I never traveled to photograph animals. The animals happened to the travel — and after 27 years, the folder had grown teeth, feathers and one smiling leopard seal.
Most of these frames come from the 2013–14 trip around the world: Galápagos by boat, the Amazon over 550 hours of river, Patagonia at the end of a 13,350 km drive, Antarctica for two weeks below the Circle. Others come from the life around them — Senegal in 2004, the Moroccan Sahara that is my backyard, the southern Africa loop of 2015. I studied Visual Arts and later photography with Steve McCurry in New York, but none of that helps when a leopard seal opens its mouth: you hold the camera still and remember to breathe. Every photograph below is mine, taken where the animal lives, with whatever lens survived the trip. The one animal missing is the hyena — because in Harar the hyena and I were closer than any camera could focus.
Antarctica
Two weeks below the Circle in 2014 — eleven landings, and the animals owned every one of them.
Galápagos
Nowhere else does wildlife ignore you this completely — you are furniture with a camera.
Patagonia & Península Valdés
The bottom of the Americas, at the end of the 13,350 km drive from Quito.
The Amazon
550 hours by boat through Brazil, Peru and Ecuador — the river kept producing faces.
Africa
From Senegambia to the southern loop — the continent where my road life started.
Deserts & Detours
The ones that don’t fit a chapter — which is exactly why they’re here.
The trips behind these frames: the stories collection · the 146-country ledger · the photographers I rate