A day yesterday with long tall Jay. His kids were very kind and let us watch our Velvet Underground documentary as long as we were quiet. After my comical series of mishaps, I finally made it out to Noordhoek only by [smartphone taxi-service] but it was well worth it. The leafy hide of the peninsula is on display out there. And the spring clouds were fierce and judgemental.
Pity about the shadows. But a very rare picture of these two eccentric gents in the wild: Gareth and Marcus (with beard!). I’ve quoted Hunter Thompson with regard to Gareth before, but it goes for both of them: “Too strange to live. Too rare to die.
Sitting to ensure you don’t have a rare adverse reaction to the COVID vaccination at the Cape Town International Convention Centre - turned into a massive vaccination hall. Sadly, vaccination has slowed down a bit. At its peak this facility does thousands per day with friendly efficiency. It reminded me of a similar massive save by science. In the early 2000s, working for a tuberculosis organisation, I was fully expecting that great halls like this would be used as mass hospices for people dying from HIV/AIDS. At that point, millions of South Africans were being diagnosed, but there was no treatment available. The first antiretrovirals could only delay the disease - not stop it. But then a triple therapy was developed that thrashed the hell out of the lethal virus. Due to having a conspiracy theorist as president (sound familiar anyone) even that lifesaving treatment was denied to South Africans until 400,000 had died for no reason (at a conservative estimate). But once that maniac was deposed, health minister Aaron Motsoaledi rolled out the largest HIV treatment programme on Earth, saving literally millions and millions of South Africans. Like today, most of the work on developing those antiretrovirals was publicly funded research - paid for by taxpayers.
@withoutaleaf queueing for one of her many, many, COVID tests outside a studio in town. I’ve managed to avoid them altogether (by not having any need to interact in person and not having any major symptom scares) while she’s had dozens and dozens from having to work safely on set. There’s very little pandemic on my Instagram in general. I was mostly at home and then tended to point a lens at things that were a break from the pandemic. There’ll be no shortage of documentation of this strange, history-bending time. But it is good to have a few images that show the thing actually happening in your own life even if you don’t interact with it directly - as I’ve been very lucky not to have to do.
If this goon is in Langebaan, does that make him the #langebaanlagoon?
@goflow42 nearly stepped on this beautiful lady just outside the Geelbek restaurant in West Coast National Park as we were walking towards one of the bird hides. This is only the second time @withoutaleaf and I have seen one of these beautiful cats in the wild - they can be spotted anywhere between here and Iran. Caracals are expert bird-ambushers. They can leap to extraordinary heights to pull down birds trying to escape by flight. This one was only slightly bigger than a house cat, but full grown males are considerably larger. ...
The next morning, as soon as the sun was up, they started on their way, and soon saw a beautiful green glow in the sky just before them. “That must be the Emerald City,” said Dorothy.
Morning Trinket. Do people only still make black and white photographs to seem cool and sophisticated? The answer’s a little complicated. Knowing why you’d prefer a picture in black and white means you’ve spent a little time thinking about photography - which makes you a more ‘sophisticated’ appreciator of photographs. So then, in a sense, yes. But I can give you that ‘sophistication’ in not many words: Eliminating colour makes you more conscious of form, light and shadow, and detail. So, like any abstraction, it shows you things that that the full set of information may conceal. It helps you see the trees for the wood. ...
@withoutaleaf in her office with her colleagues, Mr. Crumb and Trinket, doing script timings.
#balconybirds No.4 The Cape Bulbul. Distinguishable from other Bulbuls (or Greenbuls, I should say. I think they’re all called Greenbulls now) by it’s white eye-ring. These are fun little birds. Busy as heck foraging about in small groups. In fact, about 30 minutes after taking this two sat up on the line and were being incredibly sweet - the one grooming the other’s neck in the golden light. Of course my battery would die then. And of course I’d find the other was uncharged…