Gallery — Tito West Studio

Hamar skinner with a Lesser Kudu skull - Omo Valley, Ethiopia

I think of river crossings on old barges or dugout canoes, salmonella poisoning, forest fires and massive storms. I hear the violent scream of a silverback gorilla deep in the forest - shaking the trees, beating his chest, then vanishing. I think of rain, dust and bees; the reenactment of a hunt and a bongo skull dancing in the half light of the fire. I see a French bible and pygmies with sharpened teeth, dead elephants, 7.62mm shell casings and the barefoot track of a lone poacher. I recall stories of Loa Loa - the eye worm parasite and how the old timers used to pour paraffin on their feet after crossing rivers. I think of massive columns of ants and chimpanzees in the early morning mist and see logging trucks overturned on forest roads. The snakes - Green Vipers, Gaboon Vipers and a Mamba in the canopy. I see it all and I think I finally understand what Joseph Conrad meant when he said, “It was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.”

Fishermen diving with their nets, Lake Victoria - between Kenaya and Uganda

He would often disappear on a track, only to resurface two or three days later saying nothing of where he had been. That road connected him to his youth, leading to the country he had fought against in the civil war during the early 1990’s. He was shot in the face and bared the scar of that time, a harsh reminder of his earlier life and the absurdity of politics. Later, I would watch him climb into dense riverine forest after a wounded buffalo, in bush so thick that it required crawling on all fours. At one point he came face to face with the wounded animal and they locked eyes, each unable to move and in that moment he and the animal were one being and I knew that he looked at them not as some other creature but as a part of himself and that he saw things that were not of this world. That’s not to say that they weren’t real, but they were hidden to those not open to the idea of their existence.

Lowland Gorilla, Cameroon

The herons in the shallow flats out in front of the islands, with their long legs and thin necks, make me think of Marabous and how they are drawn to the grass fires in the dry season waiting out in front of the flames for any animals to break cover. The thin, low lying mesquite islands along the coast remind me of the palm islands and waterways of the delta and crossing the clear, knee-deep water as trees break and crash ahead of us from the elephants pushing them over and then retreating in the heat of the day to have lunch in the shade of a sausage tree on the water’s edge.

Okavango Delta, Botswana - In August the leaves of the mopane trees would start to change to a brilliant yellow and orange and at sunset when you looked out across the scrub brush the sky would blend with the leaves and the whole world looked as if it were on fire.

It was here that my life began. The camp and the people who made it what it was are long gone, but I can still smell the sage on the late afternoon wind and feel the cool air during a long, lazy lunch in the shade of a sausage tree on the water’s edge. I remember dinners under the mess tent with the kerosene lamps casting shadows on the canvas and the pale dusty look of the land at midday so that when you saw the lions they blended into the grass and disappeared before your eyes. I will always long for that place and that time that can never happen again, but that story and that history is ours now and I go there often inside of myself.

I remember falling asleep as the sun rose after bieng up all night with the lions roaring just beneath our beds in the machan; and the time the whole country had turned green with the coming of the rains and the grass had started to grow high all around us and we nearly stepped on the two female lesser kudu as we walked out away from the road.

Cloud Forest, Ethiopia

Above the Rift Valley, East Africa

Monduli Mountain, Tanzania - Even now, when I make a cup of tea - a habit that has stayed with me - and I pour the milk and the clouds form, I am instantly taken back there, back to Africa, to the farmhouse in the foothills with the fog rolling down from the great mountain. I think of chai tangawizi next to the warmth of a fire and see the candelabra tree in the garden where the two lions laid roaring one morning.

Ethiopian Highlands

Buffalo skull, Tanzania

Gulf of Mexico - And, if you are away for too long, you miss the damp heavy air, thick with salt that sticks to your skin and the smell of the hyper-saline bays and estuaries between the barrier islands and the mainland. You miss the shrimp boats tied to the pilings and the pale green color of their nets and tackle in the summer sun. You miss the sight of spoonbills and the flocks of green-winged teal, the whooping cranes and the sound of geese overhead as they return north to Canada in the fall. You miss the thin distant horizons that seem to rise out of the sea when returning from an offshore fishing trip on the Gulf Stream. You miss it all and I know this because I spent the early part of my life here and then I left. I left for a long time and while I would find myself in some distant country, maybe on a long endless track after buffalo in the dense sand of the Okavango, or up in the north-country on an equally endless pack trip to some distant mountain, my mind would wander and I would feel the warmth of the south Texas sun on my skin and dream of the day that I would be back amongst the shrimp boats and the coastal dunes of my beloved shoreline.

Kamayurá Village, Xingu Enclave. Mato Grosso, Brazil

Mato Grosso, Brazil - A few days later as I climbed to the top of a mountain in the Serra do Roncador I watched a flock of Red Macaws take flight and then entered the Cave of Pezinhos where the impressions from both human and animal tracks line the walls, many of them with six fingers. I have tried to understand the meaning of this place ever since, but I doubt that I ever will.

Rio das Mortes, Mato Grosso, Brazil - Back at the camp on the banks of the Rio das Mortes I watched a fire erupt across the river and saw the forest canopy explode into flames.

Frigate Bird, Gulf of Honduras

Grass fire beneath the Harmatan, northern Cameroon

British Coumbia

Okavango Delta, Botswana - The camp was built on a shallow rise above a dry river bed on the southern edge of the delta and looked out across the donga to the opposite bank where a lone palm tree stood silhouetted against the sky above a long line of mopane trees. It was this lone palm that gave the camp its Tswana name, Molkowane, and beyond the palm and the mopane forest was the delta with it’s clear waters and scattering of palm islands and where the river that was born in the highlands of Angola emptied into the otherwise waterless Kalahari in the dry season. In August the leaves of the mopane trees would start to change to a brilliant yellow and orange and at sunset when you looked out across the scrub brush the sky would blend with the leaves and the whole world looked as if it were on fire.