Camera Trails in Africa: A Photographer’s Safari in British East Africa

Pioneer wildlife cinematologist Martin Johnson had just returned from East Africa with film stock for his latest movie, when he wrote;

"I have been home just four months, and as soon as I can I am going back. I know exactly the spot I will make for. It lies away out in the "blue," a good thousand miles' trek from Nairobi....it is paradise, literally as well as figuratively."

It is no wonder that Martin, as well as his wife Osa, came to love East Africa so much, considering that they got to spend their days wandering around in the bush, stalking such awesome creatures in such incredible settings as these;

"Can you imagine a parched brown plain rolling off to a deep blue line against a turquoise sky, and in the foreground a group of zebras drinking from a pool that is gold in the afternoon sun - perfect little horses, elegantly striped in black and white...a herd of giraffes feeding among the gray-green thorny mimosas, animals eighteen feet tall, their deep burnt-orange hides covered with an irregular network of white lines...ugly rhinos snorting like great angry pigs just outside your hut....big as motor cars..."

Most of the book is dedicated to describing their adventures as photographers, waiting all day in a blind to get the perfect photo at a water-hole, or cranking up his motion-picture camera as a lion prepares to spring. The Johnsons also had some exciting times hunting animals for meat, like when Osa saved Martin's life from a herd of stampeding elephants. Although most of the area they covered was uninhabited by people, they did have many native servants who accompanied them on their travels, and they encountered Masai and other tribes of people along the way. 

Camera Trails in Africa is a beautifully written book. It makes you want to "safari off to some country that is still God's country" and not only that, it makes sitting perfectly still in the bushes for twelve hours sound like a lot of fun...(from Amazon reviews)