Photographic Safaris in Kenya

A photographic safari is one of the best ways to preserve your safari memories, improve your art and impress your friends back home. Wildlife photography and traditional safaris don’t often mix. As a photographer, it’s always frustrating when your guide, or the people on your safari vehicle, are uninterested in subjects that you would like to photograph.

Wildlife photography requires patience, preparation, dedication and a guide that understands how to get you into the right position for that picture perfect shot. You also need lots of space and equipment to move in your vehicle. In short – you need to go on a dedicated photographic safari.

Maasai Mara Game Reserve

One of the best spots to go for a photographic safari is the Maasai Mara. An abundance of wildlife will ensure you take epic photos of the predators and the grazing herbivores. It is also the best location to capture the big cats including the lion, cheetah and leopard. In addition, there are a variety of other wildlife such as zebras, antelopes, wildebeests and gazelles among others.

The plains of the Maasai Mara also offer landscapes that will make any photo stand out. There’s a colorful bird population that also offers beautiful bird photography. To add colour to the wildlife, visit the local Maasai villages for spectacular shots of the community in their elegant traditional clothes.

The Maasai Mara has a soul of its own. A soul kept alive by its vibrant, completely dumbfounding flora and fauna. It is the perfect spot in Africa for a wonderful and adventurous wildlife photographic safari.

Amboseli National Park

Mount Kilimanjaro has to be the highlight of every Amboseli visit. The view from there is effortless, with the park offering Africa’s highest-peaking mountain in angles any photographer would kill for. An Amboseli photo safari to  capture the large wildlife population heightens the park’s appeal to insane lengths. The elephant population is the highest in the region, their number nearing the 900 mark. An interaction with the local Maasai people is also on the cards in this photographic safari.

Hell’s Gate National Park

To have inspired a movie as great as the Lion King is explanation enough as to why the Hell’s Gate National Park made it to our list of the best Kenya photo safari tourist attractions. With the scenery comes soaring cliffs, water emptied gorges, rock towers, scrubbed volcanoes, and geothermal streams. To top it off is a wide array of wildlife. To also capture during the photographic safari are the hot springs, Olkaria Geothermal Station, Mervyn Carnelly Hide, and the raptor nesting.

Lake Nakuru National Park

Mix that flamingo pink with a light baby blue, and you get the Lake Nakuru… And there, right by its shores, the Lake Nakuru National Park at the floors of the Great Rift Valley. Also, home for Rothschild giraffes, white rhinos, the highly endangered black rhino, and the buffaloes. To help with that perfect shot are the lion hill, baboon cliff, and out-of-Africa viewpoints. To prove worthy of the title ‘best photo safari destination in Kenya, is its seamless scenery encompassing picturesque marshy and woody grasslands.

Ol Pejeta Conservancy

The Ol Pejeta is a wildlife conservancy cushioned between the slopes of the Mt. Kenya and those of the Aberdares. The conservancy’s beauty is boundless, its wildlife-to-area ratio beating that of any park or reserve in the country. More than 1000 mammals call the conservancy home, as well as the big five. A photographic safari here gives you the chance to take home pictures of the only two remaining northern white rhinos in the world. Also, to see are the highly endangered southern white rhinos and close to 80 white rhinos. The Chimpanzee Sweetwater Sanctuary is also a delight. The sanctuary is a rescue for chimpanzees rescued from Central and West Africa.

Aberdare National Park

If sensational was a place, then it would definitely look like the Aberdares. The park’s scenery is dreamlike, its open moorland and forested ravines the very definition of perfection. A must-see are its outstanding waterfalls, river valleys, and ridges. Calling the park home is an array of black rhinos, buffaloes, elephants among others. Rarities in the parks include the African wild cat, Giant Forest hog, bongo, and the serval cat. A visit up the Karuru Waterfalls will have you interact with the over 250 bird species in the park. Common sightings include the sunbird, eagles, plovers, and the Francolins.