Ok, so I haven’t blogged for a while and I am horrendously behind in Darren Rouse’s PROBLOGGER.NET 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge.
But, I have just arrived in South Africa for a stretch of a few months for the first time in years and it’s been good to just sit under the blue African sky, drink a few cold ones and taste the dust…
So with the first week down, apart from enjoying the sunshine and trying to get an adequate internet connection working there has been some rural excitement worthy of attempting to capture…
Firstly I have a re-energised respect for people like Austin Stevens after having tried to *photograph a very fast juvenile boomslang (*read escape) 2 metres outside the kitchen door which was fun, thankfully it decided not to hang around and saved me having to run my ass off in the opposite direction…
…yes its camera shake!
D200 with 50mm f1.8 lens
out of position = YES/
out of focus = YES/
totally inappropriate camera settings = YES/
to slow to photograph fast moving reptiles that bite = YES/
Secondly, I have a new found respect for Doctors, ok more specifically, small town ‘deal with all sorts of crap in the middle of the night’ type doctors, one such species who happens to be my host in SA.
Its dark, its quiet, its a little cold, its 3am post May Day Celebrations. Lying asleep trying to get into some deep REM level sleep and CRASH…wtf…i mean a BIG BANG…meters away on the other side of the road (as I later find out with aforementioned doctor-white surgical gloves-not knowing what to expect-one can never be too careful with blood and D300 in hand) we run outside to see a car has totalled the stop sign on the road opposite with about 5 passengers who have made abstract patterns with the front windshield….well, woke up pretty quickly, took a few record shots whilst doc got ambulance/police… up to the hospital.
Verdict they are all lucky to be alive…realisation; apart from that’s the quickest way to wake up…it could have been very messy, thank God it wasn’t.
Africa’s an intense place.
