Victoria Falls, Elephant Soup and a Kodak Moment in Zimbabwe

These are the photos from Zimbabwe, mostly from Victoria Falls and surrounding area that I wanted to bring out of the darkness of my classified files. They are not the artistic photos I try to capture about people and their environments, but I think these is some humour in these photos worth catching a smile through.

In fact, these are no people in these photos, so that is in part why, as a street photographer, I classified them away.

Ok, the opening photo is that of Victoria Falls. Of course it is a very large area and these are thousands of angles to look at the falls, but this one has enough of dramatic shades, clair obscur and effaced corners that I decided to start this entry with its panoramic spread.

Of course, most of the food is meat and most of the meat is game in Zimbabwe. Sometimes it is game that we had seen roam around the street during our own walk! Here is a photo I previously posted of a warthog near our hotel

And here is the menu from that night…

But I had never seen a recipe for an elephant soup! Here is the humour printed on a chef’s apron:

At closer look, one can see how important it is to follow the steps. I was fascinated by the addition of a rabbit…

But, if one does not have a refrigerator large enough to store all the ingredients, one can easily try that soup here…

With the local beer, of course.

Finally, a moment of nostalgia for a photographer who still uses film. Indeed, Kodak film is history for many, and for the young generation of all things electronic, a total unknown. I was delighted to see the Kodak sign still standing in this weathered bus stop.

September 29, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

One Flew Over the Beach in Capetown, South Africa

This morning I posted a few photos of wildlife from the Kruger National Park in South Africa after going through some photos I had left unpublished.

Among these were also photos from Cape Town. One photo has a special place in my memories of that town – I was taking photos of folks on the beach with a Minolta Autocord medium format TLR camera. The 80mm lens is fixed so all photos had to be taken from a close proximity.

In order to not identify people, which is always a challenge to a street photographer, decided to take contre-jour shots thus having the sun behind the subject hence leaving their faces obscured. I took a few, but nothing special. Then I saw this couple having lunch sitting on the grass near the beach and from the side of my eye saw a lady selling hats. She was dressed in traditional African clothing and wearing a straw hat advertising her merchandise.  I focused a meter or so behind the lunching couple and waited. Sometimes one has to anticipate scenarios based on the environment and hope that the one clicking chance he has to capture the scene will be timed just right.

So, the hat lady passed exactly behind the couple as I expected. And I thought I clicked just at the right moment.

When I developed the film, I saw a strange shadow above the hat selling lady’s head. Intrigued, I decided to print that frame even though there seemed nothing very special in the captured moment.

To my surprise, my timing for depressing the shutter had been better than I anticipated. Obviously a pigeon flew over the scene at that very moment and I did not notice it. Here is the cropped and enlarged unanticipated inclusion to the otherwise well choreographed scene I had organized:

Now this otherwise pedestrian photo had that je ne sais quoi that makes street photography so unpredictable and sometimes because of that, delightful.

September 26, 2019

©Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

When Hairy Met Silly in Kruger National Park, South Africa

It rained all night and the mountains now are floating in a sea of frothy fog. For a minute one may think about the Japanese paintings where fog lets each viewer understand nature according to past experiences.

When I stay home, I paint, write or search my photography files for that photo I missed to use or did not appreciate enough. All my photos are printed under my 1950s enlarger, and then scanned.  So I do not have to look through interminable numbers of shoeboxes as I once did…

… I came across a thick envelope containing 8x10 photos from South Africa and Zimbabwe. I have posted many of them in various entries about these countries, but found a few that I had not.

So, here is a couple from Kruger National Park in South Africa.

To start, I have to say that while all going through the park had digital wonder cameras with lenses that can capture the smile of a flea on a sleeping lion’s nose; I took with me my 1960s Mamiya 645 medium format camera and its 90mm lens. As a backup, I had a 1954 Canon L3 rangefinder 35mm camera which I enjoy using more than any Leica of the same era.

Ok, so we were in an open safari car looking for a leopard. Of course these magnificent animals hide in the tall trees, and even if our guide would spot a leopard, my lenses would take a photo of the tree only. All the wonder cameras with unlimited storage of pictures would win the photo shoot by zooming across a 100 or so meters.

We drove for a while without seeing a leopard. But we saw a tick-covered male lion sleeping at the side of the road:

And groups of gazelles filling the fields by the thousand:

Our guide told us that they call these gracious animals “Mc Donald Fast Food” for the lions…

We were about to finished our morning tour when a handsome male lion came out of the forest. He seemed oblivious to us and the two cars that made our caravan. He was a few meters behind our car when I took this photo

The slapping mirror sound of my Mamiya made our guide forbid me to use that camera! He was worried that the lion would be intrigued by the sound and jump into our totally open car… (Of course, I never understood why they cannot have cars with minimal protection for the passengers). So I used the Canon rangefinder for the next shots.

The male lion sniffed the air toward the forest from where he came out. Then a magnificent lioness appeared with that feline walk that would turn anyone’s head.

And it did. Very quickly, the lion and lioness engaged in an amorous tandem exercise just a few meters from our car (photo at the top of this entry). I have to admit that while it may not be unusual for them to do so, witnessing the king and queen of the jungle so intimately was a once in a lifetime experience for us, the humans sitting in an open car peeping on the love making of the strongest cats in the world!

… And then, as if to tease us pudic and prude humans who think of J.J Rousseau as being too close to nature, the content lioness laid on her side next to the king of the jungle for a short post-coital nap.

The look of the lion is almost anthropomorphic – it is kind, caring and proud!

So, as a street photographer this series does not fit into my portfolio, but I thought it captures a behavior many on the streets I have met across the globe would identify with.

And would give a high five to the Lion and Lioness!

I ended the day with a salute.

September 26, 2019

©Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019

A Lonesome Walk in a Desert Cemetery

 I woke up in the dark of the night from the smell of burning wood smoke. It is fire season in the desert and the dried brush catches fire quickly. I knew the fire was a few miles away, given the minimal smoke that had reached our house.  Yet, half-asleep, I was overwhelmed with the scent of burning cedar. Of course it was from the cedar/pine family trees and junipers that had been touched by the brush fire.

And in a short moment, I relived moments in churches and cemeteries where such incense was burned.

Then I went back to sleep.

Early in the morning, and perhaps directed by my sub-conscience, I decided to take my dog for a walk in a nearby cemetery. I also took with me my old 1969 Nikon F, knowing that taking any photo while walking a 50 kg two-year old Akita on a leash is near impossible, especially when one has to set the aperture, and focus holding the camera with both hands…

Here is the entrance of the cemetery, my camera, and the sneaking head of my dog behind the structure:

I was wondering how the gravesides were organized, kept or forgotten. The strong sun, the sand, the drought of the land do not allow for any plants, trees or grass. It is sand and rocks upon those who were remembered by a gravestone, a cross or a simple plate.

I wanted to capture some of these characteristics, hoping that I can stop my dog from chasing lizards so I have a split second to focus and click.

Many of the grave sites were affected by the passage of time, loneliness perhaps, and the winds full of sand. There also were large numbers of hoof prints in the cemetery attesting to the fact that peccary and deer had made this secluded space their own.

Here is one that had stood the passage of all elements and perhaps feelings. Angels still standing upright:

While a nearby plot had been taken over by Prickly Pear cactus, the most prolific type of cactus in the high desert:

I tried to not identify the names on the gravestones for privacy consideration. Some photos have partially recognizable inscriptions, though. Here is one where I found a cap upon the stone. The hat has been weathered and given the lack of water/rain and the very dry weather materials do not rot or decompose as in more temperate climates. So this cap could have been there for many years.

I came across, after being pulled by my dog that sniffed fresh tracks of deer, to a humble grave surrounded by small rocks that were painted. It was a personalized grave site, and the stones had faces and profiles of Native American young men.  This was the only grave site I saw there with such an arrangement.

Finally, the most intriguing were the sites where the names on the plate or erected stones were mostly unintelligible and the cross was broken, or more recently replaced by two pieces of wood tied en guise of a cross.

Here is one example

And another that had a haunting appearance when I printed the frame:

… My dog was panting from all the running around and pouncing upon lizards that he never caught up with. The sun was getting already hot and it was time to return.

As I was walking slowly next to him, I kept on wondering why the dead would have a grave if few get visited.

And, as if the lizards that escaped a big dog, I realized that graves are for the living, not the dead.

PS/ Since I only scan my prints from negative strips, any blurring of "special effects" have to be done during the printing under the enlarger. I use a 1960's simple enlarger that has a Leica 39 lens screw type. That means that any Leica type 39 mm lens will be adaptable to the enlarger, even if these are camera lenses and not enlarger lenses. The difference is that enlarger lenses are flat field, meaning there is no aberration in the corners of the photo when printed. Camera lenses are not flat field but the front lens is convex. This means that all kinds of aberrations can happen when printing a photo! And I like that surprise dimension as I may get flare, soft/off focus spots, and uneven light distribution.

Here is what I did to have these effects on the above photos: I used a 1960s Soviet camera lens, A Jupiter -3, as an enlarger lens. I never liked the unpredictability of this lens when used to take pictures, but sometimes it surprises me with its "creativity" while printing the negatives!

September 13, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019