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.

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