News / Antelope migration in Kenya from a bird’s eye view

In August 2013 our crew consisting of Sergei Semyonov and Stanislav Sedov went to Africa to take pictures of crossing - the antelope migration.

The most dramatic moment of migration is when thousands of animals force their way through rivers.

Photographers from all over the world came to shoot the crossing. More than 200 cars with photographers, tourists, and  film crews from various television companies arrived to crossing locations.

We have waited for seven days for antelopes to cross the river. Side by side with AirPano car representing Russian photography enthusiasts, there were cars of the world's largest TV broadcast companies with multi-million dollar equipment and personnel.

Chinese TV Company CCTV had 5 to 7 cars with live broadcast equipment positioned at every crossing location. The Chinese tried to launch their radio-controlled helicopter, but due to strong wind it crashed during the first flight. After that CCTV gave up on shooting from the air.

BBC also had their cars with scouts at each potential crossing location, but we didn't see American radio-controlled helicopters in the air.

The hardest part for AirPano team was taking pictures in Mara. Our first helicopter crashed and sank during antelope crossing - it fell right in the center of the river. We couldn't recover it because the river was full of crocodiles and hippos, but we continued to shoot using our spare helicopter.

During following six days few antelopes made several single attempts to cross the river, but there were no massive crossing. However on the seventh day we got lucky - the AirPano team was able to take aerial photographs of the largest antelope crossing of the season in Maasai Mara National Park in Kenya.