LB alumnus Brian Bielecki captured striking photographs during a trip to Ghana this year. He entered one of his photos, "The Old King of the Mole" in the 2025 Global Focus Photo Contest coordinated by the MSU Office of International Studies and Programs, and won several awards. Bielecki took the photo below in Mole National Park, Ghana. He won the People's Choice Award-Alumni, and the Best Story Behind the Photo Award, for the accompanying passage below. Congratulations, Brian!
"The Old King of Mole" by Brian Bielecki
In the soft heat of Mole National Park, time seems to move differently: slow, deliberate, ancient.
It was in this quiet rhythm that he appeared, stepping from the brush like a memory carved from earth and sunlight. His presence arrived before he did: the deep rumble of branches, the faint tremor in the ground, the hush that rolled across the savanna as if the land itself knew to bow. When he emerged, he filled the world.
Moss clung to the ridges of his wrinkled skin like threads of history, living proof that strength and age can inhabit the same body. His tusks‚ long, weathered, and wise‚ framed a face that told stories without sound.
Eyes soft yet knowing, he watched with the steady calm of a creature who has seen seasons shift, rivers swell and shrink, and humans come and go like brief shadows on his land.
For a breathless moment, the world narrowed to the space between us. Not predator and prey, not conqueror and conquered; just two beings sharing a sliver of earth and silence. There was no rush. No tension. Only respect.
He blinked slowly, as if granting me permission to witness him. And then, without fanfare, he turned back to the trees, disappearing with the same quiet dignity with which he arrived.
Grass swayed in his wake, and the forest exhaled.
In a place where life roams free and wild, he remains sovereign‚ not by force, but by presence. To see him is not simply to observe a giant; it is to stand in the shadow of history, to feel humbled by time, and to understand that the savanna remembers its kings.