Surfing hippos

Where else is eternity represented as deeply, as in the cold morning swim of a hippo under the grey sky of the dark continent?


Photographer Michael "Nick" Nichols writes: We had heard that an occasional hippo came to the ocean here but I could tell after speaking to my guide that I would have to have time and luck to capture this. In my second month on the beach I had seen tracks, but no hippos. Then, on a routine trip to check our camera traps, we saw five of them just off the point where the megatransect would eventually meet the sea. I was not a pretty sight, stammering and jabbering, shooting film without thinking, afraid that the mirage would disappear before I made a National Geographic moment. It’s a strange, and often sad, existence we lead."