Des Plaines safari photographer's work featured on TV
Todd Gustafson shoots wild animals.
This safari photographer captures images of tigers, elephants, lions, flamingos and giraffes. His “trophies” line the walls of his Des Plaines home, some stretching to the 24-foot-high ceiling.
His shots of the 2007 drowning of thousands of wildebeests in the Mara River between Kenya and Tanzania will be featured on April 11 during National Geographic's Wild Case Files television show. The show will air locally at 8 p.m.
He said the people at National Geographic saw his website, gustafsonphotosafari.net, and spotted the wildebeest material they felt they could use for their show.
“The Great Migration of 2.5 million wildebeest and zebra go from Tanzania to Kenya and back,” he said.
The migration involves crossing the Mara River.
“There could be up to 30,000 animals at a time crossing this river,” he said. “It's an event that photographers go to see.”
In 2007, he said, “One morning, we went, and there weren't any wildebeests to be found. And so we went to the river and we looked up and down the river.”
There he met one of the wardens, who directed him to a bridge, where he discovered tens of thousands of wildebeests in the river, drowned.
“You could have walked across the river (on their backs),” he said.
The television show will tell the story of the migration and explore what could have happened at the river. Apparently wildebeests were packed into the forest in the night, waiting to cross the river. Hearing the splash of something that was jostled into the water, they followed what appeared to be a river crossing.
“On the other side, there was a cliff and there was no exit and a whirlpool, and they just drowned and just floated down the river by the thousands,” he said.
Gustafson was able to capture the scene with photos and HD video.
Gustafson's work, which has been utilized extensively by Nikon for calendars, lighting guides, Nikon School brochures, trade show displays and product guides, reflects a passion nurtured during a childhood in Tanzania, where his father was a missionary. His dad built a school where he was headmaster, and taught biology and zoology.
When he was 7 years old, the family moved to Rockford, where Gustafson took up playing the trumpet, something he still does today in a 15-piece disco and rhythm and blues band.
About 12 years ago, he returned with his family to Tanzania to visit, bringing a camera with him.
It led to a career as a professional nature guide and photographer for trips which takes him to a variety of countries. The trips attract guests from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Holland in addition to the United States. On Tuesday, he leaves for India on a quest for tigers.
For the television show, “We had a camera crew come in and do about four hours of interviews,” he said. The show will also use footage of Gustafson in the field.
His work has garnered awards from the BBC, the Discovery Channel, National Geographic and the Smithsonian. But he doesn't expect to see another site like that horrendous one on the Mara River.
That episode he calls “a one-timer. Nobody has ever seen this before.”