Well here we are! It’s 2009, it’s grey and dark outside my window, and the general outlook for the year ahead, by all external accounts, seems just as bleak. Having spent a week away from the computer and anything to do with photography, I have found I can look at the past year through a renewed appreciation of what has come and gone and hopefully also what is to come!
As I sit browsing through all the images taken over the past year, memories thoughts and feelings suddenly re-emerge and make themselves known. I also find myself appreciating some images I had condemned to the bin (but strangely never completely deleted). Some of the images I ranked highly have slipped a notch or two in their ratings (maybe they do not deserve to), as I will always feel they could have been better. And some, “the old favourites” stubbornly cling to their allocated positions.
Every image however manages to carry me back through time and recall experiences that have flashed by far too rapidly. They are not always directly related to the images but are definitely an intrinsic part of their making. And equally as memorable (well too me at least)!
Like the endless shimmering hot black tarmac. The whining engine, and the buffeting wind through an open window under a big blue sky! My faithful green monster…The Beast!…and the open road…
The choking, chalky dust of the curvy meandering gravel roads, that warmly carried me to my destinations. A very welcome solitude and escape…never something to be dreaded. Though they have managed to rattle bits and pieces off my car…a running board being the latest victim!
Nights spent out under the stars and acacia trees. What more can I say! I always sleep better, surrounded by the secret nocturnal sounds. The crunch of sand, a hiss, a scurry, a puff, a howl, a gruff bark, the cracking and crashing of branches…
Plastic tasting instant coffee, gulped down long before the sun rises out in the cold desert air. A booster to thoroughly wake me up for the mornings’ photography, or maybe just plain old habit!
Time spent around a camp fire with old friends, the conversations taking on violent mood swings from joyful optimistic hopes for the future to the shattered dreams left behind. All carefully conducted by the fluctuating level of the bottle!
Then of course there are always the obvious memories that accompany each image. Some so vivid I can never imagine forgetting them.
An elephant three meters away, happily sharing its space with me. (Though I did not move much during the 10 minutes).
A big, black mane lion giving me a short gruff growl as he passed my open window! It’s a sound you can feel!
A chameleon hunting beetles and flies by using my shadow! (this does seem to happen a lot lately).
Dune ants all lined up and ganging up on me, as I got too close to their precious scale insects, they were milking for honeydew. The proportionately over sized pincers menacingly at the ready!
My first time in a microlight getting to see the dunes and the desert plains from much higher than normal!
And so many others…
The stand out moment for me in 2008, image wise (after much agonising) will have to be the “One that got Away!” It’s a tale of the beetle that got away from the Chameleon…the sequence of images below will reveal all.
I wish you all the best for 2009!
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