For World Wildlife Day …

‘Nature’s great masterpiece, an elephant; the only harmless great thing.’ ~ John Donne

‘If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.’ ~ Desmond Tutu

‘Of all African animals, the elephant is the most difficult for man to live with, yet its passing – if this must come – seems the most tragic of all. I can watch elephants (and elephants alone) for hours at a time, for sooner or later the elephant will do something very strange such as mow grass with its toenails or draw the tusks from the rotted carcass of another elephant and carry them off into the bush. There is mystery behind that masked gray visage, and ancient life force, delicate and mighty, awesome and enchanted, commanding the silence ordinarily reserved for mountain peaks, great fires, and the sea.’ ~ Peter Matthiessen, The Tree Where Man Was Born

‘I have a memory like an elephant. I remember every elephant I’ve ever met.’ ~ Herb Caen

‘I have a memory like an elephant. In fact, elephants often consult me.’ ~ Noel Coward

‘Elephants love reunions. They recognize one another after years and years of separation and greet each other with wild, boisterous joy. There’s bellowing and trumpeting, ear flapping and rubbing. Trunks entwine.’ ~ Jennifer Richard Jacobson, Small as an Elephant

‘They say that somewhere in Africa the elephants have a secret grave where they go to lie down, unburden their wrinkled gray bodies, and soar away, light spirits at the end.’ ~ Robert McCammon, Boy’s Life

‘The question is, are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?’ ~ David Attenborough

My photographs of elephants were taken on the Serengeti Plains and in the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania in 2014, at the end of a week-long trip with The Giving Lens, an organisation that combines photography workshops with mentoring, media and financial support for local NGOs.