Leopard
Okavango DeltaThis photograph of a leopard was made in 2009 shortly after I had first moved to Botswana. It was after seeing this image that I started thinking photography might start playing a bigger role in my life.
The following is an exceerpt from my book, Another Life, and it very much speaks to what this place means to me and how formative those early years in the delta were.
“I have known many camps in many different countries over the years, each leaving their own distinct mark, but this one remains rooted in time and cemented into my memory as if it were yesterday. We tend to think of a camp as a temporary and moveable place, but when you have lived in one long enough or when you have lived there even for a short time, but with people you love, it becomes a home as much as any home you have ever had and when it is gone, the pain of losing it is the same. I can still recall the smell of sage on the afternoon wind and feel the cool water rising up around my waist as we tracked elephants from palm island to palm island in the searing heat of the day. I think of long, lazy lunches in the shade of a sausage tree on the water’s edge and dinners under the mess tent with kerosene lanterns casting shadows on the canvas. I think of the elephant that would come in the night to eat the acacia pods off the tree above my bed when the camp was empty and I had been there for weeks on my own; or the time the lions killed a buffalo calf on my veranda and stayed there eating it all night. I feel the heat from the ironwood fire brought back to life in the morning as we knelt at its edge, warming our hands while we poured tea from the kettle in the ashes, with soft whispers of “dumêla rra” (good morning) in the gray light of pre-dawn.”
Print Details
Medium: Archival Pigment Print
Material: Cotton Paper
Size: 24x30 or 30x40 inches
Limited Edition: Set of 7 Editioned Prints + 2 Artist Proofs
Signed and numbered in pencil on verso
Frame not included