Angela & Jonathan Scott
Best known for the Big Cat Diary TV series, photographers Angela and Jonathan Scott speak to Keith Wilson about life in Kenya’s Masai Mara reserve…
The couple behind TV’S Big Cat Diary on life on never-ending safari in Africa.
Angela and Jonathan Scott are synonymous with wildlife photo safaris and Africa’s big
cats. They are the only couple to have both won the overall Wildlife Photographer of the Year title, and collaborated for more than a decade to make Big Cat Diary, one of the world’s most popular TV series about African wildlife. 2017 is a landmark year for the Kenya-based couple as Jonathan chalks up 40 years in his adopted home and the pair celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary.
With such prominent dates to commemorate, they could be excused for putting their feet up and basking in the glow of a Mara sunset with a couple of sundowners. But resting on their laurels has never been their style. With 30 books behind them, they’ve just added two more: Jonathan’s revealing and touchingly honest autobiography, The Big
Cat Man, and Sacred Nature: Life’s Eternal Dance, the couple’s biggest collection of wildlife photographs, impressively designed by their son, David John Scott.
Their lives may be packed with more milestones than an open road, but they’re showing no signs of slowing down soon…
How does Sacred Nature differ to your previous books?
Jonathan Scott: We’ve already done 30 books and Angie insisted this one is not going to be led by the text. You wanted the pictures to speak.
Angela Scott: Most times when you do a book it is led by the text.
01 Wildebeest at dawn
Millions of wildebeest migrate across the vast savannah linking Kenya’s Masai Mara to the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania lens Canon FD 500mm f/4l exposure 1/500 sec, f/4, ISO64
02 topi and impalas at dawn
A line of sacred ibis fly above a herd of topi, silhouetted against the mist and golden orb of the rising sun lens Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8l exposure 1/640 sec, f/2.8, ISO400
03 maasai and cattle at dawn
The Maasai have herded cattle for centuries and are as much part of the landscape as the big cats and elephants lens Canon EF 200-400mm f/4l IS USM Extender exposure 1/640 sec, f/6.3, ISO200
04 toto and Honey
The Scotts often give the cheetahs they study names, but mortality rates are high; barely 10 per cent make it to adulthood lens Canon EF 500mm f/4l IS USM + EF Extender 1.4x exposure 1/400 sec, f/6.3, ISO400 Even a photography book? JS: Yes, it is. And the pictures are small. AS: But I do think that our visual sense is not considered enough. People don’t realize what an extraordinary, powerful visual sense they have, and if we stop a little bit and look at what we’re seeing, and how extraordinarily beautiful it is, you can’t really put that into words. How can you put a sunset into words? How can you put the veins on a leaf with backlight into words? One thing that really struck me was the amount of black-and-white images in Sacred Nature.
JS: Yes, definitely. That’s Angie, you’re the master. That’s where you started. AS: I grew up on black and white because my father gave me a camera when I was very young. I saved up to buy myself a little darkroom, which I had under the stairs in my parents’ house.
This was when you were growing up in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania?
AS: Yes. In those days it was all black and white. Developing for me was about black and white and it was just a hobby. I’ve never been trained but it was something that I loved to do. I think I see a lot in black and white. I think when you’re doing a book, especially with wildlife, everybody expects colour, so we were never allowed to put black and white in. I’ve always done black and white but there never was a place for them in the type of books we were writing.
JS: It had to be one thing or the other. AS: So with this book there was no compromise. This was the book I wanted, I had the designer I wanted – my son David – the writer…
JS: [Laughs] Oh, I was instructed about what the writing was going to be about! Forget about being a tough editor, I passed the 10,000 words to Angie and she said, ‘No, you know the essence of what I want there. I don’t want behaviour, I don’t want biology.’ I was just told what to do.
Jonathan, The Big Cat Man is your autobiography. Why now?
JS: Having done 30 books, I have focused on the stories of the wild animals and I think I was very aware of how fortunate I was. It’s the kind of life that everybody would love. We have a second home at Governor’s Camp in the Masai Mara where we’ve worked for the past 40 years. We are working in what a lot of people would consider to be idyllic conditions, we were married in the Mara, we have a beautiful four-wheel-drive vehicle rigged up with our cameras, we brought our kids up on safari, but the reason I wanted to write that book was because I wanted to
developing for me was about black and white and it was just a hobby. i think i see a lot in black and white angela scott
i was living the ‘big cat man’ life, but i was also living the life where i was battling with my own demons Jonathan scott
put down on paper and have a good look as to what my life had been all about.
I knew I was living two lives: I was living the ‘Big Cat Man’ life, but I was also living the life where I was battling with my own personal issues, my own demons, the downside of losing my dad when
I was very little; I never knew my dad, I was two years old. He died of a brain tumour when he was 42. He was a very talented, a highly skilled architect and surveyor, he served in the Second World War, he was a lieutenant colonel, fought behind enemy lines with the Royal Engineers, was at Dunkirk. So there is this wonderful heroic figure, and I did try to follow in his footsteps and live up to his legend, but at the same time I was riddled with fears. It was in the family: his mum died at 36, his sister died at 26, his brother at 40, he died at 42. I thought, ‘Oh my god, half the family just isn’t here.’
You must have thought you were already living on borrowed time?
JS: It’s interesting that you say that because I found myself in a race to outlive my dad to prove that I didn’t have some terrible disease. So there were two people: there was me the happy, outgoing, living the life of Riley, following his dream; and this other person inside, worrying himself silly that he was going to die, going off to doctors and having tests, and never wanting to believe that it was all in my mind. So when I met Angie at 40 I suddenly had somebody else to worry about, and two wonderful children to be a father to, so I really did get the best of both lives.
It is a book about wildlife, a book about somebody who lived their dream, about somebody who got a second chance to be a father, about somebody who conquered their fears and about somebody who wanted to make sure that anybody who read my book would feel that you can live your dream too, or you could certainly live your dream if you have the belief.
As photographers what have you learned from each other?
JS: I learned to be a photographer from Angie. Seriously. I always say to people Angie was my biggest inspiration because I wasn’t a photographer. I was the luckiest bloke in the world to have a camera in my hands and the time on my hands to be on a 40-year safari in the best and easiest place to take pictures in Africa. And I was taking pictures as a zoologist, whereas Angie was taking pictures because she had something she wanted to say. She’s shy, she’s retiring, she’s not the person who’s going to open the conversation; photography was her way of communicating.
AS: It’s always given me a voice. As a child I was very shy and photography was something I could just fall into, and I felt that I could express something, even if it was only to myself, with photography. I love the visual arts, I love it.
You mentioned setting up your first darkroom, Angie. What else influenced your photography?
AS: I come from a very artistic family: my mother painted, my grandfather painted, and photography was just another form of art, I suppose. I grew up in Tanzania, so my brother and I didn’t have things like toy shops. It was all about the natural world, going out early morning and running around on the beach. We’d go to Serengeti for our holidays, so photography was the way that I could express how I felt about what I had seen. But I know I couldn’t have had the
nature is pretty amazing as it is, so how much do you really need to embellish it? Jonathan scott
05 notch’s boys
The contrasting characters of two of Notch’s sons (a male lion who sired many prides) is beautifully captured in this study lens Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6l IS USM exposure 1/250 sec, f/5.6, ISO800
06 newborn elephant calf
Elephants keep their young close to the herd by shielding them from predators with their legs and trunks lens Canon EF 500mm f/4l IS USM exposure 1/250 sec, f/4, ISO400
07 Wildebeest crossing the mara river
Wildebeest risk life and limb crossing the crocodile-infested waters of the Mara River in Kenya during their annual migration lens Canon EF 500mm f/4l IS USM exposure 1/400 sec, f/4, ISO400 opportunity to take the pictures that I have taken in the past 25 years without being with Jonathan, because he’s such an extraordinary naturalist. Having him there and teaching me about the natural world in a scientific way allows me to be a better photographer. If he’s driving me he will put me in the perfect position.
JS: She’s tough, she’s very tough. I get to drive the car and carry the cameras, basically! [laughs] I even try to tell her how to take the pictures, but fortunately she won’t listen, like when she won Wildlife Photographer of the Year. I was all for getting lower down by the water, but she just said, ‘Leave me alone, I’ve got my tripod, I’ve got my 500mm lens’, and got this classic shot of the elephants.
What cameras are you using now?
JS: I’ve gone through the whole Canon range. Now the latest, the EOS-1D X Mk II is a sensational camera for three reasons. One, if you’re a wildlife photographer you want to have the ability of shooting in low light because that’s when the cats are running around. In the old days, you’d buy fast lenses because you couldn’t push
your ISO beyond a certain amount as it would look terrible with all that noise or grain. Now, with the EOS-1D X Mk II, great ISO capability allows us to shoot ambient light at 14 frames per second. In an action situation you might spend months following a leopard and then there’s that one key moment that will put your pictures into the newspapers. When you shoot 14 frames per second, all the more chance that you’ve got that absolute killer shot. Also, the autofocus capability: faster, incredibly quick, greater autofocus sensor spread across the image, so it goes wider to the edges. And GPS, so we can follow wide-ranging creatures and know where we took the picture and track their movements, like our leopards. Angie also has the EOS 5DS R for portraits and landscapes. It’s unbelievable.
Which lenses do you recommend? JS:
The new Canon EF 100-400mm Mk II zoom, which you can use with a 1.4x teleconverter and has a great image stabilizer. It’s going to make the life of that big brute of a lens (Canon EF 200-400mm f/4l IS USM Extender 1.4x), which we also have, pretty difficult because, as a travel lens and where weight is an issue, the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 IS II USM is the one. Buy it!
Your styles are different. How do they vary when you’re faced with the same subject or location? AS: It’s perfect, because we’ve learnt very naturally the things Jonathan is stronger at and the things I’m stronger at.
JS: I love action…
AS: And we will go with the right lenses to know that we’re both covering the whole picture, so we can tell a story from our individual perspective. And we never compete: if I see something that is a fantastic shot but if Jonathan is faster or has the better lens for it, I will grab him and pull him towards me rather than try to do it. We really do feel that we are a team. We never call the images by either Angie or Jonathan. They’re our images.
JS: There’s no jealousy. In our situation it’s all about a competition of generosity – when we look at a situation we automatically want to help each other.
AS: Say if I’m on the 500mm or 600mm, Jonathan automatically will cover the area with a wide-angle, so at the end of the day we have a full story with much greater coverage, instead of competing. How much should you get right in-camera, and how much postprocessing is allowable?
AS: From my point of view, photography is such a wonderful art that it is exciting to be able to get your vision exactly how you wanted to see it in camera.
JS: And get the exposure right… AS: Personally, I would prefer to spend my time in the field, trying to be a photographer, than spend my time in a dark and grey room trying to create photographs out of rather bad images on a computer screen, because it takes time. I have no problem with other people doing it if they want to, it’s just for myself and Jonathan we love the art of photography and getting it right in-camera. I’ve never been trained on a computer or in Photoshop, so I do the bare minimum like everybody: we shoot in Raw, I try to get the colour as close as it was. I don’t put in a pink sky when there was a blue sky; I don’t take things out because I don’t really know how to take things out. It takes too long.
JS: Yes, we’re not playing move the tree. AS: I only do a little bit of tweaking of highlights, shadows, maybe a little bit of contrast. When you take a Raw file it tends to dull down, so you try and remember how it was at that time.
JS: We don’t view ourselves as digital artists. I think if you look at Sacred Nature it so looks real. We think nature is pretty amazing as it is, so how much do you really need to embellish it?
AS: Being a digital artist is an extraordinary art form, but it’s not photography and I think you do have to
if i’m on the 500mm or 600mm, Jonathan will cover the area wide-angle, so we have a full story angela scott
be clear in your head which side of the line you fall. You want to be very clear when somebody challenges you.
Okay, a cheeky question: Angela, what does Jonathan need to do to be a better photographer? JS: Probably listen more!
AS: No, I am his greatest fan. I think he takes exquisite photos. He teaches me so much. I remember when we first met and I would look at his photographs and realize there was perfection from edge to edge. It’s all in balance.
JS: It’s geometry, not emotion.
AS: He was spending hours trying to work out how the angles and shapes work, so everything is very purposeful in his shots, whereas my shots are more…
JS: Emotional. Empathic.
Jonathan, what does Angie need to do to be a better photographer?
JS: I am constantly surprised. The thing that I love about Angie’s pictures is that she continues to try and push the boundaries of the way she sees, of creating images that surprise you. Let’s face it, nobody wants to be shown something that is a representation of how you saw that scene. You always want to be surprised, either because someone has used a funky wide-angle lens or a fisheye, or they’ve used infrared. Somehow we have to get beyond the obvious. I was always a very obvious photographer. Yes, they were nice and they were neat, but they didn’t necessarily make you go ‘wow’, unless it was action. When I look at some of her pictures in Sacred Nature,
I wouldn’t think of taking them.