Pat and I haven’t been in the field much lately. There’s been plenty of post production and admin stuff to keep us busy and, of course, this is not really what turns me on at all!!!
We did have a couple of interesting happen though. The first occured a week or so ago when we happened to be in the Hides and Collectables of Africa curio shop here in Howick. We got chatting to the owner, Struan Gilson, and within a very short while we realized that between our images and his superb location near the Howick Falls (a very popular tourist attraction) we could be sitting on a gold mine. Well not really but you know what I mean. Anyway we had a couple of prints made (see below) on canvas – large – about 1, 5 metres across and we’ve hung them in the shop. There was an instant interest from his clients and here’s holding thumbs for the future…
The other thing we did, and this one was with friend and colleague Gerald Davie, was to visit the Indaba Tourism Expo that is held annually in Durban. The idea, in addition to looking for story ideas among the many and fascinating exhibitors, was to promote Gerald’s and my new business – Old Canvas Expeditions. But before we get onto Old Canvas, a bit about Indaba: Indaba is one of the largest tourism marketing events on the African calendar and indeed one of the top three “must visit” events of its kind on the world. Last year just over 12 500 visitors attended and we await the numbers to see how things were this year. We found it a very exciting experience and full of really positive, enthusiastic people all proud to be promoting their products. The picture below is of the stands and exhibitions in the International Convention Centre. There is another larger hall at the Durban Convention Centre and then a whole pile of open air exhibitions. A really exciting if tiring experience!
Old Canvas Expeditions came about after Gerald and his wife André, had been on one of our photographic workshops. A week or 2 after the workshop Pat, Gerald, André and I were doing some photography in a gorge in one of the local nature reserves. We were shooting every that we could see – flowers, leaves, waterfalls, rocks and anything else that sprang to mind when Gerald had one of those eureka moments. “Look”, he said, “the smallest dyke I’ve ever seen!” Dyke? An intrusion of dolerite into the sandstone it seems and what followed was a very interesting lecture into the structure and origins of the Umgeni River Valley. When it was all over we suggested that he start doing workshops, similar to our photographic ones. One thing lead to another and Old Canvas Expeditions was born, specialising in running workshops in and around Southern Africa. We’ve got a couple of really nice ones lined up, huge interest amongst the lodge owners and tour operators at Indaba. There’s more information to be had at www.oldcanvasexpeditions.com. Please let us know if you’re interested in any of the events.
We’re off to Hluhluwe iMfolozi Park in a few days time to do some more work with wild dogs so keep an eye on our blog for the latest updates.
Beautiful elephant photograph! Reminds me a bit of work by my most favourite photographer of all time, Caroline Gibello (www.galleriagibello.com). She also has an eye for capturing elephants at their most majestic. Neil