The Crossing

The wildebeest migration on the Mara river · Kenya, 2011

In 2011 Nanak Dhingra travelled to the Masai Mara in Kenya, in the season when the wildebeest migration crosses the Mara river. More than a million animals follow the rains between the Serengeti and the Mara each year, and the river is the most dangerous part of the journey.

The herds gather on the plain for hours, sometimes days, before one animal commits. Then everything happens at once: a wall of dust down the bank, the leap, the scramble through brown water, zebras swept along in the crowd, and the long climb out on the far side. These eight frames follow a crossing in the order it happens.