Hey guys. Just back from another huge amount of time in the African bush. Here is an image I captured a few weeks back with my DF+, IQ280 and Schneider 240mm lens. I know medium format isn't the best or easiest tool for the type of imagery I create, but every now and then things just line up perfectly and I can grab a shot. Over the past year I have added about 6 medium format African wildlife images to my portfolio, so I am pretty happy with the setup so far.
Nice shot; not sure why you went for MF unless for huge blow-ups, but impressive nonetheless.
Looking at your site, I am absolutely knocked out by the Skeleton Coast, Namibia image you have, the flying one of the dunes and the sea. It's beyond pretty and touches something primaeval - the same kind of emotion that volcanoes induce if you find yourself near them. The sense of unstoppability, of the relative insignificance of man in the general scheme of things, even if we are quite capable of destroying the entire show. It also touches a sense of the romantic - of places we shall probably never see. I felt a similar sense as a child, sailing up the Red Sea, with Arabia on the starboard bow, that distant line of jagged mountains looking so Arabian Nights it wasn't true. The world is indeed an amazing place.
Of Africa and safari the most lasting impression that I have, which struck me immediately, was the cruelty of zoos: when you realise the vast spaces that animals require, that they use in their hunt for food and survival, the idea of caging something with all that background of latent experience, throwing it some dead meat like a tip, seems unbelievable.
I think that the preservation of species case is bunk. Why do we think of doing it? For the sake of the animals? No, for the gratification of ourselves, the curio value. We cage humans for
punishment; how do we miss the point when we do it to an animal? Better to go extinct on your own terms than live in a prison.
Rob C