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An Aussie couple has made an art of seeing eye-to-eye with the native wildlife of Africa, writes Gillian Cumming
What's it like to get up close and uncomfortable with a lion, or a tiger, a hippo or a hyena?
Kym and Tonya Illman know, but instead of shivering in their safari boots, they're as cool as cucumbers as they work with hi-tech photographic gadgetry, intent on capturing the best-ever close-ups of Africa's majestic wildlife.
The results are breathtaking, as their exquisite coffee-table book, Africa on Safari, reveals.
Lion cubs stare inquisitively into the camera lens at eye level - and directly at you - with every whisker on their furry faces crisp and countable.
The half-human, half-ape worldly stare of a gorilla - gentle creatures whose numbers are starting to climb again in the wild.
Scarred torsos of brutish buffalo who battle the wild. An elephant's eyelashes. Or the snarls and growls that are the norm of lions mating - fangs bared, teeth...