I agree - however, you still might want to take a look at them.
Let me explain why I didn't bring home more photographs this time. Since I planned to stay four and a half weeks in Scottburgh, I had some 50 rolls of film with me, calculating that I would shoot some 50 images per day / dive (which was a rather modest intention when compared to the 'digital' colleagues who would normally fire 200-300 shots per dive).
I ended up using just 12 rolls of film during my entire vacation in South Africa... The weather conditions were unusually bad this year: Murky waters, big waves, "wrong" winds, and "crazy" currents. What was striking, and most disappointing, however, was that the fact that we saw far less tigers than two, three years ago.
Big tiger babe with a puny wolf at play - back in 2008.
Photo: Rob Allen
Click on image to enlarge
I won't speculate why, but of all the reasons I heard - temperatures, too many black tip sharks that scare off the tigers, bait drums being placed too deeply by the shark operators - the only one that I would have found plausible is that many tigers sharks are being killed by the infamous sharks nets in the Aliwal Shoal area.
Right before I arrived in South Africa, six tiger sharks were caught on one single day (!), and killed, in the nets. So, that considerably dampened my expectations, and even though I was quite shocked, there was nothing I could do about it.
At times I even thought about cutting short my stay in Scottburg but I was afraid of taking a wrong decision. Being a 'semi-professional' schlimazel*), I would have most likely left just when the over-all conditions changed for the better... Indeed, one day before I went back home as scheduled, I had the best imaginable dive with four tigers that stayed and played with the divers.
Anyway - I have learned to be stoic: Never worry about things you cannot control or change; you can only control your mind, nothing else. Read Epitectus, and become a stoic - stoicism is a most useful and pragmatic school of philosophy.
*) Yiddish for a person who is habitually, at least chronically, unlucky.
Let me explain why I didn't bring home more photographs this time. Since I planned to stay four and a half weeks in Scottburgh, I had some 50 rolls of film with me, calculating that I would shoot some 50 images per day / dive (which was a rather modest intention when compared to the 'digital' colleagues who would normally fire 200-300 shots per dive).
I ended up using just 12 rolls of film during my entire vacation in South Africa... The weather conditions were unusually bad this year: Murky waters, big waves, "wrong" winds, and "crazy" currents. What was striking, and most disappointing, however, was that the fact that we saw far less tigers than two, three years ago.
Big tiger babe with a puny wolf at play - back in 2008.Photo: Rob Allen
Click on image to enlarge
I won't speculate why, but of all the reasons I heard - temperatures, too many black tip sharks that scare off the tigers, bait drums being placed too deeply by the shark operators - the only one that I would have found plausible is that many tigers sharks are being killed by the infamous sharks nets in the Aliwal Shoal area.
Right before I arrived in South Africa, six tiger sharks were caught on one single day (!), and killed, in the nets. So, that considerably dampened my expectations, and even though I was quite shocked, there was nothing I could do about it.
At times I even thought about cutting short my stay in Scottburg but I was afraid of taking a wrong decision. Being a 'semi-professional' schlimazel*), I would have most likely left just when the over-all conditions changed for the better... Indeed, one day before I went back home as scheduled, I had the best imaginable dive with four tigers that stayed and played with the divers.
Anyway - I have learned to be stoic: Never worry about things you cannot control or change; you can only control your mind, nothing else. Read Epitectus, and become a stoic - stoicism is a most useful and pragmatic school of philosophy.
*) Yiddish for a person who is habitually, at least chronically, unlucky.
1 comment:
Thank you for these words Wolf! So true. I will work stoic into my character... Miss you!
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