Solio, Again
and Again
Maybe that's the magic of a place you know well. You stop needing it to impress you. And it still does.
The space
I couldn't tell you exactly how many times I have returned to Solio by now.
Enough to have seen it dry and dusty.
Green and overflowing with life.
Under clear blue skies and beneath enormous storm clouds.
And somehow, I still never get tired of it.
There is something about this place that keeps pulling me back.
Maybe it's the space.
You can drive for hours without seeing another vehicle.
There have been days when we've found lions or a leopard and still had the sighting completely to ourselves.
No line of cars.
No rush.
No feeling that you need to move because somebody else is waiting behind you.
Just the animal, the landscape and us.
Time to watch.
Time to wait.
Time for the light to change.
And sometimes, time for absolutely nothing to happen.
As a wildlife photographer, that feeling is difficult to beat.
I love that too.
Then there are the rhinos
You can't really drive across Solio's open plains without seeing one.
Then another.
And probably another somewhere in the distance.
Sometimes they're little shapes beneath an enormous sky.
Sometimes they're standing underneath a tree.
Sometimes a mother appears with a calf beside her.
And sometimes you stop counting altogether.
I've photographed rhinos at Solio more times than I could possibly remember.
And somehow, I still stop for them.
Every single time.
Because no two sightings ever look the same.
The dry months
Zebras running across the plains.
The last golden light catching every tiny particle in the air.
Solio changes with the seasons.
During the dry months, the landscape turns dusty.
And I love the dust.
Sometimes the dust becomes as important to the photograph as the animal itself.
Then the rains come
And Solio changes completely.
Suddenly, there are greens everywhere.
Deep greens.
Soft greens.
Fresh, almost impossibly bright greens.
The plains become lush, the light feels different and the reserve almost looks like another place.
I don't think I could choose which version I prefer.
I wouldn't want to.
The forest has always felt a little magical to me.
The light changes.
Everything becomes quieter.
Birds are everywhere.
Waterbucks appear between the trees.
Zebras move through patches of light.
And sometimes there is a rhino standing beneath the canopy, almost disappearing into the forest around it.
It looks like something from a fairytale.
I have driven those roads so many times, and I still look around as though it were my first visit.
Because you never really know what is around the next corner.
Beneath a storm
But my favourite Solio might be the one beneath a storm.
You can see the clouds building from far away.
Huge, dark clouds slowly rolling across the plains.
The light changes.
The wind picks up.
And suddenly the landscape becomes a canvas.
A rhino standing alone beneath that sky can be enough.
Nothing else needs to happen.
Those are the moments when I sometimes forget that I'm supposed to be taking photographs.
I just look.
Then, usually, I remember the camera.
I think that's why I keep coming back.
Lions.
Leopards.
Zebras.
Giraffes.
Birds.
And all the unexpected encounters that make wildlife photography what it is.
But if it were only about finding animals, I don't think I would feel the same way about Solio.
The silence.
The changing seasons.
The dust.
The forest.
The storms.
The feeling of finding something incredible and having nobody else around.
And perhaps most of all, the fact that after all this time, Solio can still surprise me.
I've returned again and again.
I've driven the same roads.
Stopped beneath the same trees.
Watched the same mountains disappear behind clouds.
Photographed more rhinos than I could ever count.
And somehow I still arrive wondering what Solio is going to show me this time.
