Photographic Safari Collection
See Africa differently, photograph it unforgettably.
You don’t need to be a professional photographer to join us on our photographic safaris.
You just need to be someone who looks at Africa and wants to capture what you feel.
In Focus is our photographic safari collection, small group journeys through Africa’s most extraordinary wildlife destinations, led by a Pro Photo Safari Guide who is with you every step of the way. Not just guiding the vehicle. Teaching, positioning, mentoring, and sharing the kind of hard-won field knowledge that transforms the way you see through a lens.
Whether you’re shooting on a smartphone or a professional mirrorless system, whether this is your first safari or your fifteenth, In Focus meets you exactly where you are and takes you somewhere better.
What makes our Photographic safaris different?
Every journey runs with a maximum of six guests and two dedicated guides, your Encompass Africa Pro Photo Safari Guide and a local Safari Guide who knows the terrain, the wildlife, and the light like nobody else. Custom-built, open-sided vehicles are configured specifically for photography, with lay-down rows for eye-level shooting, camera mounts, bean bags, a window seat guaranteed and outstanding extras.
You’ll learn in the field, reading light, anticipating behaviour, understanding composition, and back at camp each evening, editing sessions with your guide will help you understand not just how to take great images, but how to tell great stories with them.
This is Africa through a lens. And it is going to change the way you see everything.
Tanzania In Focus: 24 February – 4 March 2027
The Serengeti. Calving season. The circle of life unfolding in front of your lens.
There is a small window each year when the southern Serengeti becomes nature’s most extraordinary nursery. Thousands of wildebeest calves are born in rapid succession and with them comes everything that follows. Predators, drama and breathtaking life playing out across the plains. There is nowhere on earth quite like the Serengeti in calving season. Join Matt, our Pro Photo Safari Guide, alongside expert local Tanzanian guides who know these plains, the animals, and their movements. Together, they’ll put you in the right place at the right time to capture the extraordinary intimacy of new life in the wild.
Tour leader: Matt Yardley, Pro Photo Safari Guide
Departure: 24 February – 4 March 2027
Group size: Maximum 6 | Guaranteed departure from 3
Vehicle: Open-sided, clear roll-downs, pop-top roof | Maximum 3 per vehicle
Per person twin share:
USD 9,085 | AUD 13,975*
Single supplement: USD 553 | AUD 850*
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*AUD pricing is indicative only, subject to exchange rate at time of booking and payment.
Pro Photo Safari Guide
Matt Yardley, your tour leader
Jono, our Founder, always says that there are guides who know the bush. And then there are guides who feel it. Matt Yardley belongs firmly in the second category.
His journey began as a trainee at one of Africa’s most prestigious reserves, &Beyond Phinda Private Game Reserve, where he achieved his Advanced Field Guide and Lead Trails Guide qualifications. Matt brings 14 years of hard-won expertise to every safari he leads, which includes hundreds of hours on foot in Big Five territory and guiding private photographic safaris across Botswana, Brazil, Namibia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. He has had the privilege of working as an Expedition Leader, Advanced Safari Guide and Wildlife Photographer with industry-leading companies such as Wild Eye Destinations, &Beyond and National Geographic Expeditions, credentials that speak for themselves.
But what truly sets Matt apart isn’t what’s on his CV. It’s what happens when he picks up a camera.
Matt is drawn to the unpredictable, those fleeting, unrepeatable moments that nature offers without warning and takes away just as quickly. He has spent years learning to read the bush with a photographer’s eye, understanding not just where the light will fall, but when the moment will arrive. His approach to photography is as individual as the images he creates: he loves to blend and break the rules, to experiment freely, and to find his own interpretation of a scene rather than simply document it. Monochrome and fine art photography are his signature styles, and his editing process is as considered as the shot itself, drawing out emotion, deepening atmosphere, and transforming a beautiful moment into something truly haunting.
Whether he’s helping you master your camera settings, walking you through editing, or quietly positioning you for the shot of a lifetime, Matt’s goal is always the same: to take you on the same journey through Africa and photography that he experiences every single day. To share the magic. To help you tell your own story through your lens.
