I Stop For Giraffes!

Artist’s Statement: D J Wilson, LRPS

A road cuts through the bush, a human line through an ancient landscape — and then nature simply ignores it.

Three giraffes step across the tarmac with unhurried authority, their height turning the everyday into something quietly surreal. What first caught my eye was not the crossing itself, but the lead giraffe’s tail — suspended mid-swing like a punctuation mark in motion, a small gesture that gives rhythm to the entire scene. That flick of movement transforms a static crossing into a moment alive with cadence.

This photograph sits in the space between wildlife and human presence. The road is not an intrusion here but a stage, revealing the scale, grace and self-assurance of animals whose awareness of us seems, at times, politely indifferent. The scene feels almost choreographed — long legs, patterned hides, measured strides — as if the landscape briefly became theatre.

Though such a frame may fall between categories in competition terms, it belongs to a different narrative: travel as observation, where human and wild worlds intersect without drama, only coexistence. It is less about pristine wilderness and more about the quiet reality of shared spaces — where even a strip of asphalt becomes part of the story of the wild.