There was no point in attempting to fly then because, even if I’d had the most spectacular sightings, the photographs would have looked flat and indistinct. The next two mornings came and went while visibility continued to deteriorate. Peter is among the most experienced of helicopter pilots, a specialist in working with photographers and film makers such as the BBC Natural History Unit. Only three days remained before I was committed to fly back home to England, so I knew we would just have to wait it out. There were dark and heavy clouds in the air. Local farmers had been burning grass to prepare the soil for the planting of new crops and smoke had spread into the wilder areas of the Okavango Delta, hampering visibility. I arrived at the offices of pilot Peter Perlstein for a briefing and a cup of coffee, but I already knew when I walked in that we couldn’t fly that day. I was in the small town of Maun in Botswana, gathering photographs for my books Untamed, Spirit of the Wild and Living Africa. Light is delicate and fickle when photographing from the air, so the helicopter was booked for an early morning shoot to maximise the chances of good visibility. A jewel in the desert, Botswana’s Okavango Delta is perhaps the finest of them all. There remain some wildernesses on our planet that are especially captivating. The raw smell of the earth and a lingering sense of primeval energy draw me back to the Africa of my birth. Steve shot this photograph on film, using a Canon EOS 1N and a Canon 70-200mm F2.8 lens Here is the story behind the making of the picture, as told by the photographer that captured it. You may have seen the picture of zebras being used to demonstrate the incredible quality of Apple‘s new MacBook Pro Retina display.
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