Throwbackthursday

#throwbackthursday One of the many other gorgeous buildings at the Taj Mahal complex built by Shah Jehan in the city of Agra. Northern spring, 2005.

#throwbackthursday The world’s biggest surviving bird - and the world’s biggest surviving dinosaur - enjoying a dust bath after a long day of grumpy peckin’. @withoutaleaf and I went to Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in 2008, I think. A spectacular piece of Southern Africa. Until quite recently it was one of the only places in which the world’s oldest culture, the Bushman hunter-gatherers, could still practise their traditional way of life - until the Botswana government kicked them out.

Throwback to when Greeks ruled Asia Minor. Throwback to when Turkey was a democracy. Throwback to the dawn of the century.

#throwbackthursday in more ways than one. This is the skin of the lion that jumped Harry Wolhuter - a hunter turned The Kruger National Park’s first game ranger. The lions ambushed him and he was thrown from his horse. He came to being dragged by the shoulder between the animal’s legs. He reached for his knife, praying it hadn’t been thrown clear as it had on two previous occasions. It was there. He then had to awkwardly reach around with his left hand as the lion’s jaws had completely incapacitated his right arm. He stabbed the lion thrice where, as a hunter, he knew its heart to be. It grunted and released him. After an awful night tied up in a tree by his belt, he was rescued by his retinue and they tracked the blood trail to the lion’s body. The puncture wounds are clearly visible. On a visit to England he went to buy another of these knives. He told the guy at the counter that he’d killed a lion with one. The clerk said sarcastically, “Yes sir. Here we use them to kill sheep.

Throwback to winter 2017, photographing @johnthevudio photographing me. We went to photograph a storm kicking foam and spray up against the Seapoint sea wall. Fun using my Mamiya C220. Maybe one day I’ll even develop the film.