Kenya Black Leopard and Samburu Safari
July 13 – 22, 2027
1 Spot Left—Male Share
Wildlife Storytelling in Zambia
At a Glance
Location
Zambia
Tuition
$19,995
Dates
June 29 – July 8, 2028
Fitness Level
Availability
Limited to 6 Guests
Collections
- Learning Lab
- Signature Collection
Wildlife Storytelling in Zambia Photography Workshop
Move beyond the standard snapshot and build a portfolio of the Lower Zambezi
June 29 – July 8, 2028
- Build a 10 to 20-image story of the Lower Zambezi ecosystem
- Learn to connect wildlife, habitat, behavior, and smaller details
- Small-group workshop with a 3:1 guest-to-Pro ratio
A tight portrait of a lion can be a powerful photograph, but it tells you very little about the world the lion lives in; this Learning Lab is about learning to photograph that wider story. Over seven full days in Zambia’s Lower Zambezi National Park, you’ll work to build a 10 to 20-image portfolio that connects wildlife with habitat, behavior, and the relationships that shape this remarkable ecosystem.
The Lower Zambezi is especially well-suited to this kind of storytelling. Around our camp, the Zambezi River breaks into channels, lagoons, islands, and sandbanks, while just to the north, the valley floor opens into plains and mature winterthorn forest.
Throughout this storytelling workshop, we’ll still make the most of the encounters that make an African safari exciting. We may spend a morning following a leopard, finding wild dogs moving across the plains, or witnessing lion cubs playing in the dust. We’ll also learn to recognize the photographs around those moments that help turn a sighting into a story: an impala alert beneath nearby trees, oxpeckers moving across a buffalo’s hide, tracks crossing the sand, or a dung beetle working through elephant dung.
Staying in one place is deliberate. Rather than moving between camps, we’ll have time to learn about our surroundings, recognize recurring animals and habitats, revisit ideas, and build a more thoughtful account of the Lower Zambezi. Our base is on a private island in the eastern part of the park. The island itself hosts lagoons and wetlands, ensuring a remarkable amount of wildlife right outside camp; a short pontoon crossing gives us access to the mainland, allowing us to move easily between different habitats whenever we please.
Throughout the workshop, you’ll explore how individual photographs tell stories and how they work together in a sequence. You’ll learn to establish a sense of place, photograph behavior and ecological relationships, move from wide environmental frames to small details, and recognize gaps in a developing body of work. Each day will include a focused lesson and a photographic assignment designed to broaden your approach to wildlife. We’ll work through techniques and ideas, including traditional portraits and tight crops, environmental portraits, details, occlusion and mystery, tension and interaction, gesture, abstraction, and motion. For each, we’ll explore not just how to make the photograph, but why that approach can strengthen an individual image or contribute something different to a sequence.
Each day combines field photography with dedicated instruction. With six guests, two Muench Workshops Pros, and three photographers per safari vehicle, there will be plenty of individual attention. Daily group and one-on-one reviews will ask what your story already communicates, what it is missing, and what to look for next. By the final days, you’ll be photographing against your own edit, deliberately seeking the pictures needed to complete your story.
Most of our field time will be spent on land, but on several days we’ll exchange the vehicles for motorboats or canoes and photograph from close to water level. Elephants moving through channels, backlit hippos, crocodiles, waterbirds, and the wider river landscape can add another layer of visual interest.
This Learning Lab is intended for photographers who already have experience photographing African wildlife and want to move beyond collecting individual images. You’ll still come home with portraits of elephants, predators, and other wildlife, but our goal is that you’ll also return with something harder to create: a cohesive visual story about the ecosystem in which they live.
Your Pros
Pablo Moraga
Itinerary
About the wildlife: This workshop offers significant opportunities for photographing wildlife, and while we do our best to maximize our wildlife encounters—based on past experiences, local knowledge, and the current conditions—we need to impress upon you that the wildlife really is wild and that we don’t control it.
This itinerary is subject to change due to weather, local conditions, and other factors.
June 29, 2028: Arrival and Welcome Dinner
Arrive at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport (LUN), Lusaka, Zambia before 4:00 PM today. Air travel delays are common. Please arrive early, possibly even the day prior, so you don’t miss any of the workshop.
Whenever you arrive, our team will meet you at the airport and transfer you to the hotel with the group.
This evening, we’ll gather for a welcome dinner and review the approach of this storytelling workshop. We’ll discuss the difference between collecting strong individual wildlife photographs and building a visual story, and introduce assignments to help you build the 10 to 20-image portfolio you’ll develop throughout the workshop.
June 30, 2028: Storytelling Introduction and Afternoon Game Drive
After breakfast, we’ll transfer to the airport for our private charter flight into the national park.
After settling into camp, we’ll begin with a presentation on the species, habitats, and ecological relationships that shape the ecosystem. This will give you a better understanding of the landscape before we head into the field for our first afternoon game drive. Our goal today is simply to begin observing. We’ll look beyond individual animals and start considering how wildlife, habitat, light, and behavior might come together to form a larger story.
July 1–2, 2028: Classic Wildlife Photography
For our first two full days in the field, we’ll target the classic wildlife encounters that bring photographers to Africa. We may spend time with elephants beneath the winterthorn, follow a leopard through the woodland, photograph buffalo on the plains, or work with lions and other predators when opportunities arise.
These days are about settling into the rhythm of the safari, making strong individual wildlife photographs, and getting familiar with the landscape and its animals. As the second day progresses, we’ll begin looking beyond the obvious subject, adding wider environmental frames, behavior, relationships between species, and smaller details surrounding each sighting.
Daily group and one-on-one reviews will help us identify which photographs stand strongly on their own and which can begin working together as part of a broader visual story.
July 3–4, 2028: Environmental Portraits
Over the next two days, we’ll begin expanding how we photograph each encounter, expanding our attention to consider how wildlife fits into the surrounding landscape.
We’ll work on environmental portraits, scale, layers, and negative space, while paying close attention to the details that make or break a composition: tangencies, distracting branches, clean backgrounds, subject separation, and deciding which parts of the landscape add context and which simply add clutter. The goal is to use the environment deliberately to create images that convey more about the animal’s place within the ecosystem without sacrificing visual clarity.
July 5, 2028: The Smaller Details and Image Sequencing
On today’s game drives, we’ll start looking more deliberately for the smaller elements of the ecosystem, from tracks and seed pods to insects and other signs of animal activity, and consider how these intimate details can help explain the world around the more charismatic species.
By now, everyone will have begun accumulating the hero images that could form part of their final portfolio. During our midday review, we’ll explore how establishing images, environmental portraits, behavior, details, and transitional photographs work together to build a stronger visual story. We’ll begin placing images side by side and asking not only which are strongest, but what each contributes to the sequence and what may still be missing.
Together, we’ll identify those gaps and use our remaining field sessions to deliberately seek out the photographs your developing story still needs, and create a shot list that can help guide you as we’re out in the field.
July 6–7, 2028: Completing the Story
The final two days are about tightening your shot list and deliberately filling the gaps in your developing portfolio. By now, you should have a clear sense of the story you want to tell, so our reviews will focus on what is still missing rather than simply what is strongest.
You may need a wider image to establish the river, a cleaner environmental portrait, a behavioral moment, a small detail, or a quieter transition between two stronger photographs. Together, we’ll refine the sequence and use each field session to target those missing pieces.
By the final evening, the goal is to bring everything together into a cohesive 10 to 20 image story that reflects not just the wildlife you encountered, but the wider ecosystem around it. Over dinner, each guest will present their finished sequence to the group.
July 8, 2028: Departure
After breakfast, we’ll pack our equipment and leave camp mid-morning for our flight back to the city. Day rooms will be available for showering, repacking, and relaxing before transferring to the international airport for departing flights.
Flights out can be made after 3:00 PM today.
Assignments and What To Expect
Days in the Lower Zambezi will revolve around the best light and wildlife activity. We'll start early for a morning field session, return to camp during the middle of the day for lunch, rest, and image reviews, then head back into the field for the afternoon and evening. This is a photographically intensive workshop, but staying in one place gives us the freedom to settle into the rhythm of the landscape. There will be time each day to download images, work on your developing portfolio, and discuss what you want to concentrate on during the next outing.
Each day will include a focused lesson and a photographic assignment designed to broaden your approach to wildlife photography. Early in the workshop, we'll concentrate on making strong traditional portraits and tighter wildlife images before progressively broadening how we see and photograph each encounter. Assignments may explore environmental portraits, details, clean backgrounds, layering, occlusion and mystery, interaction, tension, gesture, abstraction, motion panning, and other ways of telling a story through a single frame. We'll discuss not only how to create these images, but why a particular approach can strengthen a photograph or contribute something different to a sequence.
These assignments are not a rigid checklist. They are intended to encourage experimentation and help you build a varied, balanced portfolio of 10 to 20 images over the course of the week. Daily group and one-on-one reviews will help shape what comes next, allowing you to identify what your developing story already communicates, what it is missing, and what you need to look for during the next game drive.
Most field sessions will be conducted by safari vehicle, with just three guests per vehicle and one Muench Workshops Pro in each vehicle. This gives everyone room to take photos and allows plenty of individual instruction while you work. On several days, we'll also photograph from motorboats and canoes, exchanging the vehicle perspective for a view close to water level.
Our exact activities will remain flexible. Wildlife rarely follows an itinerary, so if exceptional behavior or light develops, we'll stay with it. As the workshop progresses, you'll move from responding to what appears in front of you to heading into the field with a clearer idea of the images your story still needs.
Where You'll Be Staying
You'll stay in a small, intimate tented camp on an island used exclusively by the camp, surrounded by woodland, lagoons, sandy riverbanks, and abundant wildlife. The spacious walk-in canvas tents are set beneath the trees and open toward the surrounding landscape, with comfortable beds, large mesh fronts, and shaded verandas that make the most of the setting.
Each tent has its own private open-air ensuite bathroom, screened for privacy beneath the trees and equipped with a flushing toilet, washbasin, and hot bucket shower. The bucket showers are part of the traditional safari experience, but in practice they feel much like a normal hot shower. The main difference is simply that you have enough water for a good five-minute shower rather than standing under it for twenty minutes.
At the heart of camp is a shaded open-air lounge and dining area, with comfortable seating, communal tables, a bar, and a campfire area for relaxing between shoots. Meals are freshly prepared, and the whole camp has a relaxed, unfussy feel that suits its remote setting.
What makes the camp special is how closely connected you remain to the landscape. The tents sit directly within the bush rather than behind fences or permanent walls, and wildlife can move close to camp. You fall asleep and wake up surrounded by the same ecosystem you have come to photograph. It is comfortable without insulating you from the wilderness, which is a large part of its appeal.
Fitness
Easy: This workshop involves no strenuous hiking, but you should be comfortable getting in and out of safari vehicles, motorboats, and canoes, and spending long periods in the field. Expect early starts, cool mornings, warm afternoons, and some uneven ground around camp and boat access points.
Flights
Arrive at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport (LUN), Lusaka before 4:00 PM on June 29, 2028. Flights out can be made after 3:00 PM on July 8, 2028. Air travel delays are common. Please arrive early, possibly even the day prior, so you don’t miss any of the workshop.
What to Bring
Please see our page How To Prepare For Your Workshop. We will send you a detailed information document 90 days before your workshop. This document will include specifics of where and when to meet, gear and clothing recommendations, and more.
What’s Included
- Double occupancy lodging. Single available for a $3,500 supplement.
- Scheduled airport transfers.
- All meals, soft drinks, and snacks during the workshop.
- All permits and park fees.
- Internal flights during the workshop.
- All transportation during the workshop.
- Tips for crew, drivers, and local guides.
- Photographic guiding and instruction from 2 pros.
- Image reviews and post-processing instruction.
- Adventure, fun, inspiration, and a great time!
Not Included
- Travel to and from Lusaka, Zambia.
- Passport and visa fees (if applicable).
- Any meals or accommodations before or after the workshop dates.
- Items of a personal nature.
- Medical Evacuation Insurance including coverage from point of injury (required).
- Travel Medical Insurance (required).
- Trip Cancellation Insurance (optional, but recommended).
- Anything else specifically not listed as included.
- Single rooming is available for a $3,500 supplement.
Payment Terms
- Your non-refundable deposit of $8,000 will hold your space in this workshop.
- Further non-refundable payment of $7,000 is due by June 1, 2027.
- The non-refundable balance is due not later than February 1, 2028.
- In addition to our standard Terms and Conditions, for this workshop all payments are non-refundable, and this is why we recommend comprehensive travel insurance including trip cancelation. All other Muench Workshops Terms and Conditions apply.
- Need special payment arrangements? No problem, just ask us.
Frequently Asked Questions
You'll learn to create a cohesive visual story by capturing wildlife in context, focusing on environmental portraits, behavior, and ecological relationships. Techniques include working with wider environmental frames, capturing small details, and using composition elements like scale and negative space.
All payments for this workshop are non-refundable under any circumstances. We recommend purchasing comprehensive travel insurance, including trip cancellation coverage.
The workshop requires an easy fitness level. You'll need to be comfortable getting in and out of safari vehicles, motorboats, and canoes, and spending long periods in the field. Expect early starts, cool mornings, and warm afternoons.
You'll have opportunities to photograph a variety of wildlife, including elephants, leopards, buffalo, lions, wild dogs, and other predators. The workshop focuses on capturing these animals within their natural habitats to tell a broader ecological story.
The workshop is limited to a maximum of six participants, ensuring plenty of individual attention from the two professional photographers leading the trip.
Yes, medical evacuation insurance and travel medical insurance are required for this workshop. Trip cancellation insurance is optional but strongly recommended.
You'll stay in a small, intimate tented camp on a private island. The camp features spacious walk-in canvas tents with private open-air ensuite bathrooms, offering a comfortable yet immersive experience in the wilderness.
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