<Originally
written on pen & paper, transcribed on June
7th>
7:15 AM, Friday,
June 5th, 2009:
I am completely
speechless. Yesterday may have been the coolest thing
I've ever done in my entire life.
OMFG LOOK AT THIS PICTURE:
That is a STILL
from a VIDEO. That's how close we were, that's how
incredible it was. It was like a live-action pokemon
game. I had NO IDEA a safari was basically
hunting with cameras. Trying to catch the animals at
the right time, etc. Totally addictive and... being 10
feet away from them with no glass between you? Granted
you're in a vehicle, but wow. Theter's no way this
isn't at least two entries and videos. We have an
entire day on a game drive later today, and then a
final morning one tomorrow. In fact, there you go:
Safari Sunset, Safari Midday, Safari Sunrise. Christ
I'm gonna be pushing 25 entries this month.
I usually hate doing more than 10 'cause it leads
people to miss so much, but there's no other way to do
this. if you skim through June 2009, you will miss a
bunch. Now onto the video...
If your computer
can handle it (meaning it doesn't stutter once it's
loaded) click the "HD" button...
incredible.
I know right? I
can't even believe I took that. I actually think I'm
going to sell some of those shots to istock.com since
they're in HD. Looks like freaking national geographic
shit. Planet Earth in the HIZZY. I'm just stunned.
There's tons more, but I'm gonna do a more
encompassing video next entry - I just knew I had to
have a singular video on YouTube of those lions. I
will of course go through a few of the pics of the
evening. Again, these are all stills from my video
camera...
When I was a young
WARTHOG!!! :-) These little bitches were funny as hell
freaking out the other animals. Fast as
hell.
At first
we were all stoked to get this close to a
sleeping lion. Little did we know what we had
in store. BTW, "we" is me, Linda and Judy. We
actually hired our own driver who took as all
over. It felt pretty special in comparison to
a tour group. Props to Linda and Judy for
setting this all up while I was passed out
when I first got in to Nairobi.
This is
one of the few shots where you can actually
see the inside of the vehicle. Most were way
too dark because of the brightness of
outside, but Linda got a good one
here.
Linda and
I are such nerds. We both stopped the driver when
we saw this and Judy was like: "Crazy Americans, it's
a fucking tree." HAHAHA. But come on, that's cool.
However when you're minutes away from
this...
...you see her
point. Seein' these things in the wilderness, at this
distance, with your own eyes, is absolutely a "bucket
list" item.
Wow. How
cool. Love Sihlouettes. And all of this is
incredibly breathtaking until you see what
happened next. We come upon some lions waking
up. They just happen to be on a raised mound
which literally makes them eye level. I
crouched down and hung out the lower window
(instead of the viewing space up top) and
pulled off some of the most stunning footage
I've ever taken...
Seriously,
catching these lions at "magic hour" as they were
waking up was an incredible stroke of luck that
I don't believe we'll top even in the next two
days.
And remember,
these aren't pictures. These are stills from my video.
I'm so, so, so fortunate to have bought this camera 2
years ago. It allows me to not have to go back and
forth and possibly miss something amazing with video
since the stills look this incredible. And the
original images are over twice as big.
Let me introduce
Simba, the safest lioncub in the world.
:-)
Wook at 'em.
AWWWWW. It was an amazing 10 minutes of my life
watching them all clean themselves and each other but
soon we were off again to catch the
sunset.
Gorgeous as was
everything yesterday. The video is just the lions
right now, but that's because in reality, you can all
pick up Planet Earth and watch everything I just
showed you be blown to hell.
That's why
I have the goofy Matrix shot... wait, didn't
include that - I'm gonna do an all
encompasing later. But I have to attempt to
personalize the footage so it resonates
differently than every other piece of
wildlife footage you may see. And hey, it's
my journal in the end. I want to look back
and read what it feels like, and what
I looked like throughout all the
insanity around me. And though I kinda
stern in the shot right here, I'm just
focusing on the shot and there isn't a more
peaceful man on the planet.
Guaranteed.
Alright, we're
already in the car for Day 2. What will that
bring!?
