove the camera traps, I captured an image in which all of the elements came together,” the photographer explains.
Happy with his success in Tsavo, Burrard-Lucas moved on to the grasslands of Lewa and Borana where conditions allowed him to track rhinos on foot.
Finally, a trip to Solio Lodge presented the perfect opportunity to photograph white rhinos using BeetleCam – a remote-controlled camera housing engineered by Burrard-Lucas that allows photographers the chance to “drive” right up to the action. After a few unsuccessful attempts, Burrard-Lucas eventually found a small group of rhinos gathered on an open plain. Unlike previous encounters with skittish animals, this group was curious and playful - perfect for snapping photos with BeetleCam.
Check out more of Burrard-Lucas's rhino images on his blog or follow him on Instagram.
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