Photography

Tracking black rhino is best done in daylight. So our TV crew packed up and I snapped this photograph. Phinda Game Reserve. Probably the finest all-round wildlife experience in South Africa.

Memories. I’m sure it’s fair to say that the most striking ones are usually visual, which got me thinking about the early 20th century American-born idiom that a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case the memory is all mine. These are the historic, quite famous multi-coloured beach changing huts on Cape Town’s Muizenberg beach. It was 5.30am, and the just-rising sun was striking them hard and flat. I had gone for a walk with the woman who was to become the mother of my children, and had no idea at the time how much I’d love being a father. Since that day eight years ago there have been a couple of great white shark incidents off Muizenberg, overshadowed by gradual, welcome and tasteful development in an area that has needed it. And I’ve had to approach the courts for fair access to my children.

Dyes on display at the Tibetan Refugees Centre, Darjeeling, India. Loved that town. The tea, the estates, and the not so distant peaks…all said so much.

I was married for ten months and on holiday in Madagascar, inbetween being harangued for something or other, we came across these Malagasy Gals looking up at the jetty.

The story of slavery weaves its way through Ghana, from north to south. The Larabanga mosque, behind laughing girl, would’ve played a role in the shackled slaves march to the coast from their homes in the north. The story is horrible.

A goldsmith on the backstreets of Kumasi, Ghana. It’s a major industry for Ghana, but the majority of the stuff found on the streets is the plated, cheap stuff. This is the ‘capital’ of the Ashanti kingdom.

His day job is as a barrister in London. His off-time sees him as Ghana’s Ashanti King Ofiei II.

Tamale market, north-central Ghana. en route to Mole National Park. This girl caught the eye of the only white bloke around, and didn’t let go. from that glimpse I could write a story about her, and the nonsense she gives her Dad.

I approached this plant in a fashion that reminded me of might-time training manoeuvrres during national service. But this was South Africa’s Namakwa National Park, and if i put my children to the side, there’s no place I would rather have been.

Black rhino,Tswalu Game Reserve, South Africa. The man who started the largest private game reserve in the country started working life selling exhausts from his backyard in Manchester. He’s sadly no longer, the rhino happily is.

Resurreciton. The quagga, once extinct, is up and running at a few selected locations in its historical Cape province, thanks to a scientist and some DNA found at a museum in Cape Town.

Fish eagle, sunset, Lake Malawi. I was lying in a canoe, asking the boatman and my colleague Aaron to hold their breaths.

I visited Lake Malawi for the first time in 2014. Cape Maclear, and the lake itself, blew me away. Oddly enough, it’s the same Maclear after whom a beacon is named on Table Mountain.

Saffron woman, Guwahati, India.

Nieuwoudtville, South Africa’s Northern Cape Province. Apart from the highest bulb diversity on the planet, the food served by the Van Wyks on their 300 year-old farm is phenomenal.

Swainson’s francolin near Kruger Park’s Lukimbi Lodge, not far from Malelane Gate. I was producing a TV investigative story on changing land uses and the challenges facing a Kruger Park surrounded by poverty.

As the South African winter approaches, I’m already counting down to spring and the free-styling Namakwaland daisies.

Tea-drinker at Shillong market, India. Initially surprised to see only one tourist in my week in Assam state, but now I’m not. It’s remote. And at the time security forces were fighting off separatists.

Cape Maclear, Malawi. Love that place.

En route from Kolkata to Darjeeling, you feel like stopping 100 times. For the colours and friendliness.

Havana street scene, ten years back. He was pulling left, while the street frontage was screaming right. In Spanish, accompanied by a mojito.

The porn-star of the bush spider world. The Orb spider, Kruger National Park. And most other friendly locations. The beauty, as with kingfishers and the sporaxis daisy, lies in the extra-ordinary detail. Don’t squash them.

The shapes and colours of Namakwaland daisies. You can spend hours in an area as big as the average western house (or…a large Roman apartment_). Go with a guide if you can, it will blow your mind, possibly change your life.

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A French holiday-maker at South Africa’s Jeffreys Bay, Eastern Cape province. He came specifically to surf. His wife and kids were back at their rented beach house.

Katavi National Park, Tanzania. Four hours’ flight from Dar Es Salaam, it’s probably the most captivating wildlife location I’ve yet visited.