Tag Archives: Canon 28-300mm

THE KILL: Cheetahs

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What can I say, I have not been blogging for a very long time. For me, blogging has always been a pastime where I post up random thoughts, photos and observations as a way of taking 30 minutes each day to reflect.

Over the last year my time has been very focused, leaving little spare room. In the Sales Transformation framework, the year has been consumed moving through the first 3 stages – Learning, Vision & Planning and Transformation. I look forward to moving from the Transformation to Adjustment Stage in the coming months/weeks.

In the meantime, I will be editing the photos from our safari in Africa over the coming weeks (I have deleted down to 4K excluding Istanbul. I have a lot to sort).

As these pictures suggests, there were more than a few stories to share.

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Look closely at their noses …

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My new Canon 5D Mark IV took time to get accustomed too. In part because I am SO incredibly out of practice, but once I got the settings right – specifically, C1-3, wow. I love the internal GPS, was surprised by the battery life, and while I should have spent a lot more time learning the video before leaving – got a few good movies (Need to work on that).

And yes, objects are as close as they appear. In this case, perhaps 2m away from an open sided Range Rover in the middle of God’s country (The Serengeti reminded me of where I grew up in Alberta, wide open plains).

HIROO, TOKYO

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A few Tokyo black and whites, around Hiroo.

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Police on pretty much every corner.

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Cartoon figures of some type, on every corner.

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The 100 Yen Shop – why are all of their signs in English?

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A snow shovel for 100 Yen ($1). It snowed 2 times in 2 years when we lived in Tokyo .. not sure it is a good investment?

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TOKYO SUNRISE

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This time of year, due to their refusing to implement daylight savings time, the sun rises in Japan around 5:30am and gets earlier and earlier. At it’s peak, the sun will come up at 4:40am. It does not matter how good your blackout blinds are – when you have a full on tropical sun shining down on you (Tokyo “feels like” 40-50C in July and August), you are waking up.

The sunrises are beautiful, but I do not miss 4:40am sunrises.

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ANCIENT REPTILE, GALAPAGOS ISLANDS

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The marine iguana of the Galapagos Islands. This iguana was quite comfortable posing for me.

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They are big.

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Note the evolved nostrils. These creatures feed off of the algae on the rocks in the ocean, able to hold their breathe for up to 30 minutes. But while they eat the ingest sea water and salt. The nostrils are specially developed to expel salt.

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It is a life and death type environment, as they are cold blooded as they swim – the ocean saps the heat from their bodies weakening them. To survive, they spend hours basking in the sun, building up the warmth to go swimming again.

Charles Darwin took a step down in my mind when our guide told us that he tied one of these magnificent creatures to a rock under water to see how long it could survive. He came back an hour later and it was still alive. A reflection of the callous approach and values with regard to the world in those days.

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Beautiful creature. I highly recommend watching BBC Galapagos. Great insight into the islands.

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THE NINE DRAGON WALL

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In the Forbidden City, Beijing, China.

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A little bit on the history of the wall:

is a type of screen wall with reliefs of nine different Chinese dragons. Such walls are typically found in imperial Chinese palaces and gardens.

Early reference to the tradition of putting a screen wall at the gate is found in the Analects, 3:22: therein, it is mentioned as a trivial ritual norm ("The princes of States have a screen intercepting the view at their gates". 邦君樹塞門, trans. by James Legge).

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Built in 1771. It is beautiful to look at.

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THE DRAGONS, BEIJING, CHINA

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Across from Tiananmen square, our next stop:

The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty. It is located in the center of Beijing, China, and now houses the Palace Museum. For almost 500 years, it served as the home of emperors and their households, as well as the ceremonial and political center of Chinese government.

Built in 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 buildings and covers 72 ha (180 acres).[1] The palace complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture,[2] and has influenced cultural and architectural developments in East Asia and elsewhere. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987,[2] and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

Filled with buildings that once housed royalty, it is worth a wander.

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Our guide mentioned that this is a single piece of stone, climbing up the steps. If I recollect the story correctly, it took thousands of people a very long time to move it here as one piece and then hundreds to carve it – with dragons.

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Dragons are everywhere.

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According to Wikipedia, the Chinese dragon remains important in today’s Chinese culture:

Chinese dragons traditionally symbolize potent and auspicious powers, particularly control over water, rainfall, hurricane, and floods. The dragon is also a symbol of power, strength, and good luck for people who are worthy of it. With this, the Emperor of China usually used the dragon as a symbol of his imperial power and strength.[1]

In Chinese daily language, excellent and outstanding people are compared to a dragon, while incapable people with no achievements are compared with other, disesteemed creatures, such as a worm. A number of Chinese proverbs and idioms feature references to a dragon, for example: "Hoping one’s son will become a dragon" (望子成龍, i.e. be as a dragon).

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The number of dragons is very important – on the roofs, always an odd number. But not all lucky numbers are odd (to my surprise).

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One things is consistent through the shots, the grey sky.

FEATS IN HOW MUCH YOU CAN CARRY, INDIA

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We spent Christmas Eve afternoon in Old Delhi around the markets. I could have taken 1,000 more photos like these as everywhere you turned a man or woman was performing a feat of strength to get their goods moved from A to B. Config: Canon 5D Mark III, Canon 28-300mm f/3.5 USM.

A few of my favorites. The first is the only in color – flowers presented for sale, draped across a parked motorbike.

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In the Old Delhi markets there were lots of people carry their wares. Those markets are truly “human powered”. As we walked and observed, one of the most common modes of good transportation was via the head – with some carry more than others.

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There were more than a few executing a tricky head balance.

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Many worked as teams – balancing the load.

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Look closely at the load in the back (how did they decide who gets to sit and who has to work?)

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Some had long loads.

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Some had big loads. What is all of that paper for? To feed the infamous India bureaucracy?

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A lucky few had something other than their own hands and legs to power their cart.

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These shots are from a couple hours in the markets, are a small subset of the shots available and represent the essence of what a trip to India entails. Everywhere you look you see a unique scene.