From Catherine:
My Highly Honored African Wildlife picture of the Zebras in the Nature’s Best Exhibit in the Smithsonian this year was taken on Denise’s fabulous Namibian Trip in 2017.
I first met Catherine d’Alessio and her husband Jon on my Namibia trip in 2017. They recently traveled with me again to the UK for Puffins. After my workshop ended, they went on to photograph even more puffins in Iceland. To say that they travel is an understatement! Catherine and Jon focus mainly on photographing wildlife and birds. Jon’s travel blog aptly titled “Where Are They Now” gives a glimpse into their extensive travels- www.wherearetheynow.today
Story of the Shot:
As everyone knows who has been on a photo workshop where Mother Nature is involved, you frequently get thrown a curve ball and that’s what happened on the Namibia Tour in Etosha. Instead of a typically dry spring, there had been unseasonable rains and as a result there were little pools of water throughout the area and no wildlife was to be seen at the waterholes. That’s when Denise and crew went to Plan B and off we went to search them out. We eventually located a bachelor herd of zebra and while watching them I noted one that seemed to go around challenging the others and fighting frequently. I continued to watch him and he came up to another zebra and put his face next to that one and held it for a few seconds then moved away without a fight. It was during that moment that I snapped the picture. I didn’t know for sure if I had captured the moment until I downloaded my pictures.
at The smithsonian
This is a screen shot of Catherine taken from Jon’ s travel blog showing her with her photo at the Smithsonian.