Who doesn’t love elephants? With their intelligence and complex social nature they make charismatic subjects for photography. Our latest bite-size guide offers a primer in making the most of all your ellie encounters.

Spend time with elephants and you’re pretty much guaranteed the opportunity to create a varied portfolio of images. You won’t need super-telephoto lenses and you don’t even have to get out before dawn to get great shots of them (though lie-ins aren’t an option when you’re on safari). More importantly, you’ll get to enjoy one of the great sensory experiences of an African safari, to smell the sweet musky scent of fresh elephant dung and feel the low rumbling vibration of their communication. It’s an over-used word, but elephants really are awesome.

As ever, a little knowledge of your subject’s behaviour will be well rewarded.  So too will the willingness to think imaginatively.  The good news is that elephants are generally very tolerant of well-behaved photographers, so you should get plenty of quality time to explore your creative options while you soak up every moment in their company.

Our top tips for photographing elephants

• The dry season is generally the best time to photograph elephants, as they are attracted to rivers and waterholes, and often congregate in large numbers, so there’s lots of interaction.  This is a dusty time – use it to your advantage by looking for elephants tossing dust over their wet bodies, or herds kicking up backlit dust as they move through the savanna. 
• In the wet season, crisp clear air, impressive cloud formations and green vegetation can make for attractive elephant ‘animalscapes’, but they can be hard to find, as they disperse into the bush and are not drawn to waterpoints. In Namibia’s Etosha national park, for example, it’s tough to see many elephants in the wet months of November to March.
• Long telephotos aren’t necessary to get great elephant images, though they can be useful for distant subjects or close-up details. Shorter zooms are ideal: 24-105mm, 70-200mm and 100-400mm are our go-to lenses for elephants.  Given that your subjects will likely be moving around a lot, and that you may well want to try lots of different images, a zoom gives flexibility.
• Elephants, like most wild animals, look great in golden light, but they are often hard to find in the early morning, when they can be deep in the bush. Once the day warms up they will start appearing at water. On the Chobe river, for example, most don’t appear at the riverbank until 10am or later. The light may be harsh, but this is when a lot of the action happens. Your best chance of photographing elephants in sweet light is in the evening, swiftly followed by sunset and silhouette opportunities.
• It’s always worth investing time with elephants. When arriving at a herd or at a place they are likely to visit, try to position to allow for the movement of the sun over the next hour or two.

Elephant eye, Zimanga, South Africa
Canon EOS-1Dx MkII with EF 100-400mm lens at 400mm, 1/320 sec, f/5.6, ISO 640
Ann says: Relaxed elephants used to vehicles will often approach very close:  ZImanga’s bulls are curious and may come right up to a game vehicle, Chobe’s elephants will walk past a beached photo boat within touching distance.  This can be a great opportunity for wide angle shots, but think creatively and sometimes reach for a long lens and look for close-up detail: eyes, tusks, trunks, the frilled edges of ears and their shadows, side-lit skin texture.   Even harsh mid-day shadows can be put to good effect.

• Elephants have a sophisticated matriarchal social system. The oldest female leads a herd made up of her sisters, daughters and related cows and their offspring. Males leave the parent herd when they reach sexual maturity at around 12 years of age, and live in bachelor groups. Older bulls are often solitary, but will mix with other bulls, for example at water: watch for them intertwining trunks when they meet up.
• Mature bulls will sometimes shadow or mix with a maternal herd, looking for breeding opportunities. This can cause tension in the herd, especially if the bull is in musth, so watch out for bouts of nervous activity.
• Musth is a period of heightened hormonal activity in adult male elephants which makes them more aggressive and self-confident. A bull in musth should be treated with even more respect than normal, but can also produce good action opportunities, as testosterone-fuelled clashes with other males may occur. Signs of musth include general bad temper, an oily secretion from the temporal glands (between eye and ear), and dribbling urine.
• An excited male elephant can develop a ‘fifth leg’ which is a tad distracting, to say the least. Try to compose your images to hide his appendage behind a real leg, or be prepared for some challenging cloning in Photoshop.
• You can sometimes get very close in a vehicle to wild elephants, but let them come to you, not the other way round. Even habituated elephants should be shown great respect: try to keep at least 30m away, more if the animals look agitated, or a bull is in musth. As always with wildlife photography, the goal is to photograph relaxed animals that are not stressed by your presence.  If elephants choose to approach your vehicle, be quiet, keep movements to a minimum, and never reach out to touch an animal.
• Don’t use flash, elephants generally get agitated by it. Likewise drones, though there are very few wild places in Africa where you would be allowed to use one in any case.

• Baby elephants are especially photogenic, and often trigger interesting interactions with other calves or adults.  Look for youngsters playing, adults touching calves to reassure or investigate them, and tiny calves among a forest of adult legs. Calves rarely have full control of their trunks, and will swing them around comically.  Watch out also for calves struggling to climb obstacles – adults will often step in to lend a helping trunk.
• Elephants can be very possessive of waterholes, and will chase away other animals. They are especially intolerant of warthogs and baboons. Youngsters are particularly find of chasing innocent bystanders, so if other animals are trying to get to the water, be ready for a brief flurry of action.
• After drinking and bathing, elephants will often dust themselves, to protect their skin from the sun and biting insects. Look out for an elephant loosening the earth by kicking and raking it. Once one starts dusting, others will often follow suit. If you can position yourself suitably this can be a good opportunity for backlit shots, especially against a low sun.
• Play with scale. Everyone knows elephants are large, so why not use this by composing them small in a wider landscape, to emphasise the vastness of the African wilderness.
• The texture of elephant skin makes them good subjects for black and white. Don’t use a B&W conversion to salvage a poor image, it rarely works. Rather shoot with monochrome in mind. Sidelighting can be especially good for bringing up skin texture. Try a sepia effect for that classic, timeless safari style.
• If you’re taking close-ups, try to capture an elephant’s eye in detail. It’s not easy, as in daylight they tend to squint, so low light conditions can be more productive (it’s very noticeable how much more visible are elephant’s eyes after dark, for example, when you’re in a Zimanga nocturnal hide). Be careful with your focus, as the animal’s long eyelashes can fool autofocus.
• Elephants can vary in colour and tone quite considerably, depending on the soil type and whether they are dusty or wet. Metering isn’t usually too problematic, but watch out for tusks burning out, especially in bright light, and dial in some negative exposure compensation if necessary.

Elephants drinking, Zimanga, South Africa

Shooting from lowdown with a wide angle lens is a great way to emphasise the sheer bulk of elephants. On game drives you may be able to position below an elephant on a slope: easier is to shoot from a Zimanga low-level hide, or from a shallow-draught photo boat on the Chobe river.

Canon EOS 1Dx II, EF17-40mm at 19mm, 1/400 sec, f/5.6, ISO 200