Return from the Kalahari

I got back from the Kalahari on Wednesday morning at 6am. We had an amazing time and I feel really privileged to have spent 6 days with a small group of Bushmen and women, in an area just east of Aranos near the Botswana border. This group represent the last few who are trying to preserve their way of life, whilst being forced to live in reservations and lose their nomadic way of life. They can teach us so much as to how to live in tune with nature and your neighbours.


We spent whole days in their company, watching them in their camp, learning their approach to healing and touch, walking in the bush foraging for food and useful herbs and fruits for eating and cures, seeing how they made bows and arrows and traps, storing water in ostrich shells, tracking animals and learning about their history and the pressures they are under from other tribes, government and modern life.

On two nights we joined them for traditional music and dance. The night vision feature of the Sony HDR-HC3E camcorder proved very effective as did all its features. What a piece of kit!!

So far I have only had time to process the still camers shots taken with the Sony whilst shooting the video part of my assignment, the results of which you can see in a slideshow.


I have just got back 12 rolls of processed film taken with the Leica M6 and will comment on that at my next blog entry. If you have any comments and questions so far - just add a comment.

Off to the Kalahari

As reported in a previous blog, I photographed Beata Aleksandrowicz of "Pure Massage" for a poster needed in relation to the opening of a branch in her business in Fenwick's of Bond Street W1. Last week, following a request by Beata who was in the process of developing an "African Massage", Beata chose to spend time with the Kalahari bushmen and learn some of their healing ways and absorb the rhythms of their lives so as to incorporate them in the new massage along with the sounds, light, smells, soils, plants, insects, animals, and herbs of that part of the world.

She then asked me to come along and photograph this journey of discovery and to make a video of it. I pondered long and hard for fully 4.5 seconds and said yes!

So armed with my Leica M6 and a pile of film and a new Sony HDR-HC3E camcorder we are going to spend six days with the bushmen based at a farm 30km East of Aranos, Namibia near the Botswana border.

Photo copied from "Hunting the Kalahari" website

I think it will be a once in a lifetime experience, with us even joining them for a hunting expedition. Once I get back I will put up a selection of the photos as a slideshow and once the video material has been processed hope it will make a great movie/documentary.

So watch this space!.