Maasai Mara Photo Safari

Hi! My name is Ivan Glaser. I am a passionate wildlife lover and award winning wildlife photographer.

I would love you to join me on a Maasai Mara Photo Safari, an experience of a lifetime!

My Wildlife Photography Philisophy

Wildlife photography begins for me well before I ever press the shutter. It starts in the stillness before sunrise, in the scent of wet earth, and in that delicate first light just before the day fully reveals itself.

It begins with and ends with patience — the willingness to wait for a leopard to descend from a tree, for a cheetah to rise up from from relaxing under the shade of a tree in the heat of the day in order to hunt, for a lioness to carry her cubs to a new den, for an elephant to emerge through morning mist, for a giraffe to feed it’s young in silhouette as the sun rises or simply for nature to unfold in its own time, with no guarantees.

For me, wildlife photography is not about trying to control the moment. It is about watching carefully, respecting and understanding the subject, and being ready when something real unfolds. The best images come from a mix of patience, instinct, technical skill, and the unpredictability of nature.

I am not only searching for drama or spectacle. I am searching for something honest — a glance, a gesture, a fleeting emotion that feels real.

In wildlife photography, a photograph is not simply taken. It is earned through respect, patience, humility, and, every so often, the rare privilege of everything coming together.

Photography in the Mara

The quality of animal sightings and the photographic opportunities in the Maasai Mara are second to none. This is because of both the abundance of animals in the Mara and, with the appropriate guides and permits, the ability to go “off-road”. As such, you are always up close and personal with the animals, no matter where they are. This makes a Maasai Mara Photo Safari a high quality experience you will never forget.

Where is the Maasai Mara ?

The Maasai Mara is in Kenya and forms the northern tip of Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park. It lies in the Great Rift Valley, a fault line which stretches some 5,600km from Ethiopia’s Red Sea through Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and into Mozambique. It is characterized by a wide valley and a towering escarpment in the hazy distance.

The Maasai Mara ecosystem covers around 1,500km² of the total combined Mara-Serengeti ecosystem of around 25,000km².

Habitats of the Mara

Habitats in the Maasai Mara are varied, including beautiful open rolling grassland, riverine forest, Acacia woodland, swamps, non-deciduous thickets, boulder-strewn escarpments, and scrub. The permanent Mara and Talek Rivers, and their tributaries, flow through the Reserve and approximately trisect it.

Animals of the Mara

The Maasai Mara is remarkable for its great concentration of large herbivores and their attendant predators. The extraordinary annual migration of some two million Wildebeest and 200,000 Plains Zebra is world famous and usually happens between the months of July and October. The impressive annual migration is one of the seven natural wonders of the world.

Almost 2.5 million large herbivores together with the smaller species inhabit the Mara ecosystem and, according to UNESCO, Mara has the largest number of savannah species in the world. It has over, 650,000 gazelle, 62,000 buffalo, 64,000 impala, 60,000 topi, 7,500 hartebeest, 7,000 giraffe, 3,000 eland and 4,000 elephant . There are particularly large numbers of Lion, Spotted Hyena, Cheetah, Leopard as well as populations of the threatened black rhinoceros and African hunting dog. There are also an abundance of uncounted antelope, hippo and warthog.

More than 500 bird species can be found in the Mara, including 53 birds of prey species.

How did the Mara get it’s name ?

The Maasai Mara game reserve is named in honour of the Masai people, the ancestral inhabitants of the land. “Mara” is a local Maasai word meaning “spotted” and is called this due to the many short bushy trees which dot the landscape.

Interested in visiting the Mara ?

Take your first step to going on a Maasai Mara Photo Safari by visiting my Safari page for more information.