TITLE: Waiting for Baby!

While hippos have the reputation of being grumpy, noisy and very dangerous, if we spend time with them we can see a more tender side to them, like in this case. At a corner of a noisy and busy hippo pool in the Masai Mara, a large mother hippo rose out of the water in order to climb ashore to feed. Her calf however got left behind and we made this photo as the mum turns towards the baby, gently coaxing it towards her!

AUTHOR: Preeti and Prashant Chacko (India)

We are Preeti and Prashant Chacko, Indian photo artists. Together, we go by the handle “Composing the Wild”. Our work celebrates nature through the beauty of its wild animals, photographed in timeless black and white. We favour monochrome for its ability to distil emotion and to create a vision of a time past but hopefully never lost.

What inspires us is not just the visual drama of the wild, but the emotion it stirs. Over years of photography, we’ve learned that the images we cherish most are those that express beauty and emotion. Through our lens, we try to portray the grace of the wild and invite viewers to see these beings not as beasts, but as wonders worthy of awe, empathy, and protection.