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Africa
By Lorne Resnick
©Lorne Resnick - http://resnickfineart.com
Over the years I've had the pleasure of visiting and photographing many different countries throughout the world. To me traveling means making connections. Not just meeting and talking with the people I encounter, but actually bonding with them and their environment. My camera assists me in this effort by acting as a conduit - a catalyst. Through it I view a world filled with intimate details and limitless possibilities. An otherwise dull scene is suddenly transformed into thousand exciting images when viewed through the lens, all of which help paint a picture of the whole.
I enjoy the challenge of communicating my thoughts and feelings through the medium of photography. Among the art worlds, photographers are a unique lot in that we are forced to
deal with a finite medium-one which records people, places and events as they occur.
Because of this we are compelled to manipulate these images through the few variables at our disposal: shutter speed, aperture, exposure, lens focal length and composition. "B.D." (before digital) one of the most important decisions I made when creating an image is what type of film to shoot - color, B+W, tight grain, high grain, infrared, etc. Today we are fortunate to be blessed with a bewildering variety of digital options that leave much more of the visualization to the post processing.
On my first 12-month trip through Africa I chose to shoot infrared film in one of my camera bodies. This was my first visit and I wanted to record images from a different perspective. When I developed the film I was ecstatic with the results. The deep, rich tones of the shadows, stark glowing whites and large grain structure gave an otherworldly appearance to my photographs. Not only did they describe Africa as I had seen it, but as I actually felt it. Here were pictures that conveyed the raw splendor of wild places. Gazing at them I once again felt the wave of awe and respect that washed over me as I stood on towering sand dunes or in the midst of wind swept savannas.
During my last trip (actually a 3 week honeymoon) I was shooting all high resolution (8-16MP) images. For this trip I was interesting in trying to capture that grand majesty of the plains and animals, but this time in color. In the end I used Photoshop to give a slight otherworldly intense spin on the images. I have little interest in actually capturing things "as they are" but rather I want to capture things as I feel they are in a poetic sense. My general process in photoshop was very simple. I would duplicate the background layer and give it a slight blur (using one of several different blur options). From there I would change the blurred layer into multiply mode and then started working the images with curves, saturation, selective color and levels layers. Often I would paint through one layer to another until I was satisfied with the final results.
The use of digital gives me the option to capture places like Africa not as I (or others) see it, but as my heart and soul see it.
The ability to visualize what I want and achieve it through digital manipulation suddenly breathed life into my images of animals, giving them an air of majesty and dignity.
On the practical side I found one of the most important things when shooting in a place like Africa is the reliability of the media you are shooting to.
The last thing I would want is to have a once in a lifetime image disappear through a disk error. Also, for me, it was important to have enough media
to cover one full day out in the filed. Nothing kills a good time and nice flow than having to sit down and download images to a laptop or digital
diary. And even if I were to try downloading one card while shooting another, it just doesn't make sense as it distracts from shooting (constantly
checking the download and making sure it is successful, not bumping the card, watching out for dust and dirt, etc). So, since I was out on Safari
by 6AM and returned after sunset, I had seven Lexar Professional 133X 4GB cards with me at all time. In the 2weeks I was in Africa, on my last trip,
I shot more than 14,000 images - without one pixel lost.
Manna Pools National Park, Zimbabwe, Africa
Bugs. Bugs in my nose. Bugs in my eyes. Bugs in my ears. Bugs in my mouth...
I don't necessarily, as a matter of personal policy, hold any malevolence
towards insects. However, as I fled down a dusty hot road in Zimbabwe,
spitting out bugs with every step, I felt perhaps I should reconsider.
Due to their miniscule size and innumerable numbers, the thick swarms of
tiny terrors were impossible to escape. All I succeeded in doing as I
ran - arms waving crazily, cameras bumping into each other around my neck -
was to create a great deal of amusement for the locals and to cause the odd
elephant to glance up from his grazing. It didn't take me long to learn,
as the locals and the animals already had, that you just have to
tolerate them.
Manna Pools National Park, a three-hour, bone-jarring ride on a rutted
trail north of Zimbabwe's capitol Harare, is one of the few parks in
Africa where visitors are permitted to leave their vehicles and walk
Unaccompanied through the bush. The desire for this unusual freedom was
somewhat tempered when I learned that an unfortunate traveler had been
trampled to death by a herd of elephants only the week before. Plucking up
my nerve, I decided to press on and hoped I could keep out from under foot.
Hacking through the long grass under the blazing sun, I made my way to
the river's edge. A large bull elephant, his polished tusks gleaming
in the rising light, was feeding on river reeds and water lilies. He
dipped his massive trunk deep down into the silt-ridden water and came
up with huge bundles of stringy reeds which he flung back and forth above
the water in an effort to dislodge soil that clung to the roots.
It was a strange sensation to pass so close to this dangerous animal
without some sort of protection or even the slightest hope of escape should
it decide to charge. He appeared to regard me with little fear or interest,
as if the sight of a man without his car held all the terror of a Kalahari
Bushman without his blowgun. As I raised my camera, I thought to myself
that the bugs and incessant heat were a small price to pay for such an
extraordinary sight.
Lorne Resnick Bio
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