I haven’t been in much of a mood to read lately (strange, I know). So I’ve been picking up some of the very cool photography books we’ve gotten at the library lately. In December I looked through Dancers Among Us (and reviewed it). I also looked through and enjoyed Underwater Dogs by Seth Casteel. Recently I picked up Serengeti Spy by Anuup Shah, a beautiful book filled with pictures taken by a hidden camera in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania and the Maasai Mara Natural Reserve in Kenya.

Shah captured the images in Serengeti Spy by hiding a camera in a small housing that was then covered in mud, grass, and other materials. There was a video link with the camera that allowed Shah to see the remote image his camera was going to capture. The resulting images are interesting and beautiful. These are close-up images captured without the interference of having a human being right there to take them. The camera clicking did attract the attention of some of the animals, but many ignored the camera or ran right by it.

This is not a text heavy book, but each image has a caption about the animals pictured and how they survive on the Serengeti. There are images of elephants, baboons, cheetahs, gazelle, hyenas, and lions, to name a few. There are images of animals eating, playing, checking out the camera, fighting, stampeding, and more. It’s an up close view most of us will never get of some gorgeous wildlife and well worth a look through.