Signature Story
First Light
East Africa · 10 min read
On tracking an elephant matriarch across a plain at the edge of dawn.
Martography
Photograph Coming Soon
First Light — East Africa
Her name is Nasha. She is fifty-two years old and she has led her family for the last twenty of them.
We tracked her family for four mornings before this frame arrived. Every day we would rise at 4:30 and be in position by 5:15. Every day the light would arrive first, and the elephants would arrive whenever they arrived.
On the fifth morning, she brought them out onto the pan just as the sun crested. Seventeen animals, in a single line, walking with a purpose only she understood.
— Paul Marto
