Keeping Up with the Crouches

This bizarre frame - captured by a watering hole on the North east side of Amboseli dry lake - was taken with  a 28mm lens placed with on a remote controlled camera.  There is no doubt that it was a low percentage idea because my focal point really required a huge giraffe within no more than 3 meters of the camera, otherwise a 28mm is all to loose a lens to use against a flat backdrop of an arid desert . I chose my focal point because I wanted a low chance of a big shot rather than a good chance of a boring shot . That has to be the way in 2019

Giraffes are also very skittsh and even setting up the camera is an issue if they are within 400 yards . They don’t like human presence and why indeed should they ?

Over the years we have failed with giraffe , but in August 2019 , one unbelievable piece of luck resulted in this image. When I looked into the camera’s  screen from the then deserted wateringhole . i could not believe it and I just hoped that  the focus was pin sharp - not easy when the head of the giraffe is much further away from the camera than the hoofs. 

The focus was fine although  I have no other photograph from the series. By the time the giraffe arrived the sun was getting low - and the camera was pointing that way , so this was not an easy file to work with - I wanted detail in both the giraffe and the sky . 

The end result is surreal  and then the next problem was to find a name . Our team threw ideas around in the jeep in Kenya and when we came with “ Keeping up with the Crouches”, we knew we had it.

David Yarrow