Mon, August 30th, 2004 by this is diopter
Hi everyone! I'm Tom, (aka this is diopter) the newest addition to the people posting on the Photoblogs weblog. I've got a little story, followed by a question. Feel free to tell your own story!
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As an amateur photographer, and not a National Geographic Expert type of person, my own experience might sound weird, but I swear it happened!
I was in Uganda in June this year, to visit my parents, who were over there working at the time. I got to go on some really interesting wildlife trips while I was there, and one such trip occurred at the Kyambura Gorge, a sub-environment in the savannah-type landscape of the region - basically, the gorge is a subtropical rainforest, and anything from hippos, crocodiles, chimpanzees, and monkeys of various kinds can be found there. And lone bull elephants that have been rejected from their herds out on the savannah. And that's what my experience revolves around.
So there we were, in the Kyambura Gorge forest, and we stumbled across (and nearly into!) a very large and steaming pile of...um, crap. For the sake this story, we'll be polite and call it "dung". The local guide and wildlife / conservation expert we had with us (with his AK-47 strapped to his shoulder) informed us that it was elephant dung, and "would you care to see if we could track down the elephant, which was probably nearby?" Deciding that seeing an elephant up close was a once in a lifetime experience, we decided we'd see if we could find him. We set off, following some broken bushes and branches...and then we encountered some very large footprints. We were on the right track. We kept on going, the guide ahead of us, who suddenly froze, and slowly held up his hand, signaling us to stop. I was last in the line, my parents being behind the guide (it was only the 4 of us).
My parents started to wave at me and hiss at me, telling me to "look, look at the elephant, it's right there, look, look!!". But when I looked, I couldn't see it. And I moved, probably a bit too fast, trying to get my camera ready for a shot. And then, I saw this huge black shape move. It snapped its head and shook its trunk and the branches around him snapped loudly. "Don't mess with me, don't come anywhere near me", he seemed to be saying, "or I'll mow you down like you're not even there".
We'd almost had enough. Our guide had his rifle up, safety off, ready to shoot in case this behemoth of an elephant decided to charge these puny humans out of his space.
Then the elephant shook his head and stuck his ears out, and snorted. We'd all had enough, the guide mouthed at us to start moving out of the area, the guide himself coming last of all, ready to turn around and shoot the magnificent beast, and protect the tourists, not hesitating for a moment to put himself in danger. The elephant didn't pursue us. I don't think he'd even come close to that point; all he'd wanted to do was to scare us. Which he did. I was trembling. And I dropped my new, beloved camera. While unbroken, it just made me flip out even more. And he hell of it is, I didn't get a photo in. Except for the photo in my mind. And of course, this story. And for that, Mr. Elephant, I am truly grateful. But I'm also guilty. I don't think we'd be too happy if strange creatures came to our territory to stare at us.
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What's the riskiest situation you've found yourself in, while on the quest for a photo?
August 30th, 2004 at 2:20 pm
i stopped reading after "I was in Uganda in June this year..."
just joking, i'm just jealous. sounds like an amazing adventure.
i haven't had any situations quite that risky. however, when i was in paris in 1999 i was taking pictures on the upper level of the eiffel tower of the structure. i had a brilliant idea to get a shot of all the crowded people in the elevator, if you've been there you know how dangerous that is. so i pulled out my pentax and tried to get a shot above the crowd, and promptly got jabbed in the eye by a tall guy's elbow next to me! it was an accident, but i dropped my camera. luckily it didn't get destroyed. for about five minutes i feared it was trampled. the worst thing, besides a black eye for the rest of the trip, was that i didn't get the darn shot!
August 30th, 2004 at 2:51 pm
The worst thing is when the cam gets dropped and perhaps damaged! I should also have said in my own post that the camera wasn't damaged, but the aperture ring on the 70-300mm lens attached to it was! Luckily, it's not that expensive a lens, and it still works more or less as it should...at least I didn't get a black eye! I really hate those awkward questions about black eyes...
August 30th, 2004 at 3:40 pm
That is quite the shooting an elephant story! Which begs the question, "Was the elephant wearing my pajamas?"
August 30th, 2004 at 4:02 pm
The elephant was wearing a huge trunk with huge ears as accessories. And that's all I saw of him. Sorry I couldn't see if he was wearing any PJ's
August 30th, 2004 at 5:27 pm
As a photographer with a strong urge for photojournalism, many of my "riskiest" moments involve shooting protests or such and hearing, "This is an unlawful assembly and you are ordered to dispererse". I have no desire to get arrested for taking photos, but things tend to get really interesting once the dispersal order is announced:
http://www.shooter.net/index.php/war_protests_in_san_francisco_march_20th_2003/
August 30th, 2004 at 5:57 pm
It makes me so sad that that sentence is uttered in the US. In San Francisco, even...
August 30th, 2004 at 10:34 pm
What a wonderful story! The closest I get to going on safari is a trip to the local zoo. =)
I don't have anything nearly that amazing to tell, but in 1999 I had some friends visiting from Chicago. There were WTO rallies and protests (and later that day, a march) going on downtown and they wanted to go.
Unfortunately with the demise of my last harddrive I don't have any of the shots; but here's a site that will give you a good idea of what it was like: http://newmediaphoto.com/WTO.html
(teargas and rubber bullets and all). And this photographer's shots are much better than mine were!
August 31st, 2004 at 10:26 am
I was shooting a while back on the streets of downtown Pittsburgh and stumbled upon a homeless guy that I started chatting it up with and snapped a few images of...after taking some pictures he asked about my camera and told me he used to be really into taking pictures and he asked if he could snap a few pictures of me, I handed over my Nikon FM2 (I am way to trusting) and he started to check out the camera, and all the sudden he freakin' takes off and starts running like a bat out of hell...me, I staring running after him as if I was Jesse Owens. I finally catch up with him, he paused snapped a couple of shots of me and he hands over my camera as if nothing happened, said "thank you" and walked way.
It was the weirdest thing I have experienced.
It reminded me of something I say quite often, "I only run if I am chased" but I have since added to it, "I only run if I am chased or some freak is running away with my camera"
August 31st, 2004 at 10:49 am
Btezra, that's crazy. I would *completely* flip out if someone ran off with my camera. Nice to hear you got it back without much of a fuss, heh.
August 31st, 2004 at 4:48 pm
Btezra, that is awful. Like Brandon, I think I'd have flipped out and run fast enough probably qualify for the Olympic Games!
I'm glad you recovered the camera without damage or loss.