David Macharia: Tales of conservation through the camera

David Macharia's travel photography. [Courtesy: Versatile]

“Can we talk about the squirrel first?” David Macharia, the lead creative photographer at Versatile Photographers wants us to discuss the little burrowing mammal before we can talk about his exploits in the world of travel photography.

But then, Macharia was a mole-catcher in Nyandarua and likely well-versed in the ways of the squirrel too.

The setting is Tsavo West National Park. The year? May 2017. Macharia and his team of trainee photographers had just completed a session of Photography in the Wild, a programme in which he trains budding wildlife photographers on the virtues of making every photo in the frame count.

“We had just finished having lunch at one of the lodges in the park. Then I saw the squirrel collecting some seeds some distance away. I took out my zoom lens and began crawling on the ground, shooting as I moved along,” said Macharia.

“You have to be super patient when capturing wildlife lest you interfere with their natural habits.”

Tsavo West has the famed Mzima Springs, Shetani Lava and a Jurassic Park-like landscape. Squirrels have not been an integral part of conversations here. Macharia thinks they should.

“Squirrels are in our backyards. People see them and sometimes kill them because they think squirrels will eat their chicken,” he said. But did you know that without squirrels perhaps the lives of elephants would be difficult?” 

Beneficial co-existence

“Squirrels eat seeds. They collect more than they can eat and end up burying many of the seeds in different places. Their memories are not that good and they soon forget where most seeds are buried. Then the seeds germinate to propagate new plant life, including new shrubs in our urban garden. I see everybody wants to save the elephant but if the squirrel becomes extinct, there may be no elephants to save since there will be fewer trees in the wild. I think we need to save the squirrel….” 

While squirrels hide seeds through instinct, seeds about conservation photography were planted early on in Macharia’s life by his mother who caned him for killing a chameleon.

From his mother, he learnt that it is the smallest things that matter most and that every creature in the wild has its place in the ecosystem.

A bug for Kenya’s wild places and the need to document the country’s beauty may have bitten him, but challenges lay ahead. Macharia did not have a good camera that could capture the beautiful vistas.

His first visit to an animal park was to the Masai Mara in 2007. His camera was rudimentary and he was forced to borrow one from fellow photographer Boniface Mwangi.

Macharia loved what he saw at the Masai Mara and vowed to go back. In the meantime, he used his little savings to buy a plane ticket to attend a photography and film workshop in South Africa.

In that 2011 visit, he found a South African travel company that was showcasing photos taken in Masai Mara, some of which were selling at Sh200,000 a piece.

“Why are foreigners so interested in our wildlife than we are? Why don’t we have Kenyans taking such photos to the rest of the world?”

The questions rang in his mind as he sat in the forum. But times have changed and he is now among the new crop of local photographers putting Kenya on the map as a beautiful destination.

Macharia chose four key pillars to his travel photography quest: wildlife, culture, conservation and tourism.

From Wasini Island to the shores of Lake Turkana, he said Kenya has a culture that the rest of the world has lost, an indigenous way of life so unique that local and international tourists cannot ignore.

He talks of the enduring culture of the El Molo, one of Kenya’s smallest communities that lives on the shores of Lake Turkana. The El Molo are a Cushitic people who originally spoke the El Molo language, which is now regarded as endangered by Unesco.

Using doum palm logs to make canoes, the El Molo men speared the fish to death, a serious rite of passage that a mother would not conceive another child before the older son learnt the trick of spearing the fish. Today, the survival of this rich culture lies with the Desert Museum in Loiyangalani.

“They are a beautiful people. They are the custodians of the lake,” said Macharia. “I used to think these people live in abject poverty but they are very okay even without the modern conveniences.”

Among other things, Macharia said through photography, the country can curate stories around the tribe’s arts and crafts, including their carvings, beadwork, and gourds. Similarly, he said local photographers need to be the custodians of the rich lifestyle of the Maa community rather than leave it to foreigners to document.

After one such documentation of Masai culture, Macharia was contacted by a Canadian couple that wanted to get married at the Amboseli plains against the backdrop of not only the local community but wild animals as well.

‘Dubai without investors’

Back to the country’s north, Macharia has spent countless days camping around the Chalbi desert, sleeping among the camels and watching the starry heavens. Chalbi is one of the most picturesque places in Kenya, the sand dunes only rivalled by those in either Dubai or Namibia.

“Chalbi is Dubai without investors,” he said. “There is peace in this desert. People have little but are the most generous souls you can encounter. The world should know about these desert people.”

Macharia, who began his photography business by taking pictures of house helps in Kangemi back in 2003, credits his rise in photography circles to the 2015 visit to Kenya by the then US President Barack Obama.

A friend had hired him to cover a funeral, and unbeknown to Macharia, the friend had some connection with the US embassy in Nairobi. He was hired by the embassy to take the official photos during the presidential visit.

His journey through Kenya has just started, a journey of telling stories through the lens. His school of photography will continue to nurture young talents who too, will put the country on the global map as a tourist destination. His work is about conserving, not just the wildlife, but the country’s rich cultural heritage too.

Oh, and the squirrel story had a happy ending. Macharia’s 2017 photo of the rodent was nominated for several photography awards and was featured in the March 2018 issue of the BBC Wildlife magazine.

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