Be careful what you wish for…!

Happy New Year!

The year 2019 was a stand-out year for me when it comes to my photography career: being able to spend four months on safari in Tanzania and Kenya was a spectacular result - and all because I happened to read an online article about a photographer who’d managed to spend a whole year staying at lodges in Africa in exchange for taking pictures. Who knew it was even possible?!

The only real regret I had was not seeing many rhinos. That was the one animal missing from the whole safari experience. I only saw one, and it ran off before I had chance to take any decent photos. If somebody had told me that I’d see 17 rhinos in just one weekend in 2020, I’d have been delighted. However, that came at a heavy price…!

Namibia

It all started early last year when I was trying to find another safari company to take me on as a Resident Photographer. Unfortunately, neither &Beyond or Cottar’s offered to do another deal with me, so I was getting a bit desperate.

I sent out a bunch of emails, but the only invitation I got was to go to a game ranch in Namibia. It wasn’t exactly the Masai Mara or the Serengeti, but I wanted to go to Namibia, and I made sure that I’d at least be able to spend a weekend in Etosha National Park.

After exchanging a few messages with Harald, a member of the family that owned and ran Gabus, we scheduled a trip for March. I wanted to stay for a month, but they were ‘so busy’ that we had to cut it down to two weeks. Little did we know what was about to happen next…!

A couple of days after I’d booked my flights via Johannesburg, South Africa announced that they were closing the border with Namibia. That meant I had to cancel my trip.

The coronavirus pandemic was just starting to take over the news, and I couldn’t see any way of making it work. Pretty soon, the whole country was put under lockdown, and I had to spend the seven months thinking about what might’ve been.

The only bright spot came one Sunday in October when I had another WhatsApp message from Harald, telling me that the Namibian border was open again and asking how soon I could make it to Gabus. I checked my schedule and told him I could be there on Thursday!

The only problem was that I had to get a negative Covid test within 72 hours of entering Namibia. Well, it was Sunday, so I had to look online for a lab that was open. I managed to find a network called DocTap that could process my test within 70 hours, so I arranged to travel to a chemist in King’s Cross a couple of days later.

In the meantime, I booked my flights and packed my bags.

The deadline was so tight that I had to travel to Heathrow before I’d even received the email from DocTap, but I figured it would arrive in plenty of time before my flight.

How wrong I was! The email never arrived, and I had to take my flight to Frankfurt in the hope that it would be waiting for me when I arrived.

Instead, I had an email from DocTap telling me that they’d managed to lose my sample! Disaster!

I had to get another test in Frankfurt Airport and spend two days in a Premier Inn waiting for the next flight to Windhoek. I’ll spare you all the details, but you can read all about it in this post.

In the end, everything worked out fine, and I spent a very happy couple of weeks at Gabus.

We didn’t see any of the Big Five on the ranch itself, but we saw rhinos, lions, cheetahs and plenty more in Etosha.

The family and the rest of the staff were lovely, and I enjoyed hanging out with Harald, his sister, Heike, and two Workaway helpers called Aida and Mégane.

What might’ve been…

The Namibia trip was obviously the highlight of the year for me, and I also managed to escape to Sicily with Miriam for a week of sun, sea, sand and al fresco dining, but it’s hard not to think of what might’ve been.

At the start of 2020, I wrote a blog post just like this one reviewing the previous year, and I ended it by going over my plans for the next 12 months. At that stage, I had high hopes of spending a few more months in Africa, and I had invitations from a safari lodge in Botswana and two in Kenya, including the spectacular Ol Jogi.

I was also supposed to lead a trip to Botswana and Victoria Falls in July and lead a trip to Cabárceno safari park in Spain with Creative Escapes, plus spend a long weekend there with friends.

Needless to say, all those plans came to nothing, and it doesn’t end there. I was supposed to do a few workshops for Park Cameras and Handmade Workshops, but they were all cancelled.

I was also talking to lodges in Costa Rica and Peru, and I was invited to spend a few months in Brazil giving lectures on the jaguar and a few more months in Tadoba in India, teaching photography and taking pictures of the local tigers.

Hey, ho…

I’m obviously not the only one to have suffered during lockdown, and it might’ve been far worse, so I shouldn’t complain too much. I did at least try to make the most of my free time.

After happening to see an Expert Photography advert on Facebook that was ‘liked’ by my friend Tammy, I ended up writing a couple of e-books on social media and wildlife photography for them, and I also sold a couple of prints through various online galleries.

All that helped to pay the bills, and I was also fortunate to qualify for Universal Credit for the first time. With the rent from my flat and a lucrative final quarter as a private tutor, I have to say I did quite well financially out of lockdown - well enough, in fact, to book a 10-day trip to Kicheche next week.

I hope that goes ahead without a hitch, but I don’t want to jinx it. I know exactly what can happen when Covid comes to call…

2021

Who knows…?!

If you’d like to order a framed print of one of my wildlife photographs, please visit the Prints page.

If you’d like to book a lesson or order an online photography course, please visit my Lessons and Courses pages.