For a year, Frans Lanting roamed the wetlands and deserts of northern Botswana, living by the rhythms of the water and the movements of the animals as he captured them on film. National Geographic had sent him there on assignment, but what he would take away was much more than a magazine story; it was a seminal and unparalleled collection of photographs depicting an epic world of wilderness and wildlife. As Lanting wrote, «To many who have seen the fate of other wild areas in Africa and elsewhere in the world, the very notion that such a place as Okavango still exists is like a dream.» Living out of vehicles and canvas tents, gliding through swamps, following lions by night-Lanting, armed with his cameras, got up close and personal with some of the planet's most formidable creatures.