Photographing Uluru

Uluru is one of Australia's most famous landmarks, and as a consequence it is also one of Australia's most photographed landmarks. I see pictures of Uluru all the time on postcards, calendars, and chatchkas-for-tourists no matter where in Australia I happen to be. I didn't think it was possible to take a new, unique or interesting picture of Uluru. Then I saw Angus's pictures of the place. I thought I'd put a small selection of them up, because they're just so good, and so different.

*Click to enlarge the photos in a lightbox.* 

Angus also took some pretty amazing photos of Kata-Tjuta, Uluru's under-appreciated step-sister. Although I didn't get to participate in most of these adventures, I did get to do the short Walpa Gorge Walk when I went to pick up Mitch and Gus after getting our tyre fixed.

I may have to print some of these out and frame them. 

Angus's picture is in the new reptile guide!

One of the pictures Angus Kennedy took while he was volunteering for me in the field in 2011 was published in the latest edition of A Complete Guide to Reptiles of Australia by Steve Wilson and Gerry Swan. This book is the bible for reptile identification in Australia and this is Angus's first published photograph, so it's a big deal for him. The fourth edition, which includes his picture, just came out this week.

Angus's photo is the second one down on the left, of Ctenophorus tjantjalka. 

Here's the original picture: 

Ochre Dragon (Ctenophorus tjantjalka). Anna Creek Station, South Australia, 2011. Photo by Angus Kennedy.

They also changed the species description from "mature male is dark brown to grey" in the third edition to "mature male is blue-grey" in the fourth. Coooool! 

In which I am accused of witchcraft, which is Serious Business

There are no photos associated with this story, for reasons that will become apparent. Therefore, I've paired the story with pictures of giraffes. 

 In 2008 I was doing herpetofauna surveys in rural Congo. An important part of doing herp surveys is wandering around at night with a torch looking for critters that only come out after dark. The first day we got to our field site, despite having confirmed our arrival the day prior, we found our local guide completely drunk. He was clearly in no condition to guide us anywhere.

Portrait of giraffe. Nairobi National Park, Kenya, 2013.

The trip leader, a Congolese herpetologist, resigned not to do any surveying that night. I, young and enthusiastic, had other ideas. We had been to this village several times before. If we stayed within the village itself, and didn't wander into the surrounding countryside, what did we need a guide for? Time in the field is precious, and I didn't want to waste a second. I convinced the Congolese Master's student with us to wander with me, just around the village. 

The result of this was two young guys wandering slowly through a rural village, shining flashlights into every nook and cranny along the outsides of mud huts looking for snakes, geckos, and other things that go slither in the night.  Imagine how alien flashlights look in a place with no electricity. Nonetheless, all of this would have been fine if we had been with our local guide. Without him, I quickly learned just how creative the answer to the question "what could possibly go wrong?" can be.

Giraffe feeding. Nairobi National Park, Kenya, 2013.

An older man, also very drunk, came stumbling towards us, yelling and waving his hands. He quickly started arguing in a local language with the Congolese student. This happens sometimes, and it's usually quickly resolved. This time it was different. The man was adamant. The Congolese student explained to me that this man was accusing me of witchcraft. Particularly, of sneaking around trying to steal people's possessions and hair to use for my own nefarious purposes. I'm pretty sure a response of "we're just looking for lizards, snakes and frogs" would only have reinforced his suspicions. Clearly only witches have uses for snakes, lizards and frogs.

Witches are Serious Business in Central Africa. It's from this area that the religion of Voodoo originates and is still widely practiced (though now it's usually combined with Christianity). The drunk man ended up taking me and the poor Congolese student to the village chief, who reassured the man of our humanness. We were supremely embarrassed and most definitely done surveying for the night.  

Giraffe mocking the Sydney skyline. Sydney, New South Wales, 2012.

It's not difficult to offend local sensibilities when the culture and religion are completely foreign, and language barriers make it difficult to pick things up from the people around you. However, on that same trip, our Congolese trip leader managed to get himself accused of witchcraft as well. At the end of the trip, while we were waiting for the bus back to the city, our trip leader was showing me pictures he had taken during our trip on his digital camera. Unfortunately, he wasn't paying attention to where he was pointing the camera and someone thought he was recording her. 

Voodoo has not adapted well to modern technology. One of the ways this has manifested is in the way some people treat photographs. They believe that by taking a picture of them, you are stealing their soul, or that you could use their picture to manipulate them like you would use a Voodoo doll. This is a good example of why it's important to always ask someone if you can take their picture before doing so, especially when travelling. You could be stealing their soul.

Giraffe with oxpeckers. Serengeti National Park, Tanzania, 2008.

Our trip leader ended up in a shouting match with about a half-dozen people standing in a semi-circle in front of him. They were yelling so close to each other's faces I was worried it would devolve into an actual fistfight. It was after dark and there was no electrical lighting in the area, so the whole scene was illuminated from below by the eery green glow of the camera screen. Combine this with the thunderstorm that was raging around us and the occasional bolt of lighting that would over-illuminate everything for a split second, and it was a rather unpleasant and spooky situation. One that might make you believe in witches. Thankfully a pickup truck finally arrived to take us back to the city, and we got out of there before anything serious happened.

As far as I know those two situations had nothing to do with each other. On subsequent visits we had no problems, though we were careful to have our local guide with us at all times.

Giraffe with calf. Maasai Mara Game Reserve, Kenya, 2008.

Volunteers, when left to their own devices

Addendum: Since the photo captions (where the photo credits usually go) aren't showing up unless you click on the picture, I thought I would add here that all these pictures were taken by Angus Kennedy. Most were also edited by Angus, but the three without Angus's ASK watermark were kindly guest-edited by Rebecca Sullivan.

One of my fieldsites was pretty close to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, which is a spectacular and very famous Australian tourist destination. My two volunteers, Mitch and Angus, had never seen Uluru before so we decided to take a day off and go check it out.

"Pretty close" is, of course, a relative term. My fieldsite closest to Uluru was probably about 80 km away as the crow flies, but there aren't many roads around there so the driving distance ended up being over 250 km. That's pretty close if you consider that the closest pub was 100 km away and the closest grocery store over 400 km away.

It was worth the trek, not only to see a world-famous landmark, but also because our trailer needed repairs. And just to drive home the point, once at Uluru we got a flat tyre that then also needed to be repaired. So I spent the day being a Responsible Adult, hanging out at the mechanic's shop waiting. But first I dropped Angus and Mitch at the base of Uluru so they could spend the day checking it out. They spent the day doing cool, interesting stuff. This is what I found later, when I was looking through Angus's pictures:

*Click the images to enlarge them in a lightbox and see the captions.* 

Photographing elapids while staying alive

Last summer my girlfriend-at-the-time and I were making weekly efforts to get out and find some of the interesting reptiles that live around Canberra. On one of those trips, an unsuccessful effort to find tussock skinks (Pseudomoia pagenstecheri) and highland copperheads (Austrelaps ramsayi), Peri took this picture:

My and my snake tongs. Namadgi National Park, Australian Capital Territory. Photo by Peri Bolton.

I really like this picture. I didn't think anything of it when Peri posted it on Facebook. But then this happened:

People I don't know complaining about my use of snake tongs...

Australia is, famously, home to many deadly snakes. It's the only place in the world where, if you come across a snake in the bush, that snake is more likely than not venomous enough to kill you. This is somewhat inconvenient for those of us who enjoy actively seeking out snakes in the wild.

That's why, before I moved to Australia in 2011, I bought some equipment to help me look for snakes in a place where reaching around logs and under rocks with your bare hands is really, really stupid. So I bought snake tongs (seen in the picture above) and a collapsable snake hook. Traditionally, snake tongs are used like this, for catching snakes, and snake hooks are used like this, for manipulating them. Snake tongs have fallen out of favour because if you don't know how to use them correctly, you can easily squeeze too hard and break the snake's back.

I have no idea how to use snake tongs correctly. I come from Ontario, where there's only one snake species with medically significant venom, and it's small, slow, and extremely shy. I have no experience or training with deadly snakes of any kind, let alone the fast, agile, alert elapids that live here in Australia. But snake tongs are also exceptionally useful as arm-extensions, allowing to you poke around and move small, light objects without risking life & limb. I use my snake tongs for manipulating the environment, not the snakes themselves. 

Unfortunately, my inability to catch snakes here in Australia means that I can only photograph them in situ. Sometimes that can work out alright, like this photo of a highlands copperhead:

Highlands Copperhead (Austrelaps ramsayi). Namadgi National Park, Australian Capital Territory, 2012.

But more often than not all I end up with are pretty crappy shots.

Sometimes the snake just won't sit still: 

Mulga Snake (Pseudechis australis). Taylorville Station, South Australia, 2011.

Sometimes the snakes are almost completely covered by vegetation: 

Mating pair of Eastern Brownsnakes (Pseudonaja textilis). Near Burra, South Australia, 2011. 

And sometimes the snake is in a really awkward, inaccessible spot, as well as being covered in vegetation: 

This Blue-bellied Blacksnake (Pseudechis guttatus) was at the bottom of a steep, narrow ravine. Hunter Valley, New South Wales, 2012.

I shouldn't blame this entirely on my very poor venomous-snake-handling skills. It's also because of my very poor photography skills. Here are some in situ  shots Angus Kennedy took of some elapids we came across during fieldwork:

Strap-snouted Brownsnake (Pseudonaja aspidorhyncha). Anna Creek Station, South Australia, 2011. Photo by Angus Kennedy. 

Strap-snouted Brownsnake (Pseudonaja aspidorhyncha). Anna Creek Station, South Australia, 2011. Photo by Angus Kennedy. 

 Western Brownsnake (Pseudonaja mengdeni). Anna Creek Station, South Australia, 2011. Photo by Angus Kennedy.

 Western Brownsnake (Pseudonaja mengdeni). Anna Creek Station, South Australia, 2011. Photo by Angus Kennedy.

Addendum:  People who's reptile-identification skills I highly respect reckon that both these snakes are Pseudonaja aspidorhyncha. I remain unconvinced, but, if you have one, you are welcome to send me your opinion.