Wildlife photographers Jonathan and Angela Scott have studied one pride of marsh lions in Kenya over 35 years. They tell Priyanka Sharma about their “extended family”
It is only fitting that a conversation with two award-winning wildlife photographers begins with a tacit remark about the copyright breach of images. Jonathan Scott playfully talks of his images being used by many websites, without giving due credit to him. His wife, Angela or “Angie” as she is better known, nods in agreement. While Scott is dressed in a blue denim shirt and khakhi pants, his wife is clad in a long black skirt and silver jewellery. Posing for photographs, the jovial couple makes suggestions for a better frame. “It’s not everyday that we’re in front of the lens,” smiles Scott.
Seated in the conference room at The Oberoi in New Delhi, the Scotts seem attuned to the luxury and affluence that surrounds them. Their love for the Oberoi group of hotels is no secret. They have just returned from their “safari excursions” in the Ranthambore National Park; naturally, they stayed in the Rajvilas in Jaipur and Udaivilas in Udaipur, adds Scott who shares a great friendship with P R S “Bikki” Oberoi, the chairman of the hotel chain.
Coffee arrives and the conversation steers to their home, thousands of miles away, in Nairobi in Kenya. While Scott was born in England and grew up watching wildlife on television, Angela was raised in Alexandria in Egypt. Having studied Zoology, Scott craved to study the behaviour of wildlife and that the only destination that would whet his desires was Africa. Relocating to Kenya in 1977, he worked as a tourist guide.
“For me, photography was a way to explore my artistic side,” says a shy Angela. During the Suez Crisis of 1956, her father, a cotton buyer in Alexandria, was forced to relocate to Tanzania. Though it is evident that Scott is the chatty one, he mentions his wife in every sentence. “The one thing that Angie remembers about her childhood is her pet cat whom she left behind,” he interjects.
It is perhaps this love for cats in particular which marked the couple’s foray into televison. Scott is best known as the presenter of Big Cat Diary, an oft repeated wildlife series telecast on BBC and Animal Planet. While Scott was the storyteller, his wife had the more arduous job of being the game-spotter and filming production stills for the show. The “cats” that form the subject of the show are majestic lions, leopards and cheetahs of the Masai Mara National Games Reserve in western Kenya — a five hours’ drive from the Scotts’ home. The Mara is a sanctuary for more than 400 lions, around 50 cheetahs, some of which the couple have followed throughout their lives.
One such set of marsh lions, whom they have studied for over 35 years, have become their “extended family”, jokes Scott. “I think we know them better than our own friends!” In fact, a family of lions which Angela has been filming since they were cubs, were stars of Disney’s feature film African Cats (2011).
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Life isn’t easy, elaborates Scott. Dispelling myths of Kenya being “inexpensive”, he highlights that Nairobi faces acute water and electricity shortage which raises the cost of living. Still, moving from “prim and proper” England to Africa — a land that embodied Scott’s dreams of “the wild wild West”— has resulted in many rewards for the couple. Both Scott and Angela have won the British Gas Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award; while Scott won the award in 1987 for his breathtaking image of a wild dog catching a wildebeest, his wife’s photograph of an elephant family drinking water from the Luangwa river in Zambia was chosen among 18,000 entries from over 60 countries in 2002.
Their prolific partnership has also resulted in 26 books, including a trilogy on Africa’s big cats — Big Cat Diary: Lion, Big Cat Dairy: Leopard and Big Cat Diary: Cheetah — commissioned by HarperCollins to accompany the television series. Scott recalls the “saga of Toto”, a tiger cub that was featured in one of the episodes in the show, which is still popular on Youtube. While his mother was nowhere in sight, a rather energetic Toto was being hunted by a baboon. Scott had one task — to get it all on film for the show. As people across the world saw footage of Toto running around the reserve only to be rescued by his mother at last, Scott’s crew debated whether to intervene or not. “We had strict guidelines from the producers to keep filming...that is the hardest part of this job,” admits Scott. Likening the show to a “soap opera for cats”, he reiterates one fact: “Nature has its own story. We can’t play god.”
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A day in the Scott home begins at five in the morning when the couple pack food, water and of course their impressive cameras and lenses (the two are part of the Canon Professional Network and represent the brand at many photography festivals). Inside their Toyota Land Cruiser, the Scotts spend fourteen hours daily in the Masai Mara Reserve. And then what, one may ask.
“We wait for the perfect frame, the perfect light and of course the perfect moment,” says Scott. This “perfect moment”, may even take years to arrive, he adds. “At times, lions sit still the whole day; so we feel dejected and leave. And when we come back, we find they killed a buffalo in our absence. As morbid as it might sounds, it makes for a great image!” Scott disagrees with the perception among aspiring photographers about lions being lazy. “Lions don’t have sweat glands; they have adapted to a certain environment and can’t run around to entertain you!”
The Scotts’ description of these wild animals does paint a rather pretty picture of their life. Yet, there have been several close shaves, remembers Angela. “The animals in the Mara Reserve may not recognise us, but they are familiar with our car,” she says. Which is why it isn’t rare for a group of tigers to sit by the car. Once, Angela found an entire family of tigers sitting on her car. Naturally, she captured it on camera.
In India, the couple plan to start a project on the lions of the Gir Forest National Park, the last of the Asiatic lions, of which there are only 400 or so left. “After studying the genetics of the Gir lions, we found that they are descendants of the West African lion population, which too is endangered.” As an afterthought, Scott adds, “India may be ready for its own show — The Tiger Diary!”