About Dries Cronje

Who is Dries Cronje, and why do we even bother with this page? Well Dries Cronje is a self-taught, freelance, full-time professional wildlife photographer, operating his own photo safari company. That is the short version.

So you have time for the long version, do you? Well okay, here goes…

As a boy, I often had close encounters with African wildlife on my father's game farm near Alldays. I also had a strong interest in photography from a very early age. It was not long before I brought my love for photography and my love for the wildlife of Africa together as a hobby. However, it was only a hobby.

I went on to obtain a BSc (Actuarial Science) degree in 1999. Then I started working as an Actuarial consultant, still hopeful to be an actuary in a few short years...

However, it was not long before I realized that I was not really cut out for office work. Do not get me wrong, I was making good progress and enjoying my job, but something deep within me beckoned me to a more adventurous life.

This is Dries Cronje. Yes, yes... I know you expected someone
skinnier and prettier, but you'll just have to accept me as I am ;-)
This picture was taken by my good friend Johan Joubert APSSA
in brilliant afternoon light in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.
Thanks Johan!

After realising this, I started spending my vacation time taking photographs deep in the African bush. Luckily my wife loves camping and roughing it, so I had no problem there.

In November 2004, I started this website, and it gave me a medium through which to live out my passion. Slowly but surely, the website grew and the visitors increased.

In February 2006 I quit my day job! A brave move? Sure. But have you ever heard of anyone achieving anything special without taking some serious risks. We were created to make bold, brave moves…

Through God's grace my brave move paid off, and I am now living my dream. I believe that God put this dream into my heart in the first place, and I am thankful for this, and the opportunities that I had to pursue and live my dream…

As I mentioned earlier, I am now a full-time professional wildlife photographer and I have my own photo safaris company.

The good news is that what one man can do, another man can do. If you also want to become a professional wildlife photographer, there is no reason why you should not.

How did I do it? That is a story for another day. Let me just tell you that this website is the main thing that enabled me to get out of my 8 to 5 slavery. By the end of 2005 the advertising income from the website was substantial enough to give me the necessary faith to take the big step and get out of my comfort zone…

If you are interested in getting your own website, allow me to warn you that it is by no means a get-rich-quick situation. Websites are hard work, and there are hundreds of reasons for websites to fail miserably. See it is not just about having a nice looking site with high quality photos. Your site must receive traffic or you are wasting your time.

I use an excellent product called

Site Build It!

and if you want to set up a website of your own, I cannot recommend this highly enough. Save yourself two years and start in the right way.

In any case, let me conclude before we get totally sidetracked. That is all the necessary information about Dries Cronje. I am not such an important guy. If you need to know anything else, or just want to ask me a question, be sure to do so on the Contact Dries Cronje page! I truly hope you find my website helpful…