Hyenas are synonymous with the dark night so to truly show them in their element, I decided to photograph them at night. The stars in African night sky are so beautiful that I also wanted to try to include them in my image. I used a remote-control buggy to position my camera on the ground so that I could photograph the hyenas with the beautiful starry sky behind.
This is a single exposure. I lit the hyena with a wireless off-camera flash and used a relatively long shutter speed to expose the stars. There was a sliver of moon which caused the sky to expose behind. The two hyenas on either side moved away and then stood still for the remainder of the shot, resulting in the ghostly shadows. I feel the shadows capture the essence of these quintessentially nocturnal creatures.