Joe and Mary Ann McDonald strive to provide the most comfortable
and thorough safari you will ever experience. Joe lead his first
photo safari to Kenya in 1985 and has been traveling to Africa
at least one time per year since 1987. As of 2009 Mary and Joe
have been leading Kenya safaris for 22 years, as well as numerous
trips to Tanzania, Rwanda, Namibia, Botswana, and Uganda. They
were the first to institute three person per vehicle safaris,
rotating participants to insure fairness, and the use of radios
for communicating between vehicles. They have produced an excellent
informative video, 'A Video Guide to Photographing on Safari with
Joe and Mary Ann McDonald,' and Joe has written two books on Africa,
'Photographing on Safari,' Amphoto Publications, which reguarly
sells on Amazon.com for over 4 times its original published price,
and African Wildlife, Todtri Publications.
As the above may indicate, Joe and Mary Ann have extensive
African experience, and they feel this is one of the most important
qualifications for leading a successful photographic tour. They
understand Africa and how it works, and even more importantly,
they have unparalleled African wildlife experience which will
make your African safari the most productive possible. In addition
to African trips, Joe and Mary Ann also lead photography trips
to Alaska, Antarctica, Arizona, Brazil, Costa Rica, the Falkland
Islands, India, and Yellowstone. They conduct extremely popular
and successful photography instruction courses -- The Digital
Complete Nature Photography Course -- at varying locations around
the country, including at their home base in Pennsylvania, and
they've co-written a PDF book with one of their digital instructors,
Digital Nature Photography, From Capture to Output.
Both Mary and Joe are professional photographers, and their credits
includ National Geographic, National Wildlife, Ranger Rick, Natural
History, Living Bird, Birder's World, and most nature/wildlife
calendars. They are represented by several stock photo agencies
worldwide, including Corbis, Animals Animals, and the BBC stock
library.
In 1994 Mary Ann won two first place awards in the prestigious
BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, in Endangered
Species and in Bird Behavior. In 1998 she had three highly commended
images published in the BBC competition, ALL THREE from Kenya!
She won first place in the Cemex/Nature's Best photo contest in
the Humor Division for Professional Photographers. In 2003 she
won first place in Mammal Behavior in the Agfa all Africa photo
competition with a dust bathing bull elephant from Samburu. Mary
has written a number of children's books, including Leopards,
Grizzly Bears, Woodpeckers, Flying Squirrels, Sunflowers, Cobras,
Jupiter, Boas, Garter Snakes, Pythons, Rattlesnakes, Ducks, Chickens,
Horses, and Cows, and a coffee table book, Out of the Past, Amish
Tradition and Faith.
Joe has written several how-to wildlife photography books -- A
Practical Guide to Photographing American Wildlife, The Wildlife
Photographer's Field Manual, The Complete Guide to Wildlife Photography,
Designing Wildlife Photographs, Photographing on Safari, A Field
Guide to Photographing in East Africa, and the New Complete Guide
to Wildlife Photography. Joe has won several times for highly
commended images in both the Cemex/Nature's Best and the Agfa
all Africa photo competitions. In 2003 Joe won 2nd place in the
World in Our Hands category in the BBC competition with an image
from the Ndutu area of the Serengeti, and has been third-place
winner numerous times in the BBC competitions.
Steve Turner, the owner of Origins Safari, will be our in-country guide. Steve is a veteran of numerous expeditions to Ethiopia and his experience and contacts in the country are invaluable and without peer. Steve is an accomplished photographer as well, represented by several stock agencies, and a veteran master of logistics and organization, two important traits in travel!