Allison Boehm, Elephant Exhilaration (ANIMAL & NATURE 2024)

Imagine this.... You're off on your first afternoon game-drive in Nambiti, South Africa, sitting in the back-left corner of an open safari vehicle while it is rolling quietly past an elephant bull, whilst eating it's supper, just to the side of the track. I took my opportunity to begin snapping some photos, hoping that my settings were somewhere in the vicinity of where they needed to be. All of a sudden, said elephant bull became a tad disgruntled that we had disturbed his peaceful meal time. Swiftly, he moved int he direction of our vehicle. This made me lean further out the vehicle to attempt to 'get the shot'. He charged so close to the vehicle, I could feel the seeds from the tree he was eating, hit my face. You can see the movement of this in the last shot. The one where he was almost what felt like nose-to-nose with me. A couple more feet and I could've kissed him on his trunk! My heart was racing, in the best way possible! Such an exhilarating experience I will remember and cherish always. I feel so alive just reliving it here!

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.