Description
About the book
The Soul of Africa’s Wild is a large-format, hard-bound coffee-table book (30×32 cm) featuring 180 colour and black-and-white wildlife photographs over 276 pages. Printed on a GardaPat Bianca 150 g premium paper and produced by a specialist boutique press in Poland, this book has been crafted to the best quality standards. All photographs were taken in the wild, without baiting, staging or digital manipulation beyond standard processing. No AI and No composites. Just authentic moments from Africa’s wilderness.
It is a tribute to Africa’s iconic animals and the fragile ecosystems they depend on. This collection reflects more than 15 years of photographing wildlife across Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda. Rather than focusing on specific species or locations, the book highlights emotion, presence, and connection – from intimate portraits to dramatic behaviour, from dusty golden light to quiet moments of stillness. My hope is to bring viewers closer to the spirit of the wild and inspire empathy for the landscapes we must protect.
From the Author
The Soul of Africa’s Wild is born from my deep love for nature and wildlife, particularly Africa’s. It is my tribute to the continent’s vanishing species and fragile ecosystems, as well as a personal vision of its iconic animals, and a chronicle of selected encounters from my fifteen year photographic journey across Africa. Rather than focusing on specific species or particular places, the book emphasizes emotion, presence, and connection; from intimate portraits to dramatic behavior, and from dusty golden light to quiet moments of stillness.
The book is divided into five logical chapters, containing 180 photographs selected for publication. The largest section is dedicated to predators with a strong focus on big cats, although iconic species such as African painted dogs and meerkats also feature. The diverse world of herbivores highlights elephants as a central subject, whilst drawing attention to the
adaptations of browsers and grazers across different ecological niches. The Great Migration demands a dedicated chapter, featuring some of my most recognizable images and iconic moments from this extraordinary natural event. Similarly, I felt that the great apes deserved their own chapter to capture their unique character and equatorial forest habitat. The African wilderness would not feel complete without birds and a few, other intriguing species I have encountered along my journey so their images are collected in the final chapter.
The diversity of African wildlife is immense, and it is impossible to cover everything in a single book. Choices have to be made, and the images included here reflect the species and moments I encountered along my journeys across the continent.
I hope that this work adds, in some small way, to the legacies of great wildlife photographers who have sought to capture the beauty and uniqueness of Africa’s wilderness. Above al I want it to serve as a reminder that protecting these breathtaking landscapes and fascinating creatures is essential: for them, for us, and for generation to come.
Since I was a child, growing up in the outskirts of an industrial city in the north of Italy, Africa and its wildlife has filled up my imagination and dreams. My first safari when I was seven remains in my heart with so many vivid images and memories. After more than forty years and having moved to Africa to make it my home, the emotions of that first safari still live on every time I wake up in the night to the sound of Lions roaring, every time I drive out in the savannah in the magic pre-sunrise glow.
Flicking through the pages of “The Soul of Africa’s Wild” I feel the same emotions as Artur takes us on a journey across stunning and diverse African landscapes. From the stark and fascinating deserts of the Namib to the rainforest of Rwanda, from the endless savannahs of East Africa to the dramatic skies and the vibrant greens of the Okavango during the rains. Artur managed to capture the beauty of each of these places in images that convey the sense of the place and truly make you feel there with him. Along with the variety of locations, this book gathers an extraordinary variety of species, the iconic ones and the lesser known ones, but equally fascinating.
I certainly have an attraction for leopards and here there are plenty of great portraits that capture the mystery and the charisma of these extraordinary cats as they lounge on the trees of the Okavango delta.
The great migration of Wildebeests is captured here in all its drama, with dust and splashes of water during the famous river crossings. These images take me back to the long waits along the Mara river banks, watching the herds slowly approach and then linger on the edge for hours, sometimes for days, paralyzed by fear but not giving up nonetheless. The smell of rain calling them irresistibly, and fresh pastures to reach.
I am particularly happy to recognize many moments that I was fortunate to share with Artur somewhere in Africa, the stunning image of the Impala in the enchanted woodlands of Mana Pools, the Elephants on the shores of Lake Kariba, the Lions of the Serengeti and one of my favorite encounters ever, the mighty Tolstoy, one of Africa’s greatest tuskers, on the Amboseli dry lake. The images in the book harmoniously weave through wide vistas, intimate portraits, fascinating behaviors, black and white and color, truly revealing a small glimpse into the secrets and the soul of Africa’s wilderness.
Federico Veronesi
Wildlife Photographer, Nairobi, Kenya
Like many others, I had seen countless photographs of Africa’s wildlife, some even awarded at international competitions. Still, despite their technical mastery, they failed to stir deeper emotions in me. I was simply more drawn to the frozen North, with its beautiful, warm light, than to the often subdued hues of the sun-drenched South. Until one day, that changed.
In November 2022, during the Wizje Natury Nature Photography Festival, Artur Stankiewicz presented his photographic story of Africa. I left the room completely captivated. For the first time in my life, I found myself dreaming of seeing this world with my very own eyes. This raises an obvious question. What was it about this particular presentation that touched my heart and imagination so deeply? What was it, and still is, that makes Artur’s work so distinctive and so
powerful, not only for me, but for many others as well? I feel the same today as I let the author guide me once again, slowly turning the pages of this album, an album that is itself a work of art.
First of all, these photographs possess a vivid sense of life, as if each frame carries its own pulse and presence. Together, they create an emotionally rich story of wild Africa. Artur masterfully uses the full range of photographic tools, choosing between color and black and white, consciously working with overexposure and underexposure, varying shutter speeds and depth of field. Through this, he captures not only the mood of a moment, but also – and perhaps above all – the character of the animal itself. Sometimes he presents it in dynamic action, sometimes hidden within a broader landscape, and at other times in an extreme close-up, a very tight, occasionally almost abstract frame that goes far beyond the boundaries of a classical portrait. This narrative structure keeps the viewer fully engaged, experiencing the journey through the wild spaces of the African continent alongside the author.
Another distinctive quality of these images is Artur’s ability to work with unpredictable light. Although at these latitudes the golden hour lasts only a few minutes, many photographs capture the deep, warm tones of early morning or evening. Where this light is absent, it gives way to
a subtle and thoughtful use of color, or to a more graphic, expressive approach in monochrome photography.
A few words are deserved for my favorite images, those from the chapter devoted to the wildebeest crossings of the Mara River. Full of movement and emotion, these photographs recall the great battle paintings of old masters. At times they feel strikingly realistic, at others they verge on sketch or abstraction, becoming pure impression. Perhaps more than any others, they reveal the author’s artistic soul.
Although I have never seen Artur “in action” during his African expeditions, I know that behind the technical excellence, artistic sensitivity, and confidence in decision-making stands a deeply sensitive creative mind. Someone who absorbs the beauty of the natural world with love and respect for its laws, rejects unethical shortcuts, and, in the increasingly commercialized world of safari travel, follows his own path guided by principles very close to my
heart, the principles of “Nature First.”
Katarzyna Gubrynowicz
Nature Photographer, Poland