Firemonkeyphoto

Sayonara Serengetti0
neil posted in Travel, Neil, Tanzania on April 24th, 2007

The tents are down, the submerged hippos are staying that way and we are getting our tails back to the rim of the Ngorogoro crater. (Casting our minds back to the Africa trip)

The drive is fast and dusty. A few kilometers short of the migration we meet our first lions. Not the sea lions we were promised but three females, two of whom were heavily pregnant. They sat ignoring us in the sun before slinking off into the long grass.

The wildebeest herd is still practicing its river crossing technique on the road, playing chicken with our land cruisers. We drive around the vehicle ahead and are blocked by kamikaze ‘beests. Perceiving this as cutting them up the car behind swerves violently around us and back in front, very close to the torrent of follow-the-leader animals.

We head on, opting out of seeing the Olduvai Gorge (where footprints of early hominids have been found) and declining to pay the Maasai $10 to see one of their villages (tourist trap in every sense of the word). Just short of camp we get lucky and see two bull elephants grazing. It is a welcome sight but a sobering one. We are glad to see armed rangers at the gate. No-one wants to wake up to a rampaging bull elephant.

More insidious intruders are the bush pigs. Food is banned from our tents, as is toothpaste. All the same there are loud snuffling noises outside our tents after dark. I show Omari the Leopard shot and he smiles and asks if I got the Impala porn too. “Of course….”

A very early morning allows us to enjoy a beautiful sunrise while Omari tinkers with the land cruiser. It transpires he has only driven safaris for three months. Before this he was a mechanic. This is very reassuring and he is a top-notch safari guide to boot. A fact we appreciate all the more as we descend into the Ngorogoro crater.

“Just take the wide…..”0
neil posted in Photos, Neil on April 21st, 2007

I advised Alicia. “There’ll probably be nothing to shoot anyway” I added, hoping to be proved wrong. With that we left to buy a coffee grinder. I was wrong, oh so very wrong. Living in Edinburgh does this.

The Beltane fire festival folks were doing a demo at the bottom of the mound before their big nighttime ritual on the 1st of May. The drumming was constant and the red men and women put on their normal 18 rated display. Met Tom and Graham, two local photogs who are covering the 20th Anniversary display. Alicia fortunately had brought all of her memory cards and went on to fill them. I had taken my wide only advice and was shooting from all sorts of odd angles with a 12-24mm.

I quite enjoyed the challenge. Less faff to worry about and you start to SEE at the lens width. Not that I won’t take my long lens next time…..

More pictures are here.

A lucky spot….0
neil posted in Travel, Neil, Tanzania on April 19th, 2007

The radio crackles with urgent Swahili and our driver, Omari, guns the land cruisers big engine. He throws a fast three point turn on the narrow track and we head back the way we came. Out of the sunroof, I can’t hear what he is telling everyone. I ask. “Leopard” he replies, a little excited. We turn off the main track onto rutted double track and
race several kilometers. By now we are all standing out of the roof and all cameras are ready.

The elusive leopard is a rare spot indeed and there are four or five vehicles there already. Everyone is looking into a big tree. We wait our turn to peer between the upper branches. Our audience is a mere few seconds long before our quarry drops into the long grass and dissapears. Now ten vehicles wait and stare in vain for another glimpse of this steathy predator. It is not to be. Yesterday’s lame Land Cruiser stalls out again in a muddy puddle and has to be bump started. I made four pictures as quick as I could, the teleconverter throwing my beautiful lens in and out of focus. I cross my fingers and mutter “I hope I got it”

The day had begun at twenty to seven, dreary and grey. Our drive out had afforded us glimpses of hippo, hartebeest and some full-on impala porn (of COURSE I took photos). One buck was very busy as he had a herd of a dozen does to see to before the sun made everything too hot.

Post-Leopard morning also brought baboons, gently fighting giraffe, a baby croc and the small hyrax that inhabit the visitors centre. It feels like a full days fun and we’ve not even had lunch yet.

Safari begins1
neil posted in Travel, Neil, Tanzania on April 12th, 2007

It is a scene from a movie. Tents, bags and supplies for three days are loaded into a row of waiting land cruisers. Red dust swirls and excited English and Swahili mix with idling engines. The only non cinematic scene is the girls frantically rummaging for lost toothbrushes. We’re off on Safari!

Our first glimpse of the Ngorogoro crater comes from high on its rim. A cauldera that imploded around 2.5 million years ago it is 19km wide and 600m deep. A descent into the cauldera was to be the last stop on our three day safari.

We had lunch on the crater rim where a Kite caught George unawares and snagged his chicken leg at spectacular speed. After lunch, a 4×4 in our convoy broke down and our driver , Omari, stepped out into the rain to help repair it. I stepped out too and watched as two Maasai boys stare into the broken 4×4 and the mzungu inside stare out. Life from very different worlds.

Back on the road, we see African buffalo, giraffe and vultures before we ever reach the entrance to Serengetti national park. Sarah alone is dissapointed and winds Omari up by insisting that he find her a tiger. He laughed and told us we may get sea lions. Perhaps we misheard.

We posed for silly pictures with our new friends Mark and Henrietta at the entrance to the park. There is little that compares in the way of experience to blasting across the Serengetti standing out of the top of a land cruiser with your friends.

One thing that can is the sight of the great migration. Around 2.5 million wildebeest and zebras in a herd that stretches for miles. The migration is just breaking its annual calving pause. Approximately half a million wildebeest calves are birthed. Only around one in three will see adulthood.

One of the reasons for this was driven home in our tents that night. Hyenas circle our campsite and call. We slept to the soft close sound of breathing, not all of it human.

James Nachtwey talk0
neil posted in Travel on April 10th, 2007

James Nachtwey gives a lecture at the Technology Entertainment Design conference held annually in California. He speaks about his experiences covering conflicts, disasters and hope across the world. Its half and hour long and quite graphic. Very worth the time.

http://www.joshspear.com/item/ted-prize-talks/#more-2169

Or the full resolution version

http://ted.streamguys.net/ted_nachtwey_j_2007_480.mov

I’m going to the VII seminar in London on friday. The agency that Nachtwey is a member of. I look forward to hearing more, especially the hope part.

http://www.viiphoto.com/

Printing Week!0
neil posted in Travel on April 9th, 2007

With my flatmates out of town and University out of session I declare it to be:

Neil’s Mega Print Preparation Week!

If you want prints of any of my shots NOW is the time to ask. I’m putting in a batch to Trumps so big I want it to shake their nerves and rattle their brains. With my splendiferously calibrated monitor I can create prints that will drive a man insane (etc etc..)

Email me at: neil (conventional at symbol) firemonkeyphoto.myzen.co.uk

Remove spaces and add the symbol to make the address work.

All prints will be spending some quality time with me in photoshop to get the colours bang on. They will be printed 6×9 with a white border on super sexy fuji-color professional paper by a nice beardless man. They will then last until armageddon, nuclear holocaust or your dog eats them.

I’ll write up an African blog entry and tell you about my weekend soon too.

Larium, anime and the Scottish Socialist Party0
neil posted in rants, Neil on April 3rd, 2007

First thing this morning, I’m confronted with a newspaper from the SSP with the huge headline: “TRANSFORM SCOTLAND”. A combination of anti-malarials and anime resulted in this thought popping into my head:

Sam’s first birthday0
neil posted in Travel on April 2nd, 2007

Saw an old friend and her baby on his first birthday. Only with the use of sleeping kittens stacked on puppies could cuter pictures be produced.
 
They are in the gallery here.

Overland: Nairobi to Arusha0
neil posted in Photos, Travel, Neil, Tanzania on April 1st, 2007

Armed with toilet roll and heavily iodinated water we charged south to leave Kenya for Tanzania. We were sat in the “fishbowl” at the front of the truck. Eight seats, four-a-side that face a long table. We are joined by the trucks tame white hunter: Frank. He was armed with at least three cameras (and has two more in the hold) and shot compulsively through the window all the time we were on the road.

Not to be outdone I screwed on my long lens to snap a 1/2000th second glimpse of rural Kenya. For a Nairobi to Cape Town overlander, it may be one of few glimpses into the lives of millions of East Africans. Travelling constantly, stopping only for set activities, is reliable but does’nt leave time to get out of the tourist area and get past the Mzungu barrier.

We sit in our greenhouse and stare out at our strange surroundings. African eyes stare in.

The border to Tanzania is in Namanga, Maasai land. We dismount to change money and perform the obligitory passport faffing. We are met at the door by Maasai women with distended ears, close cropped hair and strings of bracelets, necklaces, beads, ankle rings and some horrid looking copper bracelets. They follow us like flies and our group remains entirely surrounded until we leave. They literally press their goods on us, and are persistent beyond any reason. Sarah has a shot at making conversation but does’nt get much beyond telling the woman she has’nt any money and does’nt want a green forearm. Its a depressing way to enter a country, feeling like a stack of dollar bills to be grabbed at.

Fortunately there are places where you can get beyond the yawning gap in wealth and meet friendly, warm and happy Tanzanians. The Maasai lands, what we saw of them, do not seem such a place. There are reasons for this, but during my time in East Africa I found little to like about this emblematic people.

No matter. On the next day we had a land cruiser of none but the finest folk for three days of safari in Serengeti national park and Ngorogoro crater.

Georges pictures of our entire trip are up here. I’ll be updating mine as I write the blog enteries for our two week trip.