Missing all the magic

Summer 2011

Ishan Kilise was built by Georgians that kept a Christian island, surrounded by a Muslim crowd in the 7th century. It's still there, built high up, watching the beautiful view of Kackar Mountains, enjoying a privilege that we no longer have.

I was guiding in Turkey 5 good years. I have enjoyed the view of the Kackar Mountains and the bright white pillars of capadokia. I have enjoyed driving or hiking, swimming in the cold spring water everywhere and taking my groups to places that I just got to know with the help of our Turkish team. I have enjoyed learning about the great Ataturk and give a part of his legacy to visitors. I have enjoyed a hot burek from the bakery of Artvin, or fish served wrapped with vine leaves on the Kuprulu river. I love the view, I love the size and the beauty of it, but I mostly love the people and the Turkish hospitality.  I had never come across such hospitality anywhere else in the world.
Although I am sure it is still there, I know it shell never be the same for me. Working in a place is not like being a visitor. You get to know people along the route and can follow the changing of the seasons. The awakening of the mountains after the snow melts, the great flowers that are flowering higher in altitude as time goes, and the people preparing themselves for the winter. Collecting firewood, harvesting the crops, drying fruits everywhere they can. Like a huge nest of busy aunts, working hard but still having the time to smile and welcome travelers to drink a small hot cup of tea with them.

I heard blames coming from both sides in a very unfair way. I heard remarks said out of the situation that Israel and Turkey found themselves in. Some of the remarks were ignorant, some resist. But all was telling me one thing- it will take years to heal, if at all.

Some times while being in a situation you can't imagine it'll ever end. But when it does, you'd give much to return to a specific moment, to a simple thing that you use to have in your everyday life. To a morning walk in Rose valey before the day in Cappadokia is becoming  too hot, or a free afternoon in Ayder when the group is in the hot spring. To a conversation with my dear friend Mehmet, his broken English with my broken Turkish. To a drive with Shaban that knows the roads of Kackar better than anyone. To Lunch at Ibo when the Firtina strong current is taking over the conversation around the table and you can only listen and eat hot hot Muhlame, to a visit up in Ishan Killise that strikes you with the beauty of it. The small and the big things and the magic of it all.  

Lion's Print

Samburu, Kenya. July 2011

It was just another good hot morning in Masai Mara. Must have been somewhere around March of 1998. I went out with a friend on a footpath we use to walk quite often just outside of the Lodge he lived in and there was a Lion footprint in the fresh mud. We both came up with the idea to cast it with plaster and went to get some plaster to do it. We didn’t estimate the size well and mixed too little, we poured more, adding a new mix to the already dried plaster in the footprint. In short, we made what we call in Hebrew- BALAGAN, a total mess.

When waiting for it to dry we started to learn from out lesson and planed to make many more, but when lifting it- it was perfect. I still have it in my house, and that plastered lion print takes me right back to that hot morning in Masai Mara so many years ago.

Yes, we had tried to make more, I have a box full of them put away somewhere. Nothing came out like thiat first one.

While guiding groups in Africa I have little chance to play in the mud with plaster, though every good footprint brings up the wish, so occasionally I photograph them.

This Lion footprint was taken in Samburu- July 2011. Just looking at it made me think of the one I have at home and wondered if my friend that is still leaving in Mara had ever tried again to cast a good print.

This photograph is also the last one that was taken and stayed with me when my camera was stolen. A good Masai would say that as long as it was in the camera, the power of the Lion  protected it from being taken away.

No Image

Kenya. July 2011

I would have liked to put a very good photograph that I took above this post, but I am afraid it will be impossible. It is no longer  in my possession. I can still see it very clear though, so clear that if I had good drawing skills I would have been able to recover it perfectly.

I have arrived to Samburu R. in Kenya as a safari guide of a very nice group. On the first day I had asked every member of the group what would he like to see the most during the next 8 days safari. People came up with their wishes. Leopard, Cheetah, Giraffes, the big migration of Wildbeasts and Zebras that started to come into Masai Mara just that month.

For myself, I wished for the ultimate photograph. One of those that while clicking you already know that it is one of the best you ever took, one that holds the moment in a perfect way and can hand it well even to someone that wasn't there when you took it.

Our Second day in Samburu, while watching 4 Grevy's Zebras grazing I had that chance. From nowhere came a big male Zebra looking for his females. He run around them kicking and barking and took a sharp turn while facing our vehicle. There was a moment there that his striped body leaned to the side due to the sharp fast turn, clouds of dust came up from his fast run and his nostrils were wide open.  I could hear my own click and felt that my smile is from my head to toes. I was in the perfect position and was just playing with the settings of my camera to try something new. It was perfect and I knew it even before looking at it.  

For the next 2 days that this photograph was in my possession I was looking at it so many times that I can still see it in my eyes very clearly. I admired this photograph and felt that my mission was accomplished. I also had a growing fear of loosing it. Little did I know that my camera along with all my photographs in it was going to be stolen only 2 days later.
3 years I have traveled with this camera everywhere I went. I has became my traveling body until someone in Lake Naivasha Country Club has decided that he would be better off with it.

Theft is a strange thing.  Someone is going through your personal stuff, taking things that might mean money for him, but mean much more to you. As someone that can get sentimental even to hair band that had traveled with me somewhere special, yes I admit- I was very sentimental about this camera. It was a very big part of my life. And along with loosing it, I lost a week of photography and I lost my perfect photograph.

The next 2 days I spent between my group's activities and taking care of paper work. The management of Lake Naivasha Country Club was more worried about their reputation then about the well being of their client and made it an even bigger head ace.

I use to say that the most perfect shots are the ones stuck in your mind after having missed them. The ones you never took. Wrong setting, wrong position, battery died on you or you just didn't have it with you. We all know those frustrating moments so much that it seems like we are ever ready. But I can say now that the best shot might be one that you took perfectly, but will never be able to enjoy again.