a superb national park. Local Indian natives run the place. I was surprised to see so many US flags, even if customized, after what the Indians have been and still go through since white men set foot in and invaded their territories… Some form of resentment wouldn’t be unreasonable…
John Wayne, John Ford…mostly Claudia Cardinale came here for shooting wild west movies.
a wink to Cartier-Bresson, a man in partial profile with family eating on the Seine bank.
Northern Tanzania, various tribes share a vast and remote territory around lake Natron.
Older women are not easy to approach for pictures.
lion feasting on a roan antelope (une hippotrague rouanne). A rare antelope that I’ve only seen in Katavi park.
Obnoxious hippo chasing lions off. Such a territorial behaviour!
a ground hornbill ( un bucorve en français)
Promised, Mom I’m careful and I got quite used to shoot without looking through the viewer.
wooden carts are still heavily used for deliveries in town.
A rare taxi biker with a helmet. For his passenger? Next life. Rap crap stuff has been seeping through in Africa too. Is it better than Rambo or Madonna who were fashionable here around 2000.
Next to impossible to spot a public bus without some kind of motto, quite often with a religious meaning. Though it always looks like the drivers forget about them once behind the wheel. School girl getting a taxi service.
not a rare sighting. Everything on wheels get to be overloaded in Africa. The skills of these guys are impressive.
Colors! The bigger the bus the flashier the colors. Haile Selassie is till very popular in Africa. What’s the link with the dolphin…?
Funny enough, Led Zeppelin is to be spotted on a few dala dalas. Same owner who is a fan? Too bad the spelling was left unchecked.
Tough mean looking mama. Even her Masai husband must think twice before coming home late and drunk…
there were Harleys all over the place and on miles and miles on the roads around. A big gathering was going on for bikers. It made the scenery quite interesting. Oatman, on route 66, is not much but on a day like this, it gets very much alive. The western movie decoration was hilarious. Some people are really good at exploring their childhood dreams.
here was a rarity, a Russian side-car. An Ural maybe?
the main street, for a second I thought these dudes were waiting for us to start a duel.
in the past, this couple would have been at risk to come in such a gathering with a Japanese bike. The Hells Angels would have trashed what they considered sissies’ motorbikes. Besides Harleys, few brands were accepted, usually Italian or English. But nowadays real Hells Angels or other tough bikers are not not alone on Harleys.
leaving Oatman on route 66 towards California.
more Bikes kept on coming.
March 1989 in Belgium, Pink Floyd made the incredible honor to visit us. The concert took place in a an open field. Much more quiet atmosphere than Woodstock of course even if dozens of thousands were attending. The audience is wide here, from teens to grandparents. Fans dating from the mid sixties. Everybody was seated on the ground, not missing a bit of the show, some people crying softly.
In Versailles, June 1988, at a previous Floyd gig, 100.000 people! we had been standing up for a while. There had some movement near me, a girl from our group had fainted of pure emotion. Her boyfriend didn’t notice or didn’t want to because when he was notified by one of us, he hardly looked down, just said “later…” and kept staring and listening at the gig. No way this guy was going to miss a second of the show! Of course the girl took it badly when she woke up on her own, realised she was not worth a few seconds of Pink Floyd. The guy must have thought there were plenty of other girls on this Earth, but not many Pink Floyd gigs…finally he was a smart philosopher, wasn’t he? By the way none of us helped her either… but then we were not even dating her so why bother? Facing the Floyd, I defy any gentleman to keep his manners haha
the laser show was breathtaking.
Burst of fire on stage.
Nick mason on drums, Nick Wright on keyboards.
The Pig, a big balloon floating over the audience. The eyes were powerful light spots.
David Gilmour.
I had sneaked my camera, a great Minolta X700 and a 135mm 2.8 and a 50mm 1.7 lenses all hidden in my thick leather jacket sleeves, some Fuji 1600 asa films in my cowboy boots. Security was there but body search was limited. By then 1600 asa was a magic and maximum number for color films. I dream of shooting the same gigs with a Nikon D3 at 25000 asa, or even 102.000! The D4 to come is announced at more than 200.000 though quality is not that great at that extreme setting.
no comment for a change…
flying straight line or driving from Arusha to Nairobi brings you through Longido, a little village overlooked by a mountain.
here is the peak, a bit like a rhino horn from far away. Unmistakable from many miles away.
a nice one day hike from where Kilimanjaro, mount Meru or, on exceptional weather condition, even volcano Lengai can be admired.
the elephant died around lake Ndutu in Ngorongoro conservation area, Tanzania. The 2 lions were very protective of their meal which lasted for a few days, and still, wouldn’t share any of it. The various scavengers would have to wait for the last bits when the lions’ bellies were about to explode.
Leaving Nairobi by bus back to Arusha, I snapped “Nairobbery” (the unofficial but most common nickname for Nairobi) life out of the window.
Soetimes I think there are more cellphones in Africa than in Europe
Ads are getting big and spread all over in Africa. Maybe the guy is having a hangover from that beer? As anybody can see, while the image is decent, the logo is shit as usual. Low carbs for a beer, who cares really? These marketing people really, no shame to consider consumers as morons….
Traffic cops…sometimes they just seemed at best to be considered as information doll, not to be taken seriously. Just the same for robot lights by the way.
At least they used a black santa! Good for them. Christianity still has a long way to go to adapt. Swedish look alike, blue eyed pale sick jesuses and maries are still the norm in Africa, basically coming from our medieval pieces of religious art. That probably helped the missionaries to keep the lid on African pride….
yep graffiti can be spotted here too. But not yet the same kind as we know in the West. Baby steps.
I suppose the road is in much better condition than the sidewalks, if any…
cool car, Cadillac 54 if I’m right, and cool dude. Supposedly the best Elvis impersonator. Las Vegas of course, where else?
Seligman, somewhere on route 66.
rent a RV but you got the ads included. Too bad if you were looking for low profile. Quite an un-American feat anyway, low profile…
homemade with leftovers of a 1932 Ford A and more… Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Taos, New Mexico, not short of beauties either. Mexican-owned Chevrolet.
Chevrolet Bel Air 1956.
Page, Arizona, a typical monster truck to go in Antelope canyon. I’m dreaming of having the same modifications done on my Land Rover 110, so I could crush all the driving morons in Arusha notorious traffic jam. And it could be useful too in many streets of Arusha “city” or in the Tanzanian bush.
Last week, I was flying for Flying Medical Service in northern Tanzania. This is mainly Masai territory near volcano Lengai. Here is Olpirikata, a tiny Masai hamlet, one of the numerous airstrips where we operate on a regular basis, that is a 2 week-rotation system.
This Masai girl, quite a stunning face, was initially shy, I had to insist a bit when tings got much easier when she was her friends enjoying the prints I had brought from a previous photo shoot. Curiosity and a bit of envy got her!
At first she didn’t quite know how to behave in front the lens but that didn’t last….
This one is my favorite of the lot. I often wish I could only shoot the same model for 5 or 10 minutes, instead of changing model with every click. But then there are sometimes 20 people waiting and I’m not sure how they would react to that.
This is really unusual for many people out there. Whereas mirrors exist, one cannot see one profile. So a profile picture always comes as a surprise initially, sometimes confirmation from friends is needed, but in the end, I get asked to shoot more.
In 2 weeks hopefully she’ll receive a few prints, although they’ll be in colors. B/W wouldn’t be fashionable and appreciated in Masai culture I bet….
