Alexis is based in Kenya and completed her bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications, saying that “as much as I was pushed to being in front of the camera, hosting shows and fun interviews and stuff, I never really had an interest in that, but I always wanted to be behind the scenes along the lines of a Director of Photography.” It’s clear when talking to Alexis about wildlife photography that she has found a career path that she is truly passionate about.
On a trip to Virunga, Alexis met a group of photographers who were there working to spread awareness about conservation. “My heart just gravitated towards that, and I felt like, wow, this would be a really cool thing if I considered doing this because I already do love photography, and I like spending time in nature, so the two just merged—and I started doing it!” She adds that sunsets and elephants are two subjects that are inspiring her at the moment. In fact, it’s a special elephant named Craig—who is one of the few remaining ‘Super Tuskers’ —that Alexis had particularly connected with. She hopes to spend more time photographing Craig and perhaps use her photographs to help tell his story.
“Alexis has an artistic eye and a beautiful way of seeing the world. Her wildlife photos are particularly captivating, with elegant compositions and a strong sense of place,” says Suzi Eszterhas, Founder and Executive Director of Girls Who Click (GWC). It’s clear that Alexis puts a lot of thought into the compositions she creates in her images.
Alexis’ goal is to use her photography to encourage people to have empathy for animals. She plans to develop her skills in fine art and publish a coffee table book that inspires people to care about wildlife. She’s also working towards developing her storytelling skills to be an assignment photographer for magazine features. Most importantly, she hopes to continue learning about conservation and aims to make contributions to conservation throughout her career.
Growing up in Kenya and spending lots of time in the bush, Tay has always had a love of nature. Near the end of primary school, her parents gifted her a camera to bring on field trips. “I got carried away. I couldn’t stop clicking the button, taking all these photos!” she says. Tay continued to use the camera to photograph flowers in her garden and to document her experiences attending a high school located in the bush on the outskirts of Kruger National Park. “My passion for nature was already there; it was just amazing that I now actually had the device to record and take photos and have the memories of everything I saw.”
“I love Tay’s work,” says Danielle Carstens, Tay’s GWC mentor. “I admire the dedication that she has given to her photography since a very young age. I can hear the excitement in her voice when she speaks about photography, and that alone is a strength that will take her far. It takes a lot of skill to get the images that she has in her portfolio so far.”
“Photography and nature in general have sort of helped me to slow down and appreciate what’s happening in the moment and connected me more to my surroundings,” says Tay. “It’s also just 100% increased my curiosity for nature, especially through bird photography. The more time I spend with one species, the more interested I become in learning about its habitat and surroundings.”
Tay started out working as an underwater photographer in the tourism industry, where she would photograph people during their nature experiences. In the last few years, she has decided to get more involved with conservation—she’s realized that’s where her passion truly lies. “About three years ago, I got diagnosed with a severe case of scoliosis, and unfortunately, I wasn’t given the right information. I was basically led to believe that I had to completely change my career and only have a desk job. So, I didn’t take any of that very well.” Tay explains that the pandemic allowed her to slow down and spend time in nature. She has been able to seek better information about her diagnosis and no longer believes it is a barrier to her career goals.
Tay’s goals are to create positive images that inspire people to care about conservation. One day she hopes to open her own gallery that showcases these images as well as build a following for her work on social media platforms (follow her)! Alongside her own storytelling work, she aims to get others involved in this work as well. “I would live to get more Africans involved in photography and have them tell their own stories.”
Karabo is from Bushbuckridge in Acornhoek, South Africa. She first got into photography in 2020 when a friend invited her to take a two-week workshop offered by Wild Shots Outreach (WSO). “I gave it a try, and from the first day, from the first time I picked up a camera, I actually fell in love with it.” It was also Karabo’s first time becoming more involved in conservation. “[Photography] allowed me to actually engage more with nature because most of the photography assignments I get, or I go for, are basically to tell a story to communities about the conservation issues we have.”
“My favourite subject to photograph would have to be an elephant. I love that it always commands its presence,” says Karabo, adding, “I have so much respect for them.” Karabo’s GWC mentor, Helena Atkinson, says Karabo “is really excellent at taking unique photos and has a very good eye for editing her photos in a creative way. She definitely has the ability to see things in a very special way.” Mike Kendrick, Founder of Wild Shots Outreach agrees, saying, “she’s got a really, really good eye and that’s something that I find very difficult to teach.”
Currently, Karabo is working on the media team for WSO and is now teaching workshops for WSO on her own. “I’ve also just gained my pilot’s license—it is my dream to combine my passions for photography, conservation and aviation.”
Queen comes from a small village called Tintswalo in Acornhoek, South Africa. “I started photography in 2016, the same year I met Mike Kendrick of Wild Shots Outreach, who gifted me with a 750D EOS Canon camera. He’s the one who taught me how to use a camera,” says Queen. Since then, Queen has been continuing to pursue photography alongside her career as a field guide at the prestigious Mala Mala Game Reserve in Sabi Sands. “I’m hearing all sorts of positive things from her guiding, from the people that she’s working for now, that she’s one of the best guides that they’ve got at the moment, which is just incredible,” says Mike Kendrick.
It’s no surprise that Queen’s favourite subject to photograph is wildlife. “Queen brings her images to life, and I love her creativity and different perspective when she captures images. Queen has a very good eye; she is very creative and makes an ordinary scene seem magical. She has very good technical skills, and above all, she has amazing attention to detail,” says Angelica Mills, one of Queen’s GWC mentors. Janet Kleyn, who also mentors Queen through GWC, echos Angelica’s thoughts, adding, “she has a good understanding of light and she sees things differently which is lovely.”
“Nature photography has had a positive effect on my life because I have met other amazing young people who are doing great in photography, and they inspire me more,” says Queen. “My career goals are to be a professional female guide and a businesswoman.” Through her photography, Queen aims to inspire others to see the beauty of nature so that we look after it for future generations. Queen hopes that one day her daughter Erica will follow in her footsteps and be involved in conservation and wildlife photography. “But I’ll support anything Erica chooses to embark on!”
Connecting with young women photographers in Africa
When GWC welcomed the first cohort of international Ambassadors in 2020, the photographic community was quick to ask, “where are all the African women?!” And they were right.
“In North America, women are underrepresented in professional nature photography, we know that; that’s why we started GWC, but it’s even more extreme on the African continent,” says Suzi Eszterhas. “So, when we started looking for applicants in Africa, we really got very little interest.” GWC needed to find a better way to reach young African women who might benefit from the Ambassador program.
Then, while Suzi was in Africa on a photography assignment, she met Mike Kendrick over dinner at Mashatu Game Reserve. “I just realized that there was a lot of common ground between us and a log of synergy in what we’re doing trying to address these different imbalances,” Mike recalls. As a founder of Wild Shots Outreach, an organization that aims to engage young people from disadvantaged communities in wildlife and wild places through photography, Mike was right; there certainly is a lot of cross-over with GWC’s mission. After learning about the GWC Ambassador program, Mike shared it with Karabo and Queen, two graduates from WSO’s workshops, and encouraged them to apply. In 2022, both Karabo and Queen became GWC Ambassadors.
“It was by partnering with these organizations like Wild Shots Outreach where we could actually reach those women, and that’s why I think programs like WSO are so powerful is that they’ve created this space for African women where there wasn’t a lot of opportunity before,” explains Suzi.
In addition to WSO, Wildlife Direct has also been instrumental in getting the word out about the GWC Ambassador program to local women photographers in East Africa, including our 2022 Ambassador Alexis. “We are very grateful for that, and we will try to get the information out in future years so that we will continue to have applicants every year from the African continent,” says Suzi.
Wild Shots Outreach (WSO)
Mike Kendrick has always been involved in education. After working as an education specialist in Britain, he moved to South Africa eleven years ago. “I was really shocked to find that none of the young people in the Black community had been into the Kruger National Park or the private game reserves which are on their doorstep. You know, some of them live within ten, twenty kilometres of the gates to those wildlife reserves and they’ve never been in,” says Mike. “How will we protect Africa’s wildlife and wild places if there is a disconnect with the local communities?”
Alongside learning the reality of the local community’s access to wildlife, Mike also learned from helping his wife bring the international photography conference she had founded in Britain to South Africa. “We managed to find a few female wildlife photographers [to present], but they were always white. We ended up bringing people in from Botswana, and from Zambia and from Zimbabwe,” says Mike. “I wanted to change this, and with my previous experiences in social upliftment and conservation, and understanding the power of photography, I wanted to see if we could use photography as a vehicle for reconnecting, reengaging, young Black people with their natural heritage. And here we are six years later with over 100 courses competed and over 900 young people through the program. I’ve got a team of young people who have been through the program who deliver the program for me now. It’s no longer the strange grey-haired white guy that goes into the communities and teaches it; it’s young, cool, funky members of that community who can act as role models for the young people in those communities.” Rifumo Mathbila, a former WSO student, has now become the Programme Director with WSO, which involves running all the workshops and game drives. Mike explains, “I am so proud and delighted that Rifumo has just been named the international Young Environmentalist of the Year by the Chartered Institute of Water and Environmental Management!”
WSO has won multiple awards, including South Africa’s National Parks Kudu Award for Environmental Education and Capacity Building. “And that’s great,” says Mike, “but the most important thing for me is what happens to these young people.” Indeed, it’s clear from WSO’s actions that this is true. Although WSO’s program delivery focuses on photography workshops, they also have a bursary fund to help provide opportunities for further training and employment to some of the most talented young people that they’ve come across, not just in photography but also in other careers, such as science, wildlife guiding or hospitality. WSO alumnus Wisani Ngwenya, will be the first from the bursary program to graduate, earning a Bachelor of Arts in film-making, with multiple bursary program participants on his heels.
Now that past participants of WSO’s programs have been trained to run the WSO programs in South Africa on their own, Mike has been able to deliver pilot programmes in Kenya and Botswana and is expanding to the program to Namibia in 2023. “We’re scaling up, but we’re keeping a very close eye on the quality of our delivery. That’s the most important thing,” says Mike.
Challenges and hopes for the future
“Black Africans are underrepresented in the professional wildlife photography community in Africa, and even more so, female Black African wildlife photographers are hugely underrepresented,” Suzi says, “There are a unique set of challenges that are very different from those in North America both in terms of the history and culture and also the modern-day. It’s been a learning experience for us working with organizations like Wild Shots Outreach to recognize the unique challenges that this continent has, and then, of course, our female partner photographers based in Africa are also wonderful at understanding and helping us navigate these challenges.”
Janet Kleyn, General Manager of C4 Photo Safaris and partner photographer with GWC, explains that in South Africa and Botswana, the field of wildlife photography is very closely tied to nature guiding. “Many of Africa’s wildlife photographers come from a wildlife guiding background, which is how I started my journey in this industry [. . .] there are very few, it any, photographers making money as a wildlife photographer in Africa. Most of them that I know of are running photo tours and workshops, and that’s how they survive,” says Janet, adding that in Botswana, “there are only two companies that I’m aware of that permanently employ wildlife photographers. When you start out in the wildlife photography industry, often the best way to do it is freelance, but freelancing isn’t part of the culture in Africa in the same way that it is in North America.”
“The safari guide position is a bridge to wildlife photography, and that is largely male-dominated, and so that is also part of the issue, and in some countries, that position is largely white,” Suzi explains. Janet adds that breaking into the male-dominated field of wildlife guiding as a woman can be very difficult. “It can be a physically challenging job with skills required that are typically associated with men, such as off-road driving, rifle handling, etc.”
Other challenges include access to wildlife, the internet and camera equipment. “People don’t all have Wi-Fi in their homes as they do in the United States, particularly in these rural areas,” Janet says. “This makes attending online networking events and sharing photography online particularly difficult.”
“The nature photography community, to me, is already doing great work. It just needs more and more youngsters to be involved,” says Queen. Mike stresses the importance of having role models so that younger women or young Black people can “imagine themselves holding a camera and imagine themselves in a situation where they’re taking beautiful photos and understanding that it is for them. It is for them. You know, it’s something that they can pursue, and they can become outstanding at.”
“In order for us to change the photography world, we need more organizations like GWC that try to bring women and embrace their potential and try to grow the photographer in us. Then we can say we are going in the right direction in trying to actually change the photography industry, trying to change the balance in the photography industry,” Karabo says.
The GWC Ambassador Program
Connecting young women photographers from around the world through the Ambassador program helps build community within the field of nature photography. When the Ambassadors come together for virtual meetups, they can share challenges and experiences, help encourage each other and troubleshoot, and build friendships with other young women who have similar career goals. Tay says, “the group chats at the end of the month when we discuss what we’ve been going through and hearing about other people’s projects, that’s been super helpful.”
“I believe it’s building a good relationship with more photographers, more female photographers,” says Karabo. Alexis adds that joining GWC has helped her find more women photographers whose work she enjoys following and that it has helped her discover and connect with more photographers who are at the same career stage.
One of the key aspects of the GWC Ambassador program is pairing each Ambassador with a GWC partner photographer to be a mentor. “I have to say Janet has been more than a mentor to me; she’s an amazing woman,” says Queen.
Mike Kendrick points out that mentorship is not easy to come by. “It’s just really cool that there are these people at Girls Who Click who are willing to give their time and share.” Alexis explains that understanding her mentor’s career path has helped inform her own. “It made me switch my way of looking at things. I’m seeing that it’s more about the quality of work and the experiences than it is about just posting content.”
This past May, mentors Helena, Angelica and Janet were able to meet up with their mentees, Karabo and Queen, in person for a weekend of wildlife photography alongside other local photographers from WSO, who funded the trip. “What we really wanted was to get to know each other better,” says Helena. “It was a wonderful experience to meet the young ladies we work with and to learn more about them. It was good to assess as well what their skill levels are so that we can adjust the programme to suit their needs. But most of all we had good laughs and good fun! I am so proud of the connection I now have with the GWC programme and with my mentee Karabo.”
“Personal connections are so valuable to ensure that my mentee knows I am here to support and readily available to assist her not just with photography but in general,” Angelica says. She adds, “it motivates me to know that I am making a difference in my community by being there to support and encourage mentees through their journey as nature photographers.” Angelica was part of GWC’s first cohort of Ambassadors, and she is now paying that forward to mentor other GWC participants.
“It’s a lot about confidence building,” says Janet. “[As Africans], we tend to think about ourselves as not up there with everyone else. But we are, we just do it differently. We have different issues, like connectivity, but we have our way of communicating.”
How you can show support
Follow our Ambassadors and support their work: Follow Karabo, Queen, Alexis and Tay on Instagram.
Offer an opportunity to a local photographer: Are you an organization with a work or sponsored training opportunity related to wildlife tourism or photography in South Africa? Get in touch with Wild Shots Outreach. They have 1000+ talented young people who have graduated from their program that they can recommend.
Share the GWC program with your network: Share the GWC Ambassador Program and the Wild Shots Outreach program with local youth, or share our work with organizations that work with youth in Africa who can help spread awareness of these programs.
Provide support to GWC and WSO: There are several ways you can help GWC and WSO continue to grow their programs. Visit the GWC Support Us page to see multiple ways you can provide support. You can support WSO by directly donating funds or by getting in touch to donate used camera or computer gear.
Become a Partner Photographer: Are you a female or non-binary professional photographer located in Africa? Inquire about joining GWC as one of our Photographers and help us lead workshops in your community or become a mentor for our next Ambassador cohort.
