Africa - Through the Eyes of Carlos Lopes

Africa

Through the Eyes of Carlos Lopes

Heaven's in Color

When I was at Botswana's Chobe area in December of 2000, I decided to test the new emulsion slide Ektachrome VS100. Told of it's great color reproduction au par with my favorite film Velvia, I couldn't believe my luck when I saw these amazing colors in the sky. This was the best one could hope for to put the film to the test. Eh Voilá! I was left speechless when I saw the slide afterwards. Everytime I look at this picture it transports me to the place and I can even experience the warm and subtle breeze blowing gently on the banks of the Chobe River. This film is now in my pack all the time... Velvia? Also in my pack, but that's an addiction!

Surreal Sunset

Wildlife photography is not just about expressing your inner soul, or immortalizing magnificent creatures all around you. It is also about experimenting with composition, with varied focal angles and stretching the limits of art forms. It is about breaking the rules. What's pretty and correct for some, may not be so for others. With that in mind, I often try the use of 'extremist' films and different methods of development. This was one of those moments where I decided to load up with a very grainy 1600ISO film and break the rules by forcing a shutter reading of 1000th of a second when camped at Yniati Reserve, on a winter evening.

Barren Landscape

I have a 'thing' for barren landscapes and I find them most challenging to photograph - it adds a new dimension to the art. Having to find the attributes to obtain compositional parameters, can be a headache, but then, 'no pain no gain!' I walked for almost two hours in this area trying to figure out how I could exact an abstract, and at the same time, bring the area's feel of desolation to view. If when looking at the slide, you feel transported there - you feel the heat and loneliness of the place, then I have succeeded. There are many parts of Africa like this. The process of desertification is ongoing, albeit very slowly. I used a slow aperture of F16 and trigged the shutter remotely on auto.

Letaba River

I have a substantial quantity of photographs depicting various landscapes, and am particularly interested in capturing the different moods offered at specific spots, such as this one. The Letaba River has not flowed fully for sometime now (this picture was taken before the floods of '99), and it is one of the few that reflects it's seasonal moods, truest in camera. Mist at dawn is always present especially in winter, and here, one sees the typical 'cold' panorama of the river, before the camp bend. In order to get a more defined depth of field, I stepped down my wide angle lens to a reading of F16 and hand-held the camera. See? No shakes.