Michael Wilkins
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Black and white close photograph of a white rhino's head in profile, deeply creased hide catching the light, both horns visible against a near-black background.

Armour

Pumba Game Reserve, South Africa · December 2022

1D X Mark II, 400 millimetres, f 5.6, 1/500 of a second, ISO 200

Two tonnes of animal, and the hide reads like weathered stone.

Close as the vehicle would allow, and close enough that the hide stops being skin and starts reading like weathered stone — every crease and fold holding its own shadow. Black and white because colour adds nothing here: a rhino is grey on grey, and the picture is really about surface and mass. The horns are the reason this animal is worth so much to the wrong people, which is never far from your mind when you're looking down the lens at one.