Michael Wilkins
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Four hippo heads break the surface of water blown out to pure white, one with its pink mouth wide open.

Four Hippos, White Water

Pumba Game Reserve, Eastern Cape, South Africa · December 2022

1D X Mark II, 400 millimetres, f 5.6, 1/500 of a second, ISO 500

The yawn is not a yawn.

Grey water, grey sky, grey animals — the scene offered nothing until I let the exposure climb and the water burn away to paper. What is left is four dark heads floating on white, one mouth swung open. That gape is a threat display, not boredom; hippos rarely mean it as comedy, whatever it looks like from the bank.

Part of Pumba, a series.