Redbull Illume

Redbull Namibia and Eric, their professional athlete asked me to help them shoot a campaign to help save our rhinos in partnership with The Rhinomama Project. After months of meticulous planning and weeks of getting the rhinos acquainted to and comfortable with the ramp we needed to place among them, we decided we were ready to do the shoot. Over the next three days, Eric spent several hours each morning slowly letting the rhinos get accustomed to his movements - until rhinos would stand grazing peacefully while Eric could perform his flare just a couple of meters away from them. With quite poor eye sight, but very good hearing, Eric had to continuously talk to the rhinos while I on the other hand had to remain completely silent and still, so as not to startle them and avoid having them charge off with incredible speed, heedless of who or what stood in their way. It was an intense few days as a situation could at any given moment spiral into extreme danger for both Eric and me. The extreme pressure and enforced patience finally paid off all the way however, when we managed to get this particular shot: just as Eric jumped his Flare, Mattanu, the Rhino, looked up - and the two ended up staring straight into each other’s eyes and time appeared to literally stop. We submitted these images to the prestigious "Redbull Illume 2019"and pleased to announce we made it to the semi-finals, out of a record 59551 submissions we are the last 260.

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