Inspired by my friend and fellow photographer Max Waugh, whom I met in London at Wildlife Photographer of the Year (where he won the black and white category with a stunning photograph from Yellowstone), now that the year is coming to an end I thought I would share some of my favourite images - and moments - of 2019.
The year started, unusually, with an entire month spent in Sweden, which obliged us by providing plenty of snow and ice - during which I didn’t actually photograph much, often opting to leave the camera at home. But time spent in Sweden is never time wasted.
February and March took me on a 6-week African odyssey: to Ethiopia and Djibouti with brilliant writer Henry Wismayer on behalf of New York Times Travel, where we had the cover story in April (by which time the train we were writing about had stopped running), to Benin to document Penjari National Park for African Parks, which normally means a large focus on rangers and community projects, and finally to Rwanda to do spend time in their three national parks together with the Gorilla Highlands crew, in partnership with African Parks, and the Rwanda Development Board.
I spent most of April, as well as three weeks in July and August, in Malawi, guiding trips together with Jessica and photographing for a number of small, grass-roots projects (and an upcoming magazine feature). Malawi certainly deserves its tourism slogan “the warm heart of Africa”, and it remains one of my favourite places in Africa for this very reason, although it’s also vastly underestimated as a nature-and-wildlife destination. We plan to run more trips here from 2021 onwards - something we’re already looking forward to, because Malawi is also just a lot of FUN!
But between those Malawi trips I also managed to squeeze in a couple of weeks in central Kenya, in and around Laikipia, doing a feature story on human-elephant conflict mitigation and land degradation for bioGraphic together with the wonderful Susan Moran. This also provided a great opportunity to revisit Lewa Wildlife Conservancy for the first time since 2012!
Late in August I got to fulfil a longtime travel dream: Mongolia. Once again I joined forces with Henry, doing articles for Wall Street Journal and Wanderlust, as well as a travel article for my longtime Swedish magazine-client, Vagabond. I loved Mongolia - the vast spaces, the colours, the hospitality, and the - I don’t think there’s a better word to describe it - otherworldliness of it all.
Early September meant Botswana together with Jess, spending two weeks mainly at Natural Selection’s newest lodge in Khwai Private Reserve, Tuludi, as well as a few of their other properties: Hyena Pan and Sky Beds. We made some great friends, enjoyed lots of time with elephants, lions, and - most exciting for both of us, I think - wild dogs. We also launched a YouTube channel (subscribe! subscribe!), so much of our time was spent working out the finer details of videography (and, in Jessica’s case, video editing).
From Maun I headed across to Windhoek and Onguma Private Reserve, adjacent to Etosha National Park, for three weeks of wildlife photography. Selecting just a few photograph from this trip was a bit of a challenge, with the cheetah cubs in particular - but unsurprisingly - proving themselves to be excellent models. The giraffes gave them a pretty good run for their money though.
I left just as the heat was starting to become unbearable, popping over to London for Wildlife Photographer of the Year and the Remembering Lions book launch. I didn’t even bring a camera to London (!), but this photo, from China, is in the running for the Lumix People’s Choice Award: feel free to give it a vote (until February 4th)!
We’re almost there, I promise! After London I joined Jess in India, where she was just about finished with her second Yoga Teacher Training of the year. We started out in cyclone-hit Goa, and spent a hot and humid - but colourful! - month making our way south through Karnataka and Kerala.
A chat with fellow Remembering Lions contributor Sarah Skinner in London led to a somewhat spontaneous drive up to the far north of Sweden, some 15 hours from Stockholm. And Lapland, we fell in love with you! The weather was so-so, the Aurora only showed up once, but we were in our element nevertheless, and are planning to return just as soon as we get back from Kenya, where we’ll spend the first few weeks of 2020. It’s been a tumultuous year in many ways, but we’re as happy and in love as ever, and plan to make 2020 the best one yet - with considerably less time apart, and more time exploring Sweden. We’ll also lead a couple of yoga adventures to Kenya, so if immersing yourself in Maasai culture while reconnecting with yourself and nature sounds like something you’d enjoy, head on over to Mindful Adventures. See you next year!