No Laughing Matter

Writer: Nicky Dunnington-Jefferson Photography: Flo Coughlan

In July, 1996, I had just returned from a week’s canoeing trip down the Zambezi, paddling from Chirundu as far as Kanyemba on the Mozambique border. Each night we slept out in our sleeping bags under Africa’s starlit heaven. It was a week that I shall never forget.

After my canoeing trip I felt on top of the world. Sometimes paddling had been hard work, but that was part of the challenge and the fun. I was staying with friends in Harare; it was the middle of winter and very cold at night, and on the canoeing trip I had been pretty chilly, despite my three sleeping bags. When my friends announced that we were shortly heading off to Mana Pools for a few days I was therefore looking forward to sleeping in a nice, warm tent. I was so excited; I was returning to the Zambezi valley!

We arrived at Mana around tea-time, and the first thing to do was to put up our tents. My friends had no problem in erecting their cosy, spacious home. However, when it came to my tent, borrowed from another friend, the poles were nowhere to be found. ‘No worries,’ I said. After all, I’d just spent a week on the Zambezi, sleeping alfresco, and a few more nights under the stars should be no problem. On our first night my sleep was fragmented. However, in between intermittent bursts of stentorian snoring emanating from the nearby tent, I managed to identify the familiar chilling whoop of a The following day, after I’d woken in the brief, beautiful pre-dawn, we set off on an early game drive and immediately saw hyena, perhaps the one I’d heard last night. After an enormous breakfast we tried our hand at a spot of fishing, with no success at all, so in the evening we had to settle for a steak and boerewors braai instead of fish. However, well fuelled and fortified, I spent a cold but mercifully snore-free night.

Fishermen do not give up easily, and the next day rods and lines were put to the test again. This time two tiger fish and a chessa were consigned to the smoker we’d brought with us in anticipation of piscatorial success, and a delicious fish lunch set us up splendidly for our evening game drive. This was memorable as it was the first time I had seen cheetah in the wild. Although in the years to follow I have seen cheetah many times, the memory of those three superb, supple, streamlined animals in Mana remains particularly special. We had enjoyed such a wonderful game drive that a few celebratory drinks were called for when we returned to camp, but after dinner it was early to bed for everyone.

At about 2.00am I had to get up to answer a call of nature, and, as usual, shone my torch around just to make sure the coast was clear. It was, and shortly I returned to my camp bed. I have no idea what time it was when again I woke up, but it was light enough for me clearly to make out a creature right at the foot of my bed, staring directly at me. It was a hyena. We eyeballed each other for a few seconds before I came to my senses and loudly used language that I could not possibly repeat here. Fortunately the hyena did what I told it to, and despite waking up yet again thinking it had returned, and shining my torch around swearing vociferously, it had abandoned me for the night, much to my great relief.

But this was not the end of the story. The following night, our last at Mana Pools, after I had watched the baobabs silhouet- ted against the evening sky, with a crescent moon and a single star as a backdrop, and had seen a lone hyena on our game drive and wondered if maybe it was my visitor, I crept into my bed anticipating another nocturnal encounter. The night passed without incident, but in the morning, as I awoke to a spectacular sunrise and the cry of a fish eagle, I observed hyena spoor all round my bed and in our camp.

But where was the fish smoker? It had been in a plastic bag and we found it about 200 yards away, down by a water tap. I had heard nothing, but my hyena friend had obviously been attracted by the smell of the smoker and had decided on a relocation exercise without first alerting me of its intent.

Upon reflection, I had been very lucky. Hyenas have immensely powerful jaws and if my visitor had decided that I was fair game I probably would not be relating this experience here. As it is, I have a deep res- pect and admiration for these creatures, do not see them as the bad guys of the animal kingdom, and my brush with a hyena, who was only curious and hungry, is one of the highlights of my ongoing African odyssey.

Writers: Julie and Adam Bates Photography: Shutter Speed Pictures

Advances in technology have meant that taking unimaginative selfies and shots ‘for the record’ with cameras is now very easy and the internet is filled with mediocre and poor photography. But really good photography requires a way of seeing things in an exciting way; you need to have a ‘good eye’. It also requires an understanding of how a camera works so that you can control the image instead of using the camera just to point and shoot. You have to inject some of yourself—photographer’s input— and patience, attention to detail and a keenness not to settle for just OK are also key requirements if you want consistently to produce imaginative and high impact photographs.

A couple of times a year we meet up in Mfuwe near the fabulous South Luangwa National Park to teach photography to conservation students of Chipembele (Chipembele Wildlife Education Trust). We have a week of hard core photography, stretching everyone’s creativity across camera setting alternatives such as Nature, Macro, Low Light/Night, Portraiture, Street and even Food! In between these workshops, we facilitate monthly camera club meetings; we set a project for the students and after their two-hour session they submit their images online for our feedback. Then, at the end of each year, the most interesting photos are selected and a travelling exhibition sets off to Project Luangwa (a charitable organisation initiated by the safari operators of South Luangwa) and some of the safari lodges in the Valley...do look out for the exhibition if you’re coming to South Luangwa.

BUSH PHOTOGRAPHY LESSONS

Increasingly, we are blown away by a handful of images and wish we had taken them ourselves!

This photography project has been running for three years now but even in the first year we were impressed by some of the kids’ imagination and it was evident some of them had ‘the eye’. Some of the students have now graduated from school and fantastically one of them has gone on to become an independent wildlife and conservation film maker (Mosam Media). Another is a trainee chef at The Bushcamp Company where he manages to combine his two passions—cooking and photography—and our first female graduate is currently working on The Book Bus, encouraging reading for fun and not just for learning...she fits in some sparetime photography as well. Most of the school leaver students are keen photography hobbyists, unable to afford a DSLR (digital single-lens reflex) camera, but we have encouraged them (not always successfully!) to use their ‘phone cameras to take imaginative and impactful shots.

All in all it has been a wonderful project, impossible without the donated resources and staff of Chipembele. The students’ willingness to persevere to understand the tricky technology theory—especially the girls—grasping new vocabulary, and their preparedness to keep striving for perfection has really endeared these students to us and so our own big game photography which initially brought us to the fabulous South Luangwa National Park is no longer the only drawcard.

http://www.shutterspeedpictures.co.uk https://www.chipembele.org https://m.facebook.com/mosammedia https://www.bushcampcompany.com