About Scott Ramsay

I have been in love with wild Africa for more than 20 years, and as a photographer and writer, I hope to portray the incredible beauty and powerful atmosphere of the continent’s last wild places and its unparalleled wildlife. Much of my work has only been possible because of the amazing conservationists and naturalists who I have interviewed.

I have produced photography and writing for various conservation NGOs, safari companies and magazines which inspire people to experience – and protect – African wilderness.

I spend much of the year travelling to Africa’s national parks and conservancies, both for safari companies and conservation NGOs. My photography and writing needs to contribute in some way – however small – to the conservation of African wilderness. Otherwise, my work has little value – or meaning – to me.

I have explored and photographed more than 100 protected areas and conservancies in 13 African countries: South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and São Tomé and Príncipe.

In 2015, I published my first coffee-table book South Africa’s Wildest Places, after three years of exploring more than 50 protected areas in my home country of South Africa, including all 19 national parks.

My journey from 2011 to 2013 was endorsed and supported by South African National Parks. I wrote over a hundred articles for a variety of magazines and newspapers, all of which generated several million rands worth of media exposure for the parks.

In 2018, I was commissioned to photograph and write VAST, a coffee-table book featuring experiences and stories from some of the finest independently-owned safari camps around Africa, many of which help sustain some of the largest national parks and wilderness areas on the continent.

I have completed work for the following clients: African Parks Network, Angama Mara, Azura, British Airways Magazine, Bushcamp Company, CapeNature, Classic Portfolio, Chiawa and Old Mondoro, Conservation Lower Zambezi, Getaway Magazine, Grumeti Fund, iSimangaliso Wetland Park, Kwandwe, Legendary Expeditions, Machaba Safaris, Nomad Tanzania, Odzala Discovery Camps, Pride of Table Mountain, Remote Africa, South African National Parks, The Safari Collection, Tanda Tula, Wild Magazine.

My newest book Spirit of Africa – published in 2024 – is a collection of my favourite photographs from the last 15 years, as well as over 30 000 words of text, covering a range of conservation topics, as well as my own deep, essential need for immersing myself in African wilderness.

While I am available for commissions, I also undertake my own travels into African wilderness for personal photographic and writing projects. Many of the photographs on my website are from my personal adventures into the continent’s wilderness areas. These journeys – many of them undertaken solo – have been some of the most powerful, important times of my life.

I also guide small groups of people into some of Africa’s finest wilderness areas. If you are interested in joining me on an expedition, please contact me by filling out the contact form on the home page. Alternatively, please contact me on my cell number +27-63-710-4873.

The continent of Africa is massive – 30 million square kilometres. I have an instinctive, inexplicable desire to know as many of Africa’s remaining wild places as possible.

Yet the more I travel around Africa, the more I realise this continent can never be fully known. Despite all the science, the exploration, the “development” and the grabbing hands of unbridled capitalism and corrupt politics, Africa remains largely aloof, mysterious and complex.

If you want to know something of her enigmatic nature, I believe you should start by visiting her wild places. All of humanity rose up from her wilderness, her soils, her forests and her savannahs. For most of our human evolution, Africa’s wild animals were our neighbours, our brethren, our competitors and our allies. The landscape and the creatures forged our human hearts, minds and souls. Africa made us.

A journey to African wilderness isn’t only an external one. It can be a powerful internal journey too. By knowing Africa’s wild places, I believe we can also understand ourselves best – and I believe we can also be most ourselves in African wilderness. This is at least true in my case. And I know many other people from around the world who feel a strong sense of belonging to the mother continent. Africa is our original home, and when you visit her wild places, you are coming back to where your human consciousness – and your human soulfulness – arose.

Time is running out however. Africa was once all “wild”. Back then, before agriculture and industrialisation, the very word “wild” hadn’t yet been needed in any human language. Now much of what was once “wild” has been transformed for human use. Africa is changing fast, and losing much of it’s original natural habitat and wildlife. And along with this destruction of African wilderness, I believe we are losing part of our humanity – even our souls.

Africa’s last wild places are the finest symbols of a beautiful, yet revolutionary, idea. That is, humans don’t have exclusive rights to Earth. We share this tiny, fragile planet with millions of other creatures, all of which have as much of a right to be here as we do. Our future as a species depends on how well we share Earth with all non-human beings. I have long understood this principle intellectually, but it was only once I began forming a personal relationship with wilderness that I began to understand it emotionally and spiritually.

African wilderness and its wildlife recalibrated my thoughts and beliefs, and they continue to be the greatest inspirational force in my life.