Blixen

As a youth Beard had been entranced by Karen Blixen’s memoir “Out of Africa” and charmed Charles Darwin’s great-grandson, the explorer Quentin Keynes, into giving him a tour of the continent.

There was a smoke-and-mirrors aspect to Blixen’s powers that was seemingly all in the service of concocting good stories, even if she wasn’t necessarily writing them herself.

In isolation, a careening elephant against the backdrop of Kilimanjaro seems to channel the awe felt by European settlers such as his early idol, writer and big-game hunter Karen Blixen.

After graduation, he traveled to Denmark and met and photographed Karen Blixen, who had written the memoir “Out of Africa” under the pen name Isak Dinesen.

His next-door neighbour was Karen Blixen, the Danish author whose account of her life in Kenya was turned into the acclaimed Hollywood film Out of Africa.