Dear all,

After a slow start in posting pictures and stories it is now time to get up to speed. We just returned to Nairobi after a 5 week long home leave in Belgium, The Netherlands and Norway (honeymoon). Later on, I will post some pictures from Norway, being a wilderness in its own right.

In my last post, I mentioned Gerry’s role in my journey. At this time, I go back further in time, at the real start of my photographic journey, in which my uncle played a huge role, by giving me his old Praktica camera, including macro extension tubes. It was with that camera from before the digital era that I started my journey, a huge present, introducing me to shutter times and the lot.

After some time, when I left to Africa for the first time, I carried a non digital Canon Eos with a 75-300 and shot slides (I’ll try to find time to digitalize and share some of them during my next home leave). Just after returning from my first trip to the Mara, this camera got stolen from my room, including some cheetah shots I’m still chasing till now: the eyes image filling when it came scratching itself against the van. After this, I moved to a digital EOS 300D (which on its turn got stolen from the car, … mfh) and then onto a 350D. It is with this last camera and a 75-300 f4-5.6 that most of my initial pictures on this site have been taken. Basic equipment that has given me lots of pleasure. It’s only during the last months that I decided to spend some extra money, both on a new camera and more importantly, on some second hand glass. More about that, the decision making process and my reasoning in the next post.

I have to rush now, leaving you with 2 pictures from the non digital age I have lying around the house (pictures of pictures I like to share with you, not because of their fantastic quality, yet just because I want to share them).

The first one is from the Samburu game reserve in Kenya, showing doum palms whose dichotomous shape provided me with some nice opportunities to take advantage of the sepia film I had put in my camera.

The second one goes with a story. Arriving at the fig tree campsite along Lake Baringo, I noticed plenty of flamingo feathers and remains across the site, leaving me with the question which animal created this kind of flamingo havoc. I was soon to find out. In an attempt to get a frame filling shot of flamingoes, I was approaching the water when all of the sudden I heard something crashing through the bushes right behind me. At first I thought my end had come to the fangs of a predator, yet instead, I saw a large baboon running past me and into the flock of flamingoes. Before they (and myself) realized what happened the baboon had taken one by the throat and dragged it onto the land. All of this happened in seconds and I only managed to get a shot of the action by rolling on my back and panning along as he rushed back into the bushes. Remember, I was a poor student at the time and shooting slides, so no x frames per second for me at the time. The result, although unsharp throughout remains one of my favorite shots since it recreates the action I witnessed and I like the pink in an otherwise quite monochrome shot.

Needless to say I missed out on the frame filling flamingo shot 😉

CU next time,

Guy