these portraits with a white background have been shot 'in situ', that is in the bush and not in a studio. I didn't use any flash nor reflector. I meet Masai people on a regular basis while on duty with Flying Medical Service.
Notice the serious ear extension.
blue clothes, blue wall, Masai man with ‘stored’ extended ears.
hot waether but Chinese made umbrellas made an apparition some 10 years ago and are now commonly used for sun ray protection.
Kids, usully happy to pose, even more when the picture is available on the digital camera display.
Masai warrior on the move…
school boy in uniform.
black clothes, that is a freshly circumcized Masai boy, soon to be a warrior. That is the active volcano Lengai in the background.
a Masai warrior.
she insisted on posing with her rooster.
morning duties for these Masai women.
Masai men love their sticks, even when biking.
curious fashion creeps in sometimes.
quite a common view, boys only a wear a wrapped around toga, though usually a bit more carefully than this one.
Dutch design but Chinese copies (who else?), these bicycles are to be seen all over.
female job, in pair with water chores for example.
another typical scenery in northern Tanzania: wherever you are, have a close look when you need privacy. Masai people have a knack to pop out of the middle of nowhere, in the most isolated place. The savannah is their home after all.
Flying Medical Service operates 2 Cessna 206’s in Tanzania, mostly between Arusha and the Serengeti but we cover emergencu flights all over the country. Here are some pictures of the beasts in their favorite element, the bush…
Oljoro, a small village off the map like many. The clinic hut needs some repair and that big dust devil won’t make the roof any better.
Landing soon on the shoreline, Olorbelin, lake Natron. A quick look outside and here is a picture of the reflection and the shadow on the shallow waters.
At Monik on the western lake Natron shore, facing the active volcano Oldoinyo Lengai. The doctor is busy attending the patients under the much needed shade.
Another airstrip, another clinic, another doctor at work…
This is Engoveroni on the slope of Empakai crater, Ngorogoro Highlands. This is our grade 5 airstrip. Look at the slope…it’s not me being drunk for the composure, look at the people who are standing straight up. I landed there last month with defective brakes but that was not an issue at all. Everything else is wrong too with this one, which makes it very challenging and rewarding.
More clinics, Ololosokwan in the Rift valley near Natron…
and Olbalbal outside Ngorongoro crater.
On another note I got a serious surprise 2 weeks ago: I was doing a preflight check around the airplane when the front half cargo door fell on my foot! Obviously preflights are there for a reason…
That was because the 2 hinge pins had been stolen. That is the twisted white thing on the picture, the top one here. Those things have no value but we never know what new use local Masai people could think of…
Pat, our director, has always been thoughtful about how to sort out troubles in the bush before calling for help. So we carry a decent toolbox on board amongst many things. For instance there are what look like giant hairpins, called Cotten pins. I just had to clip one in two and play around with one half for each hinge. Not sure this was entirely legal but what the heck…
Trust me, those long spears are heavy! Nothing to do with the aluminum things I used to throw at school.
I did once fly a wounded warrior with such a spear across the torso. Of course that 2 m spear wouldn’t fit in a small plane like the one on this picture, nor in the Land Rover that brought the man to the bush hospital. No problem since the wounded man’s friends had taken care of that: 2 held one arm each while a third one put his foot on the belly and pulled the spear out!! Obviously these guys have zero knowledge in open wound management! The guy survived by the way, proud with 2 neat scars to show off.
This one managed to throw a spear and a club within a second. By luck I caught both weapons on this shot. That brown speck on the horizon is the club!
while busy on clinics with Flying Medical Service, I have time to walk around, even to the nearby village.
Nobody is going to steal my aeroplane, right? A cessna 206 by the way.
Masai women have traditionally been stuck in blue, red or black, according to their social status in the tribe. There were slight variations depending on the clans as well. Now men haven’t actively looked for clothe change of style. But guess what? Women did… so let’s enjoy the explosion of colors and patterns nowadays.
Cows, the most precious possession for a Masai man, volcano Lengai in the Rift…
and looking behind is an airstrip, Engoveroni. I went for a short walk on a neighboring ridge because I wanted to have a large view of the sloped airstrip. Notice the tiny white shape, that is the aeroplane.
Masai men on an errand. The plane in the distance again.
Mini market in the village.
Modernity creeps in and I would never have guessed in some remote areas…
I hate those ugly wool hats, especially when the temperature comes close to 30 Celsius. It ruins my pictures and I am convinced the kids don’t feel comfy.
In the digital age of photography, I still enjoy too my old film cameras, loaded with slide or B/W films. These pictures were shot this year with my Leica M6 and 28, 50 or 90 mm lenses. A minimum of neurons is required to shoot with this kind of equipment…
that is the Tanzanian bush with that old medium format camera on a slide film, the excellent Fuji Velvia 50 . Mine is from 1961, still produces sharp pictures especially with a film like that.
This shot is from October when the first rains were coming, here a thunderstorm brewing late afternoon. These Masai kids were a bit shy but that never lasts, curiosity is too strong usually.
Lake Natron in the Rift valley….
Natron is a salt lake always offering interesting salted patterns and bright colors. Here is a vertical shot of those salt pans.
Masai people attending a Flying Medical Service clinic near the Serengeti.
Kids are always around even if they need no medical treatment or vaccination.
some portraits in the Tanzanian bush over the years...
About 130 tribes and 80 languages in Tanzania. I only got to meet a few so far. Here is a selection of Masai and Sonjo people.
here is a selection of some interesting locations I fly to for our outreach clinics.
Tanzania is not exactly is a flat country… this is a part of a dead volcano, Shombole, on lake Natron.
Part of the Gol mountains.
the medical staff and the pilot always take lunch under the Cessna 206 wing. Especially around lake Natron where 40C seem a normal temperature…
The active volcano Lengai can be seen from many airstrips around. The doctor is here treating a patient. Sometimes we have a royal treatment, that is an available medical hut, usually not. Personally I prefer to be in the open but in case a patient needs some privacy…It’s so hard to keep nosy people at bay.
Below is my all time favorite; Engoveroni. It’s located on a ridge of Empakai Crater slope. I love it, the slope at 11%, the gullies and ridges, the usual bad winds, the high altitude and the non turbo engine make a go around impossible, it’s roughly paved but it’s beautiful and keep skills up to date.
this was last week. The day had started badly with a flat battery. We had to start the engine like in the old day: by hand. Yes on a Cessna 206… I was delayed by 2 hours but the bright side of that was to be here in Engoveroni till 17h30. The light was just getting beautiful, warm, golden…
Nice slope huh? Taking off is here a piece of cake, even when heavily loaded.
For beautiful landscapes, there is plenty of choices, here in Ngorongoro area. The Gol mountains far out.
Mount Makarot on the SW Ngorongoro rim.
Mount Masonik, on the high edge of lake Natron
The Cessna I’m flying these days, just before take off facing Olbalbal pond. Funny airstrip, just long enough but way too wide…
active volcano Lengai at rest these days. But nevertheless a stunning scenery, still covered in grey ashes from the last eruption some years ago.
A typical dust devil, kind of a mini twister. Not dangerous…
Some colleague flyers, lake Natron.
Outreach clinics in the Rift Valley, Oleparkashi.
My Masai audience before take off.
Just after take off from Njurlanon salt lake Natron.
lake Natron and its permanent residents, flamingoes.
Looking down on final, landing at Olorbelin on the northern Natron shoreline. I love these reflections and shadows on the water surface altogether on one shot.
Here are some Masai people in the Rift Valley. While you'll be rading this I'll be flying on duty again in the same area with Flying Medical Service.
Sonjo women below.
I wished that kid behind was away… this nice lady wouldn’t take the same pose afterwards…
Yes this is the bush but things change. 30 years ago, people here were still going half naked I‘m told by reliable sources. 10 years ago, there were clothes for everybody, missionaries trashing cultures, but nothing fancy, nothing really western fashion. Fashion still seemed sci-fi. Now slowly but surely, a certain sense of fashion creeps in.
This kid is from the bush around Arusha, from a tribe aptly named the Warusha.
This is not fashion on the other end, just dumped ugly clothes from the west.
Old Masai men wise under a big tree. They’re having a meeting and in turn, women are not attending.
Serengeti sceneries below.
Wildebeests passing by...
As usual, shot on Kodak Aerochrome film and Rolleiflex 3.5F. Initially that was a scientific and/or military purpose film.
Northern Tanzania near the Rift valley...
A Sonjo woman.
A Masai woman.
Freshly circumcised Masai boys and girl.
Mang'ati woman, that is a cousin sub Masai clan.
Another Sonjo woman.
Green foliage turns pink whereas red, like the red cross on the tail or Masai clothes, turns orange
Again I used a now defunct slide film, the Kodak Aerochrome EIR, a red or yellow filter, and a medium format Rolleiflex.
What’s the point f shooting people or landscapes in Africa with infrared films? Well why not? Anyway I saw one picture in a Nat’l Geographic magazine some months ago, shot in the Congo with the same film, the defunct Kodak EIR Aerochrome. These shots are from 2010 with a Rolleiflex 3.5F.
The striking difference is the foliage getting red. On black people the skin is getting red too.
Some old Masai men having a reunion under the big tree. Women forbidden! In Masai culture women are second class citizens and are kept in the dark... I once landed and complained about the bad airstrip condition to my Masai colleague. I wanted a message to be delivered to the leader to sort this out. My colleague answered that there was nothing he could do since only women were present. Just to deliver message?? I had to insist to give a try but I clearly saw he rolled his eyes!
Masai women waiting in the queue for the doctor. Flying Medical Service operates about 30 outreach flying clinics in northern Tanzania.
My beautiful Rolleiflex, from 1961 and still working perfectly.
Flying Medical Service operates 2 Cessna 206’s based in Arusha. Our flights are focused on outreach clinics and medical emergencies but hospital staff transfers or helping other NGO’s members are allowed too.
So here are some pictures of our operations in the bush, my favorite part of the job. We go to one of the 3 hospitals in the bush, embark a doctor and nurses and medical supplies, from there we hop to nearby bush villages. The longest flight is about 25 minute long but the walking challenges are then important due to the heat, the lack of proper road and the rough terrain. Cliffs, mountains, valleys, lakes, wild animals…
We treat mostly Masai people for they are numerous in northern Tanzania but Sonjo and Mang’ati tribes are also present. There are more than 100 tribes in Tanzania anyway.
Vaccination is the most time consuming activity we encounter like giving polio drops in this picture. But measles, tetanus, pertussis… are also given. Weight checks for babies are also very important.
Old Masai man sorting some ‘dawa’, that is medicine, he just received.
One of our main challenges in flying the bush is airstrip maintenance. This strip looks great and wide but there were holes in it. This picture is unfortunately typical of our problems: Ezra here is busy working while the obnoxious Masai dude is doing nothing. They just hate performing menial jobs even for their own benefits, so regularly we close down some strips for lack of maintenance. Then we wait for them to ask for our return usually under their women’s pressure.
A typical village in the bush. Notice the fences made of acacia branches to protect from wild animals.
Some strips are provided with a hut for the doctor and the nurses to perform.
People sometimes ask for a picture with the airplane on the background.
Northern Tanzania is an amazing country, not short of great vistas. That peak is Oldoinyo Lengai, an active volcano in the Rift valley.
Drive just a few miles off Arusha, a half decent town, and there is the bush right away. Karine and I spent last Sunday afternoon north of Arusha just cruising around in my Land Rover which was more than happy to see some action, since I’m always using my bicycle or motorcycle in town.
Lengijave area, women (and girls) still do the water or firewood runs. Men? Well, the few we saw typically didn’t seem to do much except chatting up under the shade of a tree or in front of a shop.
Mount Meru culminating at nearly 15.000ft.
Little boys are also at work albeit an easier one: lead the herds of cows or goats.
Kids were usually more than happy to pose for us. Last time, a teacher even thanked us for visiting their remote and forgotten village. Obviously no tourist ever wander out there. Marketing is the key…
Dust! Fine dust like flour. If the wind is coming from the wrong direction, you’d better be careful otherwise a dust cloud could engulf your jeep. Tracks tend to be badly run down, Arusha municipality doesn’t pay too much attention nor anything else out there…And the next rains are not expected till November.
Drivers don’t show any respect for pedestrians…
Last picture of the day, a beautiful glow on Mount Meru. It was gone within a minute.
goats or cows…boring isn’t it? Well a Masai herder would strongly disagree with me. Anyway seen from the air, those herds take another dimension and these people deserve some respect to lead and keep safe animals through the wild. I might even envy them sometimes. After all these are the original cowboys.
Every 2 weeks on a rotation basis, Flying Medical Service sends a Cessna 206 with a doctor, 2 nurses and some medical supplies to about 30 remote villages, mostly Masai. This one, Engoveroni, is spreading around a few of those ridges. One of those ridges, see yesterday post, welcomes the airstrip.
This is the medical hut, a luxury as not all the villages have provided us with one. Personally I prefer to help out the nurses while out of such a hut, enjoying the sun and cool air at 2000m.
Nice vista on the volcano Lengai.
A rare secondary school in the remote bush.
Cattle! A Masai man is nothing without his cattle. That and many wives of course. Here is the main street in the village.
Ridges and gullies all the way till the horizon. Quite a mission to visit a neighbor in that area!
That airstrip is everything but a textbook airstrip. A steep and slanted slope amongst many peculiarities. Here the doctor and a patient under the wing while the mothers and kids are being vaccinated in the hut.
The funny aspect of this very picture is due to a very old camera, technology from the 30's. All the pictures above were shot with various cameras anyway, film and digital.
Engoveroni, a big but scattered village in the Rift valley near the volcano Oldoinyo Lengai. Flying Medical Service operates an airplane to serve a mobile clinic out there
Beautiful area, isn’t it?
There is even a secondary school out there. These running pupils seem happy to go home.
This village is much better than others, look at the corrugated roofs.
and even a shop or 2.
The main street.
Here is the airstrip, a crazy one to be precise. The whole area is located at 2000m on the slope of a crater, Empakai, which explains the gullies and ridges. So a ridge has been used for the strip. Wind, steep slope (11%), short (450m), rough…if things go wrong, there is for instance a nice gully to welcome any veering aircraft… For a real bush pilot, this is a challenging and dream place to go.
Old-fashioned way to shoot, that is with film, here a Rollei IR 400 combined with a Leica M6 camera, a 28mm lens, a 89B filter and a tripod.
this trapeze-shaped mountain is a holy active volcano named Oldoinyo Lengai, Rift valley. Interesting how most volcanoes are highly respected and idolized in the world.
Local people are expecting our medical visit every 2 weeks on each airstrip we operate. Flying Medical Service operates about 30 airstrips in the beautiful Tanzanian remote bush. I must say I really enjoy flying this kind of operations…
The same volcano from another location.
while busy with Flying Medical Service, I sometimes take time to take pictures with the people visiting the clinics. I haven’t brought them sepia or even B/W pictures yet, only color ones. Maybe I’ll try one day…
Young Masai girl, who was recently excised, making her officially a woman and ready to be married. She is wearing a black toga and bead jewels on the forehead for the healing period.
A Sonjo woman proudly posing with her roster to sell (to us of course) and of course she brought the best one, she is sad to part from it blabla. Real saleswoman!
Rift Valley, northern Tanzania, while I’m busy flying for the Flying Medical Service mobile clinics, I always bring a couple of cameras. From a 1910 folding to digital Nikons via Rolleiflex and Leica M. I hope to use Karine's latest Contax 645 soon! The patient are usually Masai in that area.
This mountain is an active volcano, Oldoinyo Lengai seen from Ngaresero airstrip.
The volcano again from another airstrip, Engoveroni.
the medical hut, 2 rooms, quite a luxury.
The Cessna 206, a workhorse to compare with a Land Rover.
These pictures were shot the old way, that is on B/W film. This implies usually a very slow speed due to the dark infrared filter which explains the blurry people when in motion. In this case the Rollei IR 400 film in combination with a filter 89B was equivalent to a 6 asa film… I thus also used a tripod. The lens was a 28mm F:2.0 mounted on a Leica M6.
It all started quietly. Freshly nominated warriors. Happy to pose for me over a few weeks, anticipating the prints I would bring, then asking for more, bringing more warriors who also wanted their photos taken. I’ve shot over a 1000 pictures like that.
Now one day, this guy (L) shows up. A real clown and a leader. Suddenly I lost control a little bit. Not that I complain since I got some interesting pictures.
For instance, I didn’t ask for these composures, he did. Notice the red ochre fat applied on the hair (hair extension usually).
Likewise he led his friends to show their back, and his butt. Same sense of humor anywhere in the world apparently. Though so far I had always thought Masai were more of the dignified type!
Him again practicing some fighting.
I personally find this Sonjo woman particularly pretty! Beautiful eyebrows for instance.
recently excised Masai girl. She will be ready for marriage soon. The baby is not hers but she insisted to pose with him.
Flying Medical Service again… this place Ololosokwan on the northern edge of the Serengeti had seen a new batch of warriors, freshly anointed. Proud is a euphemism to describe these guys. After all, this is the best part of their life starting: fighting, chasing girls, roaming the bush, collecting cows (that includes theft, hence the fighting), playing with lions, and spending time time looking trendy and handsome. And to deserve this, they had to go through circumcision, without flinching without showing any emotion!
So whereas these warriors are not so happy to pose for tourists, they got to know me and trust me to bring many prints. So just like girls who’d have a chance to loot a Prada shop for a photoshoot they posed for me on various occasions, exchanged clothes and jewels, and varied their composure, a lot! Here is a selection where I hardly had a word to say.
Funny how some jokes are universal huh?
when I don’t have to help the medical staff nor fix something on the aircraft or the airstrip, I do some pictures. Lately I’ve introduced that studio look to the portraits. I was a bit anxious people might not be used to this white background but when I brought the prints (still in colors though) 2 weeks later they seemed utterly happy, so did I. They kept on asking for more anyway…Maybe I’ll bring some B/W or sepia prints next time and see. I’d love to bring an enlargement but that would create jealousy…
This Masai warrior was a bit of an exception: he insisted to keep his umbrella for the shoot…
a selection of Masai and Sonjo portraits in Tanzania.
I just came back yesterday from a tour of mobile clinics with Flying Medical Service. I flew to Loliondo area, that is northern Serengeti, then lake Natron and the Gol mountains. In Tanzania that is. Weather was mostly bad, we’re in the middle of the rain season, and thus I couldn’t land on 3 airstrips. One was quite flooded, another one was damaged by trenches made by flowing waters, and the 3rd one located on top of a cliff was shrouded in clouds. So badly that even flying alongside the cliff I couldn’t find a hole in the clouds to crawl up. The cloud ceiling was at 4000 feet against the cliff…and the strip is still 2000 feet higher in the mountain.
In the Sonjo Valley, there is a village I particularly like for various reasons, one being that 3 tribes live together there, more or less peacefully. Women seem to go by much better than men, the latter still tend to fight each other, with Kalashnikovs even sometimes. Every year we get emergencies with bullet wounds…
A Sonjo woman with a typical Tanzanian-flag necklace.
a Mangati woman, with a typical spiraled necklace.
an elder Mangati lady, with scarification marks around the eyes. Younger people seem to drop that traditional feat.
and some Masai women fully equipped.
Anyway, these women like their pictures to be taken and they trust me that I’ll bring prints later. This time one model was a bit shocked that I also wanted a picture of her alone, without her baby. Shocking indeed! Many women would rather have their babies pictured rather than themselves. It must be said that in remote areas women have only one right: produce and raise children (preferably males). So being childless is a social stigma, disaster. And so denying that role by requesting a picture without the baby must be seen as slightly insulting?
I also got some nice shooting with the Sonjo kids playing with an old bicycle rim. Sonjo kids still dress very often in these bright colorful pieces of cloth, the same 4 colors for the 13 years I have been flying out there. No red, no purple, no black, no white… nope just these yellow, light blue and orange colors. And green but not on this picture.
during my early years in Tanzania, from 1999 till 2002, I was flying for an NGO, Flying Medical Service, and during my numerous mobile clinics, I had some spare time for my hobby, that is photography. Initially equipped with a Minolta X700, I switched to Nikon F3 and FM2.
even in Masai territories, soccer is the game.
2 Sonjo ladies getting prepared for a photo.
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