October 2025 Wildlife Photography Contest Advanced Category Winner

While on a recent photo safari in Kenya, we spent nearly every sunrise and sunset frantically searching for subjects to place in front of our cameras during that brief period when the sun kissed the horizon. The wide-open spaces of the Maasai Mara and Amboseli lend themselves beautifully to expansive scenes. On this particular morning in Amboseli National Park, we spotted a herd of zebras in the distance before sunrise and quickly took our positions. Just as the sun appeared, I made this image. I have a whole series of shots with the sun at different positions in the sky, but I like this one best—the light was somewhat ethereal in the foreground, and the sun really illuminated the sky.

Many of our sunrise and sunset pictures featured animals silhouetted on the horizon, and those exposures were relatively straightforward. This scene, however, proved more challenging. I exposed for the sky and then brought up the shadows in post-processing. Most of the time when shooting in low light, I prefer my 500mm prime lens, but I would not have been able to capture this entire scene at that focal length, so I went with my 100-500mm and shot at 200mm.