Meet Tanda Tula’s wildlife photographer, Luke Street

Luke Street is our Tanda Tula guide at Safari Camp. With a keen photographic eye, he loves looking for unique images and unusual shots. Luke has always had a deep passion for photography, but in the past 18 months he has become really serious about this creative art form. It all started last year when one of his images was shortlisted by Africa Geographic to be printed in their 2016 yearbook.

Luke has been working in the safari industry for a couple of years now and just adores the wildlife photography opportunities he has on a daily basis. He prefers to capture the animals in their most natural environment and share some intimate moments from the lives of these creatures, big and small, through his lens. Despite this, he is always looking out for something different and artistic.

Memorable moments as a wildlife photographer

One of the most memorable moments for Luke during his time at Tanda Tula was last winter when he was guiding a private photographic group. This incredible moment actually lasted 4 days! On their first afternoon safari, they saw five lions from the Hercules Pride. They were feeding on a giraffe they had successfully killed. The lions didn’t seem to take too much notice of the growing number of hyenas and vultures around them as they devoured their kill. The following afternoon, stuffed and overheating, the lions decided to leave the kill, and so the hyena moved in.

The next morning Luke and his guests left early to make use of the gorgeous early morning backlight with a packed breakfast. Over the following six safaris, Luke took the guests back to the same spot where they observed the battles between hyena and vulture, and the dynamics of this interaction change. At one point they counted over 40 hyenas and countless vultures. Eventually, the adult hyena were all fat and lazy. A never-ending stream of vultures moved in for their share, only to have a young hyena repeatedly charge in and chase the vultures off. “It was an absolutely amazing thing to witness, in total we worked out that we spent over 16 hours there, capturing as many moments as we could! Needless to say, many amazing images were captured”.