the image of a human being alone in the savannah is impossible to capture

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Series Solitude amidst the beauty of the world is the perfect asset to gain likes. What if we turned the lens around to discover the staging? Head to Africa to discover the animals of the savannah.

Going on safari in Kenya, Tanzania or South Africa is a priori the promise of grandiose tête-à-têtes with the animals of the savannah. At least, if we believe the photos on Instagram. In reality, it is impossible to find a quiet picture of the slightest cheetah, rhinoceros, lion (non-exhaustive list)… As soon as one of them shows the tip of its nose, a traffic jam of 4X4s forms, sometimes up to thirty vehicles, on the dirt road that borders the corner of the savannah where the apparition took place. Word of mouth or rather phone calls between drivers go so fast that a few minutes are enough to cause the regrouping which, strangely, never disturbs the animals.

However, is Instagram fake? Yes, if we consider that the network is totally hemiplegic, only showing half of reality. But no, if we assume that the image of a human being alone in the savannah is impossible to capture, or even simply forbidden by the authorities who do not allow tourists to get out of their vehicles to immortalize their photo in the savannah.

From then on, tourists may retort, all that remains is to photograph the animals alone, or in groups, sometimes small, sometimes large, which does not harm the impression of immensity, which is the first effect sought in these images of savannahs.

Traffic rushes as a cheetah appears in Kenya. PERSONAL ARCHIVES

But, precisely, why hide the reality of these massive gatherings of tourists? Why absolutely want to make people believe, through the solitude of the animals, that that of the visitors is the sole objective of safaris? And above all, why cheat when, precisely, these moments of eternity are perfectly attainable during a safari, when it is regularly possible to admire an animal alone in a corner of the park, in silence?

Safari images on Instagram are perhaps the ultimate point of the absence of nuance, a major characteristic of all social networks. As if travel photographs had only one goal: to display this solitude that we miss so much. As if it were impossible for it to magically appear at times, and that at other times it is simply impossible to escape it. But it is useless to hide it.