Extreme Makeover – Mosque Edition
Mali
Ty Pennington, eat your heart out!
This week I didn’t expect to be back in Africa, especially not Mali, the country Abbie has been calling home for the last 3 weeks, but thanks to a small political situation caused by a disagreement over the ingredients of this locality’s fabled mud plaster I am currently in the 45 degree desert heat of Djenné, Mali’s fabled city of mud. Yesterday was the annual replastering of the great mosque, a fantastic building rising majestically above the city’s rooftops and constructed completely out of mud and palm wood. Djennéans travel from far and wide each year to make their pilgrimage back home to lend a hand to the renovation work, on a day when the whole city comes out in force to participate in this town’s extraordinary mud festival.
Now I’ve had my fair share of muddy festival experiences… I grew up in England after all, a country for whom no summer cultural experience would be complete without at least one soggy visit to a recital of One way by The Levellers, knee deep in a west country quagmire. However, never before have I been lured to an event specifically as a result of its muddy credentials, not least when your job involves carrying an array of expensive polished glass lenses with you at all times.
Needless to say, I love what I do and I am definitely the kind of person who likes to immerse myself in the places I visit so I wasn’t about to make this trip to Djenne an exception…
If you play with fire...
This morning, the rising sun revealed the beautiful extent of the previous day’s efforts. Now, with all our equipment cleaned and packed and the rest of the crew on their way back to Bamako, cameraman Robin and I are ready to head north to Dogon country to meet up with another Human Planet crew in search of the first rains of the year and hopefully a little respite from the relentless heat of the Sahel.
You make me feel brand new
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Interested in more stories from Mali? Try HERE
TASEARCHMALI
They Call it Mellow Yellow
Photographer Abbie Trayler-Smith in Mali
Can't talk right now, I'm in a meeting
“Abbie, would you mind going to the Sahel for 3 weeks to hang out with elephants and Tuareg warriors? Oh and you can’t wash or the elephants will smell you. It shouldn’t be too hot, only 43 degrees in the shade and watch out for the camel spiders and scorpions….”
I have to admit, I was a little nervous of what lay in store, but there’s something about this place that penetrates your soul, leaving an imprint far larger than you may have first acknowledged, that blossoms into a feeling of peace and the realization of what it really means to be a human. I am at Banzena, a fast shrinking lake south of Timbuktu, and after 8 months of no rain, everything is thirsty. Including us.
“A dark wind is coming” says El Mehdi, our local Tuareg elephant expert and as I turn around the sky is literally coming at us. Within minutes we are lost in a sea of dust, the world has morphed into an orange, hazy whirlwind and I feel as if I’ve just been transported onto the set of a science fiction movie.
At that precise moment I realize I am falling in love with the desert… and everything it represents. The raw ebb and flow of nature and how this has such a soothing effect on our bodies and souls in spite of the harshness of the environment. I can feel the grit being swept in into my ears and up my nose, and I’m frantically ripping off my turban and wrapping it round my camera.
The air clears, but my excitement remains, and I’m grinning from ear to ear, at which point Cecilia, our director on this sequence, starts giggling at all the orange dust stuck to my teeth. Luca, our cook has a new sand-blasted tan.
You know when you've been Tango'd
This special place is a refuge for the elephants of the Sahel, now numbering only 200. Banzena lake is one of the last stops on their migration route before the rains come in a few weeks time. In the 2 weeks since we’ve been here, we have watched, almost in real time, the lake shrinking before our eyes. Watching the effects of climate change first hand is something of a shock. Not just to me and the crew who would have given anything for a drink cooler than tepid, but to the thousands of cattle who cross the desert from their pasture to come to drink, and the herders who need donkeys to carry their water supply through the many mirages that we can see. And of course the elephants, who rely on this dying watering hole to sustain their existence.
Later on, as I am showering beind a thornbush in the moonlight with half a bucket of water and a cup, trying not to step on the fresh elephant dung as my body vibrates to the sounds of a rumbling herd nearby, I’m struck by what an amazing planet we live on, how lucky I am to be here and whether I really will be telling my grandchildren stories of the last of the Sahelian elephants.
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Interested in more stories from Mali? Try HERE
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Sisters’ Meal Festival
The story behind the image
Canon 5D, 85mm f1.2 lens, 1/320th sec @ f2.2, ISO 160
A lot of people have been asking me about this image, a cropped version of which appears on the masthead of this blog, so here’s the story of how it came about. I shot this photograph in 2007 whilst on a 2 month tour of south west China. It was taken on the last day of the yearly Sisters’ meal festival of the Miao people of Guizhou Province. The Miao are a beautiful highland dwelling tribe with a strong tradition of silver jewellery making and embroidery and this festival is one chance for the women of the tribe to show off their fantastic traditional dress. In particular, it is a time for the young single ladies of the tribe to get pro-active and attract a suitable partner and as such, the four days of the festival involve a series of elaborate rituals and community dances specifically designed to encourage new relationships amongst the youth of the tribe, many of whom travel from outlying villages to take part in the gathering.
Much of Miao culture has evolved from the significance of rice in their daily lives and the Sisters’ Meal festival is no different. Throughout the festivities, young Miao men will give small parcels of multicoloured sticky rice to the ladies who they have their eyes on. As a sign to their prospective partner, a woman will bury a pair of chopsticks inside the rice and give it back as a symbolic acceptance of their advances. However, a single chopstick in the returned package denotes interest rather than full acceptance, while what every courting Miao male fears the most is receiving a chilli, which signifies a refusal.
If you are planning to visit this festival, my advice is to travel to Shidong in advance and stay there for a few days. The festival happens at a number of locations around the area but Shidong, with its beautiful location on the banks of a river, was the most authentic in my experience. The majority of the handful of foreigners I met there had just come for the day and, in my opinion, missed some of the best aspects of the festival. It is possible to find many enchanting pictures if you get up early and walk around the nearby villages visiting families in their homes as they prepare for the festival. The Miao are a very friendly bunch and I was invited in to countless houses to share food and see the ladies getting ready. Proud people like the Miao are a joy to photograph because they love to show off their colourful culture to visitors.
If you want to shoot a picture like this you will need a fast prime lens, preferable f1.8 or less. If you don’t have any primes, I would suggest you go out tomorrow and buy yourself a second hand 50mm f1.8. It might just change your life. They are incredibly cheap and will open up a whole new world of photographic opportunities that may have previously eluded you, especially in low light situations where you will be able to shoot in places you probably never dreamed possible with your f4.5-5.6 zoom lens. Additionally, using a fixed lens will train you to focus on the specific area around you at that lens’s particular focal length without being distracted by the barrage of potential opportunities that zoom lenses seem to offer the user. Pick your focal length, then move around to find the images that fit that lens and forget everything else. Remember that one of the best tools at your disposal with a fast lens is depth of field, so play around with it as much as possible by filling the frame with plenty of out of focus objects but don’t forget to use these points to lead the eye into the main focal point of the image which must be absolutely pin sharp, in this case the lady’s eyes and gaze.
Another shot of the dance taken from the rooftop of the village hall
As you can see from this wide image, the full scene reveals the fantastic photographic opportunities available at that dance. With so many beautiful women in amazing costumes there was plenty of time and opportunity to find a striking image.
Famous for 15 Minutes
Brazil
The quiet before the storm
Arriving at a sleepy southern Brazilian beach 5 days ago, none of our team could have predicted the scenes that would be surrounding us today. Back then, the area around our hotel resembled the opening scene of 28 Days Later due to fact that we have chosen to come here in Brazil’s winter season when the city’s population shrinks dramatically in the absence of its seasonal inhabitants.
Over the last few days we’ve all got very used to the quiet life here on our secluded cove, especially the 20 minute walk to work from our hotel . On our journey down the mile long deserted coastline we are accompanied only by the odd jogger and the beach’s resident population of turkey vultures which congregates here at first light in order to siphon off the last night’s bounty of carrion, washed ashore as the city slept.
Well, today that all changed. We came here to film the local fishermen. What we weren’t banking on was the fact that we ourselves might end up becoming the subject of inquistive cameras as word got out and the might of Brazil’s media descended upon our lonely beach to see what a BBC TV crew were doing in the area.
Needless to say, when you spend your life pointing cameras at people for a living, it’s only fair that you get as good as you give, so Director Tom and Rachael, our researcher, were happy to step up to the podium, taking turns to speak to the myriad of assembled reporters…
Tom talks to Teleglobal TV..
.. and UNISOL TV..
.. and poses for the local paper
Rachael graces Bandeirantes TV..
.. and the city's official website..
.. and a fan's dubious home video
Cameraman Justin on the other hand, had to put his foot down in the end and point blank refused to talk to Canine Monthly…
No comment
***
This particular Human Planet shoot has demanded that I spend a fair bit of my time attempting to take pictures of dolphins breaching the ocean’s surface. It’s not something I’ve ever spent much time doing, but it has subsequently become a fascinating and quite addictive pastime. As an ode to my newest hobby, here is a clip of what for me still remains the most astonishing sequence ever recorded of an animal breaching at sea… Simon King shooting with a high speed camera for BBC’s Planet Earth in South Africa…
I think I must have watched this clip over fifty times since I first saw the original film… and it still gives me goose bumps. Combined with its ethereal soundtrack the images elicit such a graceful yet dramatic melange of emotions inside. A flawless exemplification of the bitter-sweet beauty of mother nature. Truly astounding.
Bye Bye Bayaka
Central African Republic
But soft! What light through yonder jungle breaks?
It’s the end of our time with the Bayaka and tomorrow we’ll be heading off to Cameroon and then home sweet home to the UK, but before I go I thought I’d leave you with one more picture from our Bayaka jungle home. That’s Mongonjay with his wife and child standing outside their hut, safe and sound after our honey gathering adventure.
The next destination on our journey will be Brazil where we’ll be meeting some local fisherman who have an amazing way of landing their prey. Also, I am pleased to announce that we have a new photographer on board our team. Abbie Trayler-Smith will be spending the next 4 weeks in the deserts of Mali covering two fantastic stories for Human Planet and she’ll be posting her own blog entries here so look out for those in the not too distant future.
Até encontrar novamente no Brasil!
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Interested in more stories from the Central African Republic? Try HERE
TASEARCHCAR
Meditation
The story behind the image
Canon 5D, 300mm, 1/250 @ f5.6, ISO 1250
I shot this picture a couple of years ago whilst on a 4 week trip through the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan. Bhutan can be a complicated country in which to travel since, as a visitor you are required to take a guided tour as your means of travel through the kingdom. Of course, nothing is ever set in stone and it wasn’t too long after meeting my guide and driver that we agreed to modify our pre-planned itinerary and tread a rather less travelled path through this fantastic country by visiting Bhutanese people in their own homes.
This image was one of the first photos I took in Bhutan, and still one of my favourites. On my first day in Thimpu, Bhutan’s sleepy capital city, I asked my guide to take me to visit his relatives and on the way we passed an old friend of the family slowly trudging his way up a road quietly chanting and spinning his prayer wheel. That day it was Neowney, a week long religious duty of mantra chanting and fasting that most of Thimpu’s elderly citizens were taking part in at the time. The family friend agreed for us to come with him and we followed him up to Changangkha Lhakhang temple.
As a first introduction to Bhutan, I think you would struggle to find a more atmospherically charged scene than a room full of meditating people lit only by two small doorways at the front left and right sides of the room. Needless to say, this image was one of an abundance of photographic gifts being offered at that time. Every face in the room told a different story, but it was this lady, quietly sitting at the front in deep meditation who stole the show for me. Later on in the day, outside the temple we showed her the image on my laptop. In that beautiful way that only wise old Buddhists know how, she smiled and carried on about her duties at the temple, unimpressed.
Taking a photograph like this is not hard at all. The only prerequisites are a darkish background and a suitable light source emanating from only one direction, in this case an open door. One thing you must be sure of is to remember to meter for just the highlights that you can see. This will involve shooting with your camera set to manual and adjusting your exposure accordingly, something I would advise you to get into the habit of doing at all times if you are serious about your photography. By exposing for just the highlights on the woman’s face, the rest of the dimly lit background disappears into complete darkness.
Another frame from the same scene. The lady is now bottom left, looking away from camera
As you can see from this second frame. There was no shortage of images in the room on that day. For me though, the tight framing of the lady gives the first image a greater sense of the intimacy of a quiet moment such as meditation.
Honey Honey, How You Thrill Me
Central African Republic
When sugar cravings get out of control
When I was a child I spent quite a lot of time up a certain willow tree in our family’s back garden. There’s a particular kind of comforting solitude that can only be found up a tree. I think it has something to do with the fact that as you sit there, you can’t help feeling like you are being cradled in the arms of an immense and loving creature.
Today, unfortunately, the reassuring support of a solid branch under my backside was somewhat lacking as I found myself hanging, for the second consecutive day, from a rope 30 metres up in a tree waiting for a man to collect some honey from a bees’ nest. Learning to trust a rope has been a slow and thus far incomplete process for me. A few months ago I had my first experience of canopy rope work during a week long course with my BBC colleagues at Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire, UK during which I was reminded once again of the fundamental truth that I am afraid of heights. This vertigo is something that has for me revealed itself in later life along with an emergent fear of flying, something which when analysed statistically, is completely irrational. During that course, I asked climbing expert Ben, one of our instructors, whether he got nervous high in the trees and to my surprise he said that he did. Especially if he hadn’t been climbing for a little while.
So it seems that a fear of heights is both healthy and normal. In the jungle today, however, I’m not so sure my fear was of the height per se, but rather just another manifestation of my distrust of ropes, something that completely baffles me since I know for a fact that I stand more chance of being struck by lightning twice in the same day than of falling foul to a breaking climbing rope. Well, our Bayaka honey gatherer Mongonjay put my worries swiftly into context when he arrived beneath me on the trunk presenting me with a rather startling reality check. His relaxed demeanour defied the small fact that he was perched there supported by only a length of liana about an inch and a half in diameter. On top of that, said liana was actually fraying from the friction burns it had received on his slow journey up the trunk.
Health & safety officers... look away now
If climbing a very tall tree to get your sugar fix wasn’t enough in itself, then battling with angry bees hell bent on stopping you from achieving your goal might tip the balance for most of us mere mortals. Not so for our Bayaka friends. A smokey fire is set alight at the bottom of the tree, and upon nearing the ambrosial bounty, the fire is wrapped in wet leaves and couriered up to the top of the tree by attaching it to the end of the liana wrapped around the climber’s waist.
Imagine the scenario if you will… You are 100 ft up a tree surrounded by angry bees. Your only means of support is a solid foothold and an organic harness wrapped around yourself and the tree. Now a bundle of burning leaves has been attached to the end of the one thing keeping you from plummeting to earth and certain death.
Spare a thought for Mongonjay the next time you pull a jar of honey from the supermarket shelf.
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Interested in more stories from the Central African Republic? Try HERE
TASEARCHCAR
Amongst the Forest Spirits
Central African Republic
Welcome to my world
Often, when people seek out jungle dwelling tribes to photograph, the reality of their experience in the field doesn’t quite live up to the expectation they may have initially brought with them en route to their destination. It’s 2009 after all, and the heyday of those kind of cultural expeditions has passed with the changing times, the images now most commonly to be found residing in the pages of old National Geographic magazines piled up on dusty shelves in second hand shops.
This fact of 20th century tribal life is something I’m quite accustomed to encountering on my travels. When recording visual records of indigenous cultures and traditions it is very often necessary to rely on a rather less veritable version of events, as a tourist would when, say taking a picture of a Beefeater at the Tower of London – a pretty photo opportunity no doubt, but which nevertheless bears little or no relationship to the reality of contemporary London culture.
In this respect, the Bayaka have been a veritable breath of fresh air. As a few of our crew have already mentioned, this community we are now sharing the forest with are like the tribe you would probably imagine if you were asked to describe the archetypal jungle people. There’s no doubt we’ve all very much fallen under their enchanting spell in a setting where not a day goes by without something extremely unusual happening. This is the place where a simple trip to the river to wash turns into an incredible water drumming concert, where leaf spirits randomly jump out of the forest in broad daylight to drop off a dead deer in the village as a gift and where every evening, bar only one so far, after the women call with their enchanting yodelling, a plethora of luminescent forest beings come and dance amongst us in the pitch black of night, making psychedelic shapes and sending will-o-the-wisp balls of light flying over our heads.
Welcome to Bayaka world… and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We have come here to film men who scale 40m trees with just a short length of liana as a makeshift harness. They do so in order to collect the prized jungle honey found in the nests of stinging bees way up in the canopy. Tomorrow will be our first day up in the trees to see how they do it. To say I’m a little apprehensive is an understatement. Everyone in our team is already getting stung between 10 and 20 times a day by the bees in camp, and we haven’t even approached a nest yet.
Pass the soap when you're done
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Interested in more stories from the Central African Republic? Try HERE
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Welcome to the Jungle
Central African Republic
Rachael catches some shut-eye on the flight into C.A.R.
Arriving in the 30 degree heat of Cameroon yesterday was a sensational change from the biting winds of Mongolia. In fact, if you’d have asked me last week to describe the complete antithesis of Gobi desert calm, then the heaving sweaty crowds of Douala airport baggage reclaim would have borne an uncanny similarity to my forthcoming suggestion. Add to that an untimely electricity blackout the precise moment our 46 bags began emerging on the baggage conveyor belt and you have yet another fantastic welcome to the next country in Human Planet’s relentless agenda.
Cameroon was to be but a brief encounter. We travelled here in order to connect with a Dornier 228 fixed wing plane that we chartered to fly into the Central African Republic this morning. It all seems like a dream to me now as I sit typing this, accompanied by the gentle honk of a nearby hornbill and a cool breeze on my face. After flying over continuous jungle for 2 hours we are now finally in its midst. Staying one night here in a lodge by the banks of the river Sangha before moving onto our jungle camp tomorrow and an exciting chance to spend a couple of weeks with the pygmy Bayaka tribe.
I've heard the spiders are THIS big !
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Interested in more stories from the Central African Republic? Try HERE
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The Storm That Never Came
Mongolia
Turned out alright after all
Good news for Mongolians today. A terrible snow storm that has been threatening to bring the whole country to a standstill never appeared as forecast by experts. Good news for me too. Now the sun is out, planes are flying and I am currently sprawled across three Aeroflot seats at 37 000 ft looking forward to a couple of days of rest back home before heading off to The Central African Republic.
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Interested in more stories from Mongolia? Try HERE
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Life Between the Rushes
Mongolia
Far from the madding crowd
After spending a little time in rural Mongolia you will soon realise that the pace of life in this enchanting place is beautifully slow and serene. Offering up this aspect of the human condition to the viewing public is a very hard thing to do in both photography and film because our media has evolved in such a way that we expect to see drama, action and purpose in our films and printed media. Normal, so-called mundane life is often ignored at the expense of the superlative. One film I recall that brilliantly encapsulates the essence of what I’m talking about is the Korean masterpiece Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter And Spring by Ki-Duk Kim which follows the sublime life of an old monk and his young apprentice as they live through the seasons on a temple floating in the middle of an isolated lake.
Intimate films about quiet lives rarely reach out to large audiences and it is an ever-present dilemma for the documentary maker to compromise this element of story telling for the sake of the wider following. Both ways have equal merit in my opinion, but the unremarkable (to some), more personal approach is often represented considerably less within the world’s media.
With this in mind, today I decided to train my camera on a very simple and unexceptional situation at the home of our adoptive Mongolian family and film a candid conversation for 5 minutes to see if it would offer up a different insight into the life that is lived here ‘in between the rushes’ so to speak.
I have called this clip ‘The Thick Brown Thread’ because the conversation revolves around things pertaining to sewing in a very ordinary but extremely funny way.
To give you a little background on the situation, we were staying with this lovely nomadic family of camel and cashmere goat herders at their remote winter farm (pictured above) in order to document the birth of a new camel. As you will see, the pregnant camel we were waiting on was long overdue and nobody knew why. The ensuing discussion prompts an intriguing story of an unfortunate incident with a goat and a comb…
Here’s the clip.
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Interested in more stories from Mongolia? Try HERE
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What’s in a Camp?
Mongolia
Does anyone want anything from the corner shop?
Just in case you were wondering, here’s a little glimpse inside a base camp on a Human Planet shoot. As you can see we have 3 gers (a Mongolian tent) between our team of nine – Director, fixer, cameraman, sound, cook, guide, 2 drivers and me. Right to left we have the kitchen ger, the equipment ger and the sleeping ger. The toilet is a hole in the ground just round the corner out of view. The camels were just passing by..
The kitchen ger:
The kitchen ger also doubles up as the translation suite since it has a table, and this means that Togi, our cook must also multitask. Here we see Karina and Togi hard at work filing transcripts of film dialogue. In the evening after dinner, this table becomes the Scrabble table at which point Togi performs miracles such as attaching QUIZES to XYLOPHONE on a triple word score, humiliating all of us native English speakers in the process.
The equipment ger:
On first inspection, you may think you’ve walked into a Pelican Case showroom. Apart from the odd renegade box, we’ve probably got the complete range in here including all the colours. Nothing to do with any lucrative sponsorship deals or such like, they just happen to be the best things for transporting delicate equipment to harsh environments. Apart from all the boxes, the only other thing you’ll ever find in here is Terry, the 2nd camera/sound man. He likes to while away his time here cursing at the small black boxes of flashing lights.
The sleeping ger:
At night with everyone sleeping head to toe around the circumference of the ger like a snoring daisy chain, the temperature drops rapidly after the lights go out and the fire subsides. In fact, this morning after waking up with everything inside frozen, including my contact lenses in their case, my two Canon LC-E6E battery chargers didn’t work. So just in case you ever find yourself in a similar situation, don’t worry… a couple of minutes next to the stove and they’ll kick into action again.
The toilet:
A place we go to ‘check on the horses’ as the Mongolians say.
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Interested in more stories from Mongolia? Try HERE
TASEARCHMONGOLIA
The Perils of Filming in the Desert
Mongolia
Lets take a look over there!
Filming in the Gobi Desert is an unpredictable science as our cameraman Terry discovered to his misfortune today. What for him began as a serene day of filming the scavenger wildlife attracted by a nearby camel carcass, ended up as race against the clock to reach poor Terry as both he and his camouflage hide were battered for over 2 hours by gale force winds and swirling sand. Thankfully Terry was carrying his BBC satellite phone with him and he managed to get a message to our team a few hours drive away to come and rescue him. This in itself turned into a small expedition thanks to the sandstorm, which had created a lovely new dune directly across the path of the only thoroughfare we knew of through the mountains of sand. The resultant rescue mission has a certain comedic element to it.
Here is the last picture taken of our Tel before we left him in the morning with a packed lunch happily filming from his protective tent.
Photo Copyright: Karina Moreton
Watch here to see the scene we returned to in the late afternoon after we responded to his emergency call…
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Interested in more stories from Mongolia? Try HERE
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Absolutely Amazing!
Mongolia
The Gobi - Is this place for real?
Today was a great day.
This morning I got up. Had breakfast. Brushed my teeth. Picked up my cameras, and then rode across a snowy Gobi Desert on a camel. Today just entered my top five best days of traveling.
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Interested in more stories from Mongolia? Try HERE
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A Footprint in the Sand
Mongolia
Will they miss me when I'm gone ?
When it comes to places that inspire quiet introspection, the Gobi desert has got to be one of the best spots in the world to sit silently, soak up the majesty of Mother Nature and reflect upon life, the universe and nothing in particular. Living, as I am now within the shadow of giant tidal wave-like sand dunes, it’s hard to ignore the truth that the world, like the dune beside me, is in a continual state of change. Because I travel and photograph people for a living, I am often asked if I am concerned that so much indigenous culture is disappearing from our planet at this time in history. The truth is, I am not. Just as the waves of these spectacular dunes ebb and flow with time, for me, so it is with the journey of everything coexisting on our planet. Civilisations, species, environments – we’re all at the mercy of the forces that propel life. It’s easy to forget that the world was once populated by a magnificent race of giant reptiles whose residency spanned many million times that of our own but whose legacy now to the planet can only be found filed away in the fossil record and indeed within the very grains of sand beneath my feet.
I think that we as humans love to believe that we can stop things from changing. We seem to devote large amounts of time and energy trying to preserve things the way they are. I reckon I’m with the dune on this one.
When we are all long gone from the Earth and she is entertaining new guests at the table of life, I wonder if they will lament the loss of the human species. Probably not. Possibly a little, with the affection that we afford the dinosaurs, but definitely, I expect they’ll be raising a glass to the fantastic resilience of life and its continued prosperity.
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Interested in more stories from Mongolia? Try HERE
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Breaking the ice
Photographer Kieran Doherty in Canada
In February and March each year, Canada’s capital city Ottawa, in partnership with the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority, undertakes ice breaking and clearing operations along the Rideau River between Rideau Falls and Hogs Back. This allows water to flow unrestricted and it alleviates potential spring flooding in flood-prone areas. So together with Human Planet Rivers team director Ciaran Flannery, technical wizard Patrick Murray and cinematographer Gerry Dawson, we set out to document this amazing spectacle. We first met the men who operate the Amphibex, which is pretty much a JCB that floats on water. This machine can dredge, gouge and crush anything on water and it was tasked with breaking the ice at the bottom of the falls so that when the controlled explosions further up the river take place, the avalanche of ice that is carried down stream actually has somewhere to go.
The ice men cometh
At the base of the falls is the Ottawa river here the ice is around 3 meters deep . The idea was for the Amphibex to clear away the ice from here but today it broke down. Tomorrow, the explosives will be set on the Rideau river at the top of the falls, and seven miles of ice will come crashing through the opened sluice gates, piling on top of the ice you can see here. In previous years this has resulted in a mountain of ice piling up as high as the falls themselves and stretching out 500 yards across the river. 2010 however, is unique. Ice dam workers have never experienced such high temperatures at this time of year. The Ottawa river ice is melting and opening up very quickly, which means the residue ice coming over the falls should clear very quickly.
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A 50 foot crane arm was used for this picture that gives an overview of the Rideau river dam as it meets the Ottawa river. The crane was manually operated with incredible dexterity by Brad Irwin and Tyler Frysby who were able to place the remotely operated camera attached to the end of it to within an inch of where specialist remote (hothead)…that is technical terminology…. operator Brian Morris wanted it. I decided to attach a stills camera with a manual 24mm lens onto the end of the arm. Using a pre focused manual exposure with the Nikon intervalometer, I was able to set the camera to shoot one frame every five seconds. Brian was able to view everything his camera could see via his monitor. We would line up the shot director Ciaran Flannery wanted and I would then mirror my camera angle to the hothead camera angle and away we went. It’s important to remember here that the film takes priority over any stills, so to have these three pros allow me the freedom I had was really exceptional. Although it was pretty much a hit and miss affair for my stills, I came away with some shots that are just physically impossible to achieve any other way. A huge thank you to Brian, Brad and Tyler for their patience in helping the crew achieve some truly stunning footage.
The next stage of the process after channels have been cut in the ice, is to drill holes for the explosives. Sticks of dynamite that really do resemble the Acme ones we used to see the Wily Coyote use to no avail against the Roadrunner, are then strategically dropped through the holes into the river to maximum effect. Fortunately these experts have far more success than the hapless coyote.
However this visual feast of amphibexes carving out flow channels in the Ottawa river, buzz saws cutting 50 metre blast channels, dynamite, explosions and mountains of ice flowing downstream just doesn’t happen by itself. It requires a dedicated team to pull this off. They are a handful of city of Ottawa workers who are each specialists not only in their knowledge of the flowing water of both the Ottawa and Rideau rivers, but in ice dams, heavy duty machine cutting, dynamite explosives and above all, safety. These men take to the ice every year and are passionate about the job that they do. In temperatures as cold as -20 these men will be out on the ice doing what they do best. You could almost say that it is a labour of love.
Who else would be working, let alone under such conditions, while the remaining 26 million Canadians were witnessing their Ice Hockey team making history at the Olympics in Vancouver? The camaraderie and sense of humour these men share is infectious. They keep each other entertained on the ice but never once will their focus waver during this dangerous job. They do all this and readily accommodate a demanding BBC film crew? It is consummate Canadian professionalism at its finest.
... with glowing hearts
Practical Alchemy in the Arctic
Greenland
Strange things happen when it's -35°C
We’ve all heard our fair share of urban myths. Whether we ever get to test the authenticity of them is another thing, but I’m a firm believer that if you are presented with an opportunity to do so, you can enrich your life no end. Obviously I share this belief with the producers of ‘Myth Busters’ who have made quite a good business out of it. Anyway, it is said that some people live in places that are so cold that if you throw a cup of boiling water into the air, it will freeze before it hits the ground. Living, as I do in a temperate country, the busting of this particular myth had eluded me until now.
Whilst waiting for a connecting flight in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, Assistant Producer Willow, Director Nick and myself decided to pop outside into the -35°C cold and try a little experiment. Here’s what we discovered…
(Please excuse my manic laughing, the cold had quite obviously got to my head)
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Interested in more stories from Greenland? Try HERE
TASEARCHGREENLAND
Pink Snow and Blue Icebergs
Greenland
Waiting for the sun that never rises
Greenland. Oh my God! What an amazing and extreme place. This was the first time that I have ever been to the Arctic. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting. Cold? Yes of course, but I don’t think anything can quite prepare you for the astonishing panoramas that hide quietly around every frozen corner. A winter north of the Arctic circle is no place for sun worshippers. Daily life is lived amidst a magical pink twilight that leaves you feeling like each day never really starts. For a photographer it’s a dream. I mean, you get to see colours you never knew existed in the natural world and you only have to work a 3 hour day. The only draw back is the cold. Like having to gulp down your morning cup of tea before it freezes in your mug, or watching in horror as your camera shuts down as vital pieces of rubber freeze and snap in half. Both happened to me on this shoot. But hey, who cares? You’re in the Arctic surrounded by huskies and blue icebergs! It’s a small price to pay.
Excuse me. Is this the queue for the ice cream van?
. . .
Interested in more stories from Greenland? Try HERE
TASEARCHGREENLAND
A Short Film Shot With My New Camera
Niger
Last year I was lucky enough to receive one of the first new Canon 5D mark II cameras when they came out. Niger was to be the trial run for this new SLR which also shoots high definition film, something I am very excited about. With the help of BBC cameraman Toby Strong and a random gathering of women that we met in the desert, we experimented with its filming and photography capabilities. Here is the result…
A big thank you to Jasper Montana from our BBC team in Bristol who edited the movie at very short notice from our extremely minimal and experimental rushes!
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Interested in more stories from Niger? Try HERE
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A New Camera But No Clothes
Niger
Colourful dress in the desert
My time in Niger didn’t start as planned. After 4 days travelling from Ethiopia, via London to pick up a new camera, I arrived in the capital Niamey with some new bags under my eyes. Unfortunately, they were the only personal bags I’d be seeing for a few weeks since my luggage never made it with me to Africa. Experience has taught me always to carry my cameras as hand luggage, so it was a minor setback. My schedule for rendezvousing with the rest of the team near Lake Chad was very tight, so there was no time to wait for the next flight to arrive. It wasn’t all bad news though – in Lost luggage I discovered a bag belonging to our cameraman Toby, which had been sitting there for 3 weeks whilst he had been travelling across the Sahara on another shoot. The same thing had happened to him as it turned out, so I acted as courier and took it with me on the 2 day journey to hook up with him and the rest of the crew in the east. By the time I arrived at our meeting point I was definitely ready for a change of clothes. My salvation came in the form of Cecilia, our producer, accompanied by our all knowing fixer who whisked me off to the local market where we managed to commandeer 2 lovely new outfits which would end up lasting me my entire time in the desert.
Well what did you expect? Jeans and a T-shirt?
When in Rome...
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Interested in more stories from Niger? Try HERE
TASEARCHNIGER
The Joys of Camping
Ethiopia
A room with a view
Traveling to remote places involves a certain degree of hardiness on the part of our film crews. Isolated communities rarely possess the means to support large groups of outsiders and consequently, on these journeys, all of us are spending quite a bit of time under canvas. The mountains of Northern Ethiopia were one such place.
With so many of us now living in towns, it’s easy to forget that the natural world is our home. We can be forgiven for feeling separate from nature when all we can see around us are man-made things. The truth is we are not separate. We are nature. We are the human animal who just got very good at building a shell around ourselves within which we feel safe. There are a lot of unhappy people living in cities. I think I am one of them. In my case I reckon that this unhappiness arises from a detachment from nature. Maybe you are the same. There’s a simple way to find out. Go and gift yourself some quiet time alone with mother nature and see how you feel in the moment. If you’re anything like me, you might notice a beauty that can help put some of the more convoluted aspects of life into context.
Has anyone seen my copy of 'Hello' magazine?
. . .
Interested in more stories from Ethiopia? Try HERE
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Growing Up in the Mountains
Ethiopia
Watching over the herd
This, my second trip to Ethiopia for Human Planet was my most memorable experience thus far. The simple reason for this was the lovely people we met there. Our time was spent with a family in a very remote settlement, a long way from the nearest road, high in the mountains. For the most part the children of the family became our guides and allies in this harsh terrain and it was their story that we ended up telling.
One of them was a 5 year old girl called Maza.
Maza had three things she could call her own. Her blue dress, her necklace made from white string, and her green shawl that she slept under at night. Her days were spent looking after her little sister and herding the family’s goats around the mountains. At sunset, if she was too far from home she would sleep in a cave that she knew with the animals. I really enjoyed spending time with Maza. We chatted a lot. Neither of us understood the other’s words, but we laughed loads. One day I asked Zablon, our Amharic speaking fixer to ask her what her most favourite thing was that she did during the day. She said that when she knew the goats were safe, she loved to make toys from the soil. Sometimes she pretended she was making bread like her mother, and she enjoyed that the most.
I’ve never seen such an infectious smile as that possessed by Maza. Look out for her in the film. She’ll be the one skipping along the cliff edges laughing at the film crew.
My hand is more than 30 years older than Maza's
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Interested in more stories from Ethiopia? Try HERE
TASEARCHETHIOPIA
A Beach Holiday With a Difference
Spain
Some people will go to extreme lengths to find a quiet spot on the beach
After our time in Ethiopia, it was just a short trip down to Southern Europe to meet some Spanish coastal dwellers with a very unusual and highly dangerous job. Unfortunately I can’t tell you exactly what we were filming for fear of spoiling a surprise in the TV series. What I will tell you though, is that a day at the office for these guys involves repeated brushes with death. A regular 9 to 5 this most certainly isn’t.
One of the great things about working in the ‘Human Planet’ team, is the way in which we are all expected to totally immerse ourselves in the cultures that we are visiting. This is the only way by which we can bring back an intimate account of the amazing events we are witnessing. This trip to Spain was no exception.
How the hell did you get there Keith?
Remaining close to our Spanish friends was certainly a challenge on this shoot and it required us to venture into some rather extreme filming situations. There was a lot of dangling from ropes and climbing up cliff faces, as well as our fair share of extreme speed boat manoeuvres, one of the results of which can be seen in the above photo of our cameraman Keith, who was required to get himself and all his equipment onto this isolated rock in order to get the right angle on a shot. Basically, this involved waiting in a small power boat until the waves momentarily subsided, and then repeatedly driving the boat hard at the rock and putting the motor in reverse at the very last second as each man took turns to jump from boat to rock and vice versa. I can report back that no one was seriously hurt.
... and coming back
Going...
My Scar Tattoo
Ethiopia
It was September last year when we spent time filming with the Suri Tribe in Southern Ethiopia. Half a year on, and I still have one memory from my time there permanently imprinted in my mind. Well, on my body actually… and semi-permanently I think . Whilst we were there I had my shoulder scarred with a toxic plant to form a tattoo. Don’t ask me what the name of the plant was. All I remember is that it was a grass, which a local lady had stripped of its cuticle to reveal a white sap within. The strips of grass were then laid on my skin and left for 20 minutes while the poison scarred my arm. It didn’t hurt much. I will liken it to the aching feeling you get after you’ve had a series of injections in your upper arm. Sleeping on it at night was uncomfortable for a couple of nights too.
The scar immediately after the grass was removed from my arm
After 2 weeks the scabs had fallen off revealing a white imprint of the pattern the grass had made on my skin. The Suri told me that the scar would last a year. I think it probably will. Anyway, 6 months later this is what it looks like…
The scar 6 months later
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Interested in more stories from Ethiopia? Try HERE
