Photographing people, communities and wildlife with dignity and respect
There is something about Africa that makes you want to reach for a camera. It might be the extraordinary light that seems to change the landscape in front of you, the vastness of a savannah that stretches further than you can see, the sudden appearance of an elephant through the trees or the moment when a lion looks directly towards your vehicle and, for just a few seconds, you feel as though the entire world has become very still. It might be the people you meet along the way, a guide who has spent years learning the landscape, a woman selling handmade crafts at a local market, a group of children laughing together or simply a face that catches your attention because there is something about it that makes you want to remember the moment.
We live in a time when almost everyone carries a camera. We don’t have to think about whether we have enough film or whether we can afford to take another photograph; we simply lift a phone, press a button and the moment is captured. Then, almost immediately, we can share it with hundreds or thousands of people who were never there. That ability is extraordinary, but I think it also means that we have a responsibility to think more carefully about what we photograph, why we photograph it and what happens to those photographs once they leave our hands. Because when we travel, particularly somewhere as culturally and environmentally diverse as Africa, we are constantly photographing things that do not belong to us. The people do not belong to us. The wildlife does not belong to us. The communities do not belong to us. The landscapes do not belong to us. We are visitors, and I think that distinction matters.
I love photographs because they have an extraordinary ability to preserve something that would otherwise exist only in our memory. A photograph can take you back to a particular morning years after you have returned home, and suddenly you can remember the light, the smell of the air, the person who was standing beside you and the feeling you had in that particular moment. Some photographs become almost like little time machines, carrying an entire experience inside them. But there is a point at which the desire to get the photograph can become more important than the experience itself. We have all seen the images online of people crowding around an animal, vehicles positioned far too close to a predator or tourists trying to capture a photograph that required them to cross a boundary they should never have crossed. Sometimes there is an obvious disregard for the animal’s welfare, but other times the behaviour is much more subtle. A guide moves a little closer because guests want a better photograph. Someone makes a noise to get an animal to look towards the camera. A person follows an animal that is trying to move away because they don’t want to lose the shot. None of these things may seem particularly significant in isolation, but collectively they change the relationship between the visitor and the wildlife. The photograph has become the priority, and I think it should be the other way around. If getting the photograph means disturbing an animal, making someone uncomfortable, invading someone’s privacy or interfering with something that should be left alone, then the photograph simply isn’t worth taking.
Photographing people requires a different kind of awareness because, unlike a landscape or an animal, the person standing in front of your camera has their own understanding of what is happening. It can be very easy for travellers to forget this. We arrive somewhere unfamiliar and everything feels interesting. The clothing is different, the surroundings are different, the architecture is different and the people may look different from the people we are accustomed to seeing at home. We see something that feels visually striking and instinctively reach for the camera. But something being unfamiliar to us does not make it ours to photograph. If you want to photograph someone, ask them. It doesn’t have to become an elaborate conversation; sometimes a smile, a gesture towards the camera and a simple question is enough. If they say no, accept it. Don’t photograph them anyway because you think they won’t notice, and don’t assume that their presence in a public place somehow gives you permission to use their image however you want. If they agree, take the time to acknowledge the person rather than treating them as an interesting face in an interesting location. If you have the opportunity, learn their name. Talk to them. Find out something about them. Show them the photograph afterwards if you can. That small interaction can change the entire nature of the photograph because you are no longer simply taking something from someone; you are sharing a moment with them.
One of the things that has become increasingly important to me through I HEART AFRICA PROJECT is the relationship between a photograph and the story attached to it. We often look at an image and immediately create a narrative in our own minds, but we don’t necessarily know what was happening before the photograph was taken, what the person was thinking or what their life looks like beyond the few seconds captured in the frame. That becomes even more important when we publish photographs online. A photograph taken in Africa can be uploaded to Instagram or Facebook and suddenly be seen by people thousands of kilometres away. It can be shared by someone else, copied into another article or separated completely from the original context in which it was taken. The person in the photograph may have no idea where their image has travelled or what assumptions people are making about them.
This is why I think context matters so much. If you know the person’s name and their story, tell it accurately. If they are a guide, say so. If they are an artisan, explain what they make. If they are involved in conservation, tell people about their work. If they have shared something about their community with you, don’t turn that into a generic story about “Africa” simply because it sounds more exotic. Africa is not one story, and its people are not interchangeable. The more I have worked on I HEART AFRICA PROJECT, the more strongly I have felt that the individual stories matter. This project has never been about collecting photographs of anonymous people and presenting them as some vague representation of an entire continent. It has always been about the people themselves, their experiences, their knowledge, their work and their relationships with the places they call home.
There is an uncomfortable side to travel photography that I think we need to acknowledge, particularly when photographs involve poverty or hardship. There are photographs that document difficult realities and genuinely help people understand poverty, inequality, displacement or other social issues. Documentary photography has an important role in telling those stories, and sometimes confronting images are necessary because otherwise people simply don’t see what is happening. But there is a difference between documenting something with purpose and photographing someone because their hardship looks visually powerful. If you are photographing someone in a vulnerable situation, ask yourself what you are actually trying to communicate. Are you telling their story, or are you using their circumstances to create an emotionally powerful image for yourself? Would you want somebody photographing you in the same situation? Does the person understand what you intend to do with the photograph? These questions become particularly important when children are involved. A child smiling at a tourist does not necessarily understand what it means for their photograph to appear on a public social media account and potentially remain there indefinitely. Children deserve particular care and consideration, and where appropriate, permission should be sought from a parent, guardian or responsible adult rather than assuming that a smile is consent. Their childhood should never become somebody else’s content.
The ethical questions change when the subject is an animal, because an animal obviously cannot give us permission to photograph it. That means the responsibility sits entirely with us. This is where I think the work of people such as Gerry van der Walt, whose experience and knowledge of African wildlife and photography feature in I HEART AFRICA PROJECT, becomes particularly relevant. Gerry’s perspective reinforces something that anyone interested in wildlife photography eventually learns: getting a good photograph isn’t simply about having the right camera or finding the perfect position. It is about understanding the animal, understanding its behaviour and, importantly, understanding when the animal’s welfare needs to take priority over your photograph. The more you learn about wildlife, the more you realise how much is happening that you don’t immediately notice. An animal may appear calm to you while responding to the presence of a vehicle in ways you don’t understand. A mother may be protecting young. An animal may be trying to move away. A predator may be resting after feeding. A herd may be changing direction because something has disturbed them. The person behind the camera may see a beautiful photographic opportunity, while the guide may see an animal telling them that it is time to leave. That is why listening to your guide matters.
There is a temptation in wildlife photography to believe that getting closer automatically produces a better image, but I don’t think that is necessarily true. Sometimes the most beautiful photograph is the one that shows the animal within its environment, because the landscape is part of the story. An elephant standing beneath an enormous African sky can tell us something that a close-up of its eye cannot. A leopard disappearing into long grass tells us something about the animal’s relationship with its environment. A herd moving across a distant plain can communicate scale, space and freedom in a way that a tightly cropped photograph simply cannot. And sometimes the best thing you can do is wait. Let the animal move naturally. Allow the scene to develop. Don’t force the moment. There is something very satisfying about knowing that the photograph you eventually captured happened because you were patient enough to allow Africa to do what Africa does, rather than because you manipulated the situation to produce the image you wanted.
A good wildlife guide is doing much more than finding animals for you. They are reading the environment constantly. They are watching behaviour, listening to sounds, looking at tracks and understanding things that most visitors simply don’t notice. Their experience allows them to make decisions about where to position a vehicle, when to remain still and when it is time to leave. As a traveller, you may desperately want another five minutes because the animal has finally turned towards you and the light is perfect. Your guide may know that five minutes is five minutes too long. Listen to them. Don’t pressure a guide to move closer because you haven’t got the photograph you wanted. Don’t ask them to follow an animal that is clearly trying to move away. Don’t encourage them to break the rules of a reserve simply because another vehicle has managed to get a better position. The guide isn’t there simply to give you what you want. They are there to help you experience the environment responsibly.
Social media has changed the way we experience wildlife. There is now enormous pressure to create something that will make people stop scrolling, and that can create a temptation to chase dramatic moments rather than simply observe what is happening naturally. But wildlife doesn’t exist to create content. Don’t feed an animal so you can photograph it. Don’t make noises to make it look towards you. Don’t bait an animal. Don’t encourage an interaction because it will make a better video. Don’t celebrate an extraordinary photograph without considering what happened behind the scenes to produce it. A photograph can look completely natural while the circumstances behind it were anything but. That is something worth remembering whenever you see an incredible wildlife image online, including your own.
There is another responsibility that comes with wildlife photography that many people don’t consider until they understand its consequences. Sometimes, sharing exactly where you found an animal can put that animal at risk. In an age where a photograph can include precise location data and where a rare animal can become an online sensation overnight, there are situations in which keeping a location private is actually an act of conservation. If you have photographed a particularly vulnerable species, think carefully before publishing its exact location. Ask whether revealing that information serves any useful purpose, or whether it simply satisfies curiosity. You don’t have to tell the internet everything. Some things are better left for those who were actually there.
I have experienced this myself in different forms over the years: the desire to record something can sometimes become so strong that you forget to actually experience it. You see something extraordinary and immediately think about the photograph. Is the light right? Is the composition right? Did I get the shot? Should I take another? But there are moments in Africa when I think the camera should simply come down. Watch the elephant. Listen to the birds. Look at the person you are talking to. Take in the landscape. Be there. You can photograph the next moment, and if there isn’t a next moment, perhaps you didn’t need the photograph as much as you thought you did.
For all of the ethical considerations surrounding travel photography, I don’t want this article to sound as though photography is something we should be afraid of. It isn’t. Photography can be one of the most beautiful ways of connecting people with places they may never otherwise experience. A photograph can make somebody care about an animal they have never seen. It can introduce someone to a community they didn’t know existed. It can show the extraordinary work of a conservationist or ranger. It can inspire someone to travel responsibly rather than simply travel cheaply. That is the power of photography, and that is why I think it deserves to be used thoughtfully. The photographs we take can become ambassadors for the places we love. They can make people curious. They can make people care. They can make people want to protect something they have never personally experienced.
This is one of the things that matters to me particularly strongly with I HEART AFRICA PROJECT. I didn’t want the people I interviewed to become anonymous characters floating around inside somebody else’s idea of Africa. I wanted their names attached to their stories. I wanted people to know who they were. I wanted to understand their work, their experiences and their relationship with Africa. There is a significant difference between photographing “an African guide” and introducing someone by name and telling people something about the person standing in front of the camera. The first creates an image. The second creates a connection. And connection is what responsible travel should be about.
If someone gives you their time, knowledge or story, think about what you can give in return. That doesn’t mean every interaction has to become transactional. A conversation doesn’t require payment, and a person who agrees to a photograph isn’t necessarily asking for money. But responsible tourism does mean thinking about where your money goes. If you have met an artisan whose work you admire, consider buying something directly from them. If a local guide has given you an incredible experience, tip appropriately where tipping is customary. If you have learned about a community-run tourism initiative, consider supporting it. The photograph may be what you take home, but the relationship you create while taking it can be something much more valuable.
I think this is probably the hardest lesson for anyone who loves photography. There will be moments when you know you could take an extraordinary photograph, but something tells you not to. Maybe the person doesn’t look comfortable. Maybe the situation is private. Maybe you don’t have permission. Maybe getting closer would disturb the animal. Maybe the photograph would reveal information that should remain private. Maybe you simply realise that you are more interested in collecting the image than experiencing the moment. Put the camera down. You don’t owe Instagram the photograph. You don’t owe your followers the photograph. You don’t even owe yourself the photograph. You were there. You experienced it. Sometimes that is enough.
This is perhaps why the conversations I’ve had while creating I HEART AFRICA PROJECT have become as important to me as the photographs. The people I’ve met have changed the way I look at Africa. They have reminded me that there is always more happening beneath the surface than the visitor initially sees. A photograph might capture an animal, but the person standing beside you can tell you why that animal matters. A landscape might look untouched, but somebody who has spent their life there can tell you how much has changed. A safari might seem like a simple holiday, but the guide can show you the network of people, conservation efforts and local businesses that make the experience possible. Photography gives us the image. People give us the context. And without that context, we can very easily misunderstand what we are looking at.
I don’t think ethical photography means travelling without a camera. I don’t think it means refusing to photograph people or avoiding wildlife photography altogether. I think it means approaching photography with a little more humility. Ask before photographing people. Respect the answer. Don’t reduce somebody to their circumstances. Be particularly careful when photographing children. Listen to your wildlife guide. Give animals space. Never prioritise a photograph over animal welfare. Think about what information you publish alongside an image. Be careful about revealing sensitive wildlife locations. Tell people’s stories accurately. And remember that sometimes the most respectful photograph is the one you decide not to take. The camera gives us an extraordinary ability to preserve moments, but that ability doesn’t give us ownership over the people, animals or places in front of our lens. We are simply fortunate enough to have been there.
Perhaps that is ultimately what responsible photography comes down to: privilege. It is a privilege to sit quietly in the African bush and watch an animal behaving naturally. It is a privilege to be welcomed into somebody’s community. It is a privilege when someone trusts you enough to share their story. It is a privilege to stand in a landscape that has existed for generations before you arrived. And when something is a privilege, you treat it differently. You don’t demand it. You don’t assume you are entitled to it. You don’t take more than you need. You appreciate it. You respect it. You leave it intact for the next person. That is how I think we should approach photography in Africa: not as an opportunity to collect images, but as an opportunity to witness something. And if we are lucky enough to capture that moment, then perhaps the photograph becomes more meaningful because we understood what it was we were actually looking at.
You may own the photograph once you have taken it, but you don’t own the person standing in front of your lens. You don’t own the animal. You don’t own the community. You don’t own the landscape. You don’t own the story. You were simply there when the moment happened. So take the photograph when it is appropriate. Ask when you need to ask. Listen when someone says no. Give wildlife the space it deserves. Respect the people who allow you into their world. And when the camera needs to come down, let it. Because the greatest photographs aren’t necessarily the ones that show us the most extraordinary thing. Sometimes they are the ones that remind us how fortunate we were to be there at all.
Travel with curiosity. Photograph with respect. Leave Africa with its dignity intact.