I am a photographer, a witness — and above all, someone who believes in giving space back to nature.
This book was not born in a studio or gallery. It began in the dust of Amboseli, in the heat of the Zambezi, in the shadows of Indian jungles, and in the silence of the Namib Desert.
Over the past two years, I’ve followed the whispers of the wild across Kenya, Botswana, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and India. I’ve met the gaze of elephants older than memory. Waited hours for a lioness to look back. Stood still as Gamma — the daughter of a desert lioness — walked across the beach toward the Atlantic Ocean.
That image — now on the cover — is more than a photograph. It is the reason this book exists.
The wild is not vanishing because it cannot survive. It is vanishing because we are taking too much, too fast. We build. We push. We film. We forget. And in doing so, we leave less and less space for everything that came before us.
Wild Souls II is not just about beauty. It is about presence. About paying attention. About remembering that every animal, every landscape, every silence… is a story we could still choose to protect.
This book is my offering — a tribute to the resilience of the wild. And a quiet reminder that conservation begins with respect.
They do not need us to survive. But we need them, to remember who we are.
BOTSWANA THE WEIGHT OF ABUNDANCE
Even what feels endless can vanish.
In Botswana, abundance feels like a presence — heavy and sacred. Elephants flow across the land like rivers. Leopards vanish into gold. Lions reign between flood and drought.
For some, this abundance is a gift. For others, a burden. Because even abundance has a tipping point. Too many elephants in shrinking wildlands. Too much pressure on fragile ecosystems. Too many questions with no easy answers.
How long before plenty becomes scarcity? Before balance turns to loss? Before we forget what it means to witness life — not in fragments, but in herds?
Botswana teaches us: The true weight of abundance is not in what we see — but in what we protect.
GABORONE
OKAVANGO DELTA
Abundance is not permanent it’s a privilege.
The real danger lies in believing they will always be there.
INDIA THE SACRED STILLNESS
Some forests don’t speak, they whisper.
India breathes in mystery. Where tigers slide through shadows, and forests hum with a silence older than our presence.
There is power here. A beauty so rich it stuns you. But beauty this sacred demands reverence.
In Kabini, each jeep, each camera, each footprint — leaves a trace.
Do we still know how to look without taking? To witness without chasing?
The wild does not exist for our wonder alone. It exists for itself. And sometimes, the most powerful thing we can do — is to step back.
KABINI
Where mist clings to the trees and silence holds its breath.
Leopards vanish, nature makes no mistakes. She belonged exactly there in harmony.
To protect the forest sometimes we must become invisible
The rarity of this scene is a warning. We are running out of time.
Finding one black leopard is already a dream. But two — mating — is beyond belief. The forest opened its secrets for a fleeting moment, and I was there to witness the rarest scene of all. Not just beauty, but survival. Not just shadow, but legacy.
KENYA GIANTS ON BORROWED TIME
When silence carries weight, listen closely.
Kenya gave me some of the most powerful encounters of my life. It is a land where tusks nearly touch the earth — where elephants carry centuries in their stride.
But reverence has become pressure. Some giants are chased. Cornered. Reduced to spectacle.
What we love, we must also protect. Because admiration without respect becomes a threat.
This chapter is a tribute to those who still walk. And a call to protect the few that remain.
Let’s not photograph their extinction. Let’s be the reason they are still here tomorrow.
NAIROBI
Extinction walks in his shadow unless we choose differently.
What we fail to protect today we may never see again tomorrow.
Their presence is a gift, their survival is our responsibility.
Without protection, pure magic could become only memory.
Majestic herds still walk.
But for how long ?
This
is not just about a species it’s about wonder, dignity and balance.
Their tusks almost touch the ground, and with every step, they carry the weight of history.
If we Fail to protect these giants, we do not just lose a species, we lose a legacy, a lineage, a living memory of what the wild once was. No genes No tuskers Lose them now and the giants will never return.
NAMIBIA WHERE THE DESERT REMEMBERS
Where silence stretches farther than sound, and survival writes its own story.
Namibia is a land of extremes.
Fierce sun. Relentless wind. And yet — life endures.
Among these ancient dunes, a few lions have done the unimaginable: They followed the desert to the sea and learned to hunt what lions were never meant to — seals.
Only around seventy desert-adapted lions remain.
Just a handful ever reached the coast. But what they found wasn’t only food — it was memory.
A forgotten path. A story buried by time.
A link between generations — rediscovered.
This is not only a story of survival. It is one of strength. Of adaptation. Of wild wisdom passed from mother to daughter.
Namibia is not empty.
It is presence. It is movement.
It is life — in its most elemental form.
WINDHOEK
SKELETON COAST
Gamma, a true warrior of the beach adapting faster than we ever imagined.
Charlie died because we forgot that even the wild needs distance, needs respect, needs silence.
She is gone, but her story must not be in Vain.
Respect is a sign of true passion.
A single footprint in the sand.
A life lived wild, Untouched by fences, Unshaped by us.
More than a mark
A reminder that lions still walk here. That freedom still exists.
But for how long?
Each step comes closer, Not by choice, But because we’ve left them nowhere else to go.
We chase the perfect shot, build over old paths, and forget that survival needs more than admiration.
It needs space.
Let this print stay.
Let the lion walk.
In peace.
In the wild.
The dunes speak in silence. Their lines shift with the wind, Like calligraphy drawn by time.
A language without words
Written in sand,
Read by the wild.
Each curve holds a memory, Each ripple a whisper of something older than we are.
Here, nothing is fixed. Yet everything has meaning. The lions pass softly. The wind rewrites their trail. And still, the land remembers.
This is not emptiness.
This is presence.
A desert alive with the quiet rhythm of survival.
A place where the earth breathes And nothing speaks louder than stillness.
Beauty and heartbreak,
A reminder that even in survival, there is loss. And in loss, the wild still finds a way.
Survival in the desert should be a triumph, not a sentence.
In the harshest corners of the earth they fight to survive.
The least we can do is fight to protect them.
Beauty this quiet Often goes unnoticed Until it’s gone. Let’s not wait to miss them, to start protecting them.
A lioness and the sea. Two forces rarely seen together. Let’s make sure moments like this remain possible.
ZIMBABWE BEAUTY ON THE EDGE
Where magic still lives — and so does the threat.
Mana Pools is a place of quiet wonder. Where elephants rise on two legs to feed from the canopy. Where the light turns forest into dream.
Here, you walk on foot. You feel the pulse of the land. The wild looks back at you — and something inside you listens. But more visitors are coming. More pressure. More noise chasing silence.
The perfect shot is pursued. But at what cost? When ego replaces awareness, someone always pays — and too often, it’s the animal.
A charge. A mistake. A fear. Another wild soul put down. Not because it was dangerous. But because we forgot to behave like guests.
Mana Pools is no stage.
It is a sanctuary. To witness it is a gift. To preserve it — a duty.
MANA POOLS
To witness Mana Pools is a gift.
To preserve it is a duty.
Here, animals still move freely. But for how long? Protection must be louder than intrusion. Risk is not courage respect is.
Protection must be louder than intrusion.
Here, animals still move freely. But for how long?
In Mana, magic is real But so is the threat.
UGANDA THE UNSEEN GIFTS
Not all change is loud. Comes in whispers — and footfall.
Uganda is known for its mountain gorillas — rightfully so. But there is more. Much more. Beyond the mist and jungle lies something quiet and powerful: a comeback.
In landscapes once scarred by poaching and conflict, wildlife is returning. Elephants. Lions. Leopards. Taking back the paths they once owned.
It’s not perfect. But it has begun.
You feel the shift — a slow, steady rising. A protection born from within.
Nature, patient and resilient, is responding. Because even in silence, the wild remembers the way.
KAMPALA
The wild doesn’t perform, it exists.
Bonds built through blood battles and belonging.
In
the wild survival begins with the strength of the pride.
The roar of the savannah is fading. Will we let it fall silent?
The soul of Uganda is found in the lush of the trees, the gaze of a lion, the patience of the land.
Among the palms, the forest elephant slips away like a ghost perfectly adapted, yet increasingly endangered.
No trophy is worth
The silence left behind
We must act before these stories are told in past tense
Laisser COULEUR
SOUTH AFRICA WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
The beginning of love. And the return of questions.
South Africa is where it all began. Where I first fell in love with Africa. Not just with the landscapes. But with a guide — someone who shared not just sightings, but reverence.
Respect. Stillness. Depth. That’s what makes this place unforgettable. Not what you see. But how you learn to see. But now, when I return, something has shifted. The leopards are still here — I know it. But they’re harder to find.
Are we pushing too hard? Expecting too much from animals that owe us nothing?
Maybe the wild hasn’t changed. Maybe we have. Maybe it’s time to stop asking, “Where are they?” and begin asking, “How can we do better?”
PRETORIA
CAPE TOWN
SABI SAND
KALAHARI
The hunt begins long before the chase.
To fall in love with nature is easy. To respect it is the real work.
Fewer than 7000 remain, she’s not just fast she’s vanishing .
ZAMBIA LET THE WILD COME TO YOU
Stillness is not inaction. It is the beginning of trust.
Zambia surprised me. Its forests — layered with life. Its rivers — timeless. The presence of predators — astonishing.
But what moved me most wasn’t the sight of wildlife. It was the space. The waiting. The respect.
Some chase sightings. Rush from frame to frame. But the wild doesn’t rush. And trust cannot be forced.
The best moment comes to those who wait. Not for action — but for acceptance.
When you give space, the animal might choose to come to you. Even with nothing more than an iPhone in your hand.
And that moment — born of stillness — is worth more than any perfect shot.
LUSAKA
Territory is everything but every day, there’s less of it.
All life returns to dust and even in death, it gives.
When we stop chasing moments, the wild sometimes gifts us one. Wild animals don’t owe us their presence let them choose. Let them be. That’s respect.
The best shot comes to those who wait. Respect their space, Earn their trust that’s when the magic happens
CLOSING REFLECTION
WILD SOULS II
The wild still speaks — if we learn to listen.
I never set out just to take pictures. I set out to listen. To feel. To be fully present in the last wild places — where nature still speaks in whispers, in tracks on the sand, in the rustle of unseen wings. From the haunting silence of Namibia’s dunes to the ancient paths of Kenya’s great tuskers. From the deep forests where India’s tigers roam to the blue-green woodlands of Zimbabwe. These past years have revealed both the raw beauty of the natural world and the delicate thread by which it hangs.
Wild Souls II is not just a book of images. It is a quiet plea. A personal offering. And a reminder: Every animal we admire — every wild landscape we pass through — is part of something older, wiser, and more sacred than we often remember in our rush through the world. The wild does not owe us anything. And yet, it gives endlessly — a sense of balance, perspective, and truth we cannot find elsewhere.
But if we continue to take without pause, to intrude without respect, we risk losing it — not in one loud collapse, but in the quiet erosion of space, of silence, of life itself.
This book is not just a celebration. It is a commitment. A call to step back. To give space. And to protect what cannot speak for itself — yet still speaks to something deep within us.
Because in the end, they do not need us to survive. But we — perhaps more than ever — need them to remember who we are.
— Griet Van Malderen
Avec l’expression de mes cordiales salutations. With my best regards.
