That Look

Commended by the judge in the "That Look" competition on Photocrowd.com.

The tree of life

A Western Bristlecone Pine stands out against the sky, defiant of the centuries gone by. The oldest individual ever recorded was 4,862 years old when it was felled in 1964. (Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, California, U.S.)

Despite having been just been 'done up', the new pedestrian area around Manchester Central Library is dominated by the grey of the concrete. A few remaining trees, together with the iconic red phonebox and a brightly clothed passerby, are the only hint of colour (Manchester, U.K.)

Biologist Filippo Marolla looks up with wonder at the crown of an impressive Kapok Tree in the forests of Príncipe. The southern half of the island is still blanketed with primary rain forest, due to its difficult access.(Príncipe, São Tomé and Príncipe).

Every dog has its day

A pariah dog poses proudly as it gazes over the Ganges and ghats, crowded with pilgrims and shrines. Dogs here are treated with religious respect and is not unusual to see people sharing their food with them. (Varanasi, India) 

 stray trots into the distance, on the edges of the Sahara Desert. (Merzouga, Morocco)

In Príncipe, stray dogs lead a life of hardship and abuse. Hope lies in the younger generation, like this boy who exuberantly shows his affection to an as yet unconvinced dog. (Santo Antonio, Príncipe, São Tomé and Príncipe)

Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park

This image of horseback riders moving through the Tuolumne Meadows, in Yosemite National Park, was chosen to accompany Brian Handwerk's article on National Geographic (online) entitled California Road Trip: San Diego to Yosemite.

A Fairy tale from Príncipe: How little piggy lost his bollocks

Praia Seca; a small and isolated fishing community in the remote South of the island of Príncipe. I have already been here for three days, waiting for a lift back to civilization by a boat that might never arrive: a hell of boredom in a tropical beach “paradise”. Bearing the wait with us are five fishermen, a dozen dogs, a hundred pigs and uncountable chickens. Today, however, the now familiar morning tedium is broken by the despairing squeals of a pig which has been carefully chosen among its peers by Peté, the farmer, and tied to a tree. My first guess is that the captive will not yell for much longer, or ever again, but I soon learn that he will be fine and it is “only” ( I am sure the poor animal would disagree on the choice of the term) time for him to be castrated. Satiro, my trustworthy guide, will perform the surgical operation, yet another of the many unrelated skills, which I didn’t know he possessed. I am informed that the timing is crucial, as the testicles should be removed only when the moon is full and the tide is low to ensure the minimum bleeding… While we wait for the ebb, Satiro prepares the surgical instruments (a blunt knife) and the antiseptic dressing (half a glass of palm oil and a lime). The pig, oblivious to its fate, dozes off.

The right moment soon arrives (too soon, the porker would claim). The swine wakes up, his legs are tied with a rope and while Peté sits on him to keep him still, Satiro swiftly proceeds with the operation. He grips the knife, makes two small incisions, squeezes out the testicles, twists them, severs them and the job is done. The area is then generously rubbed with oil and lime. In less than five minutes the pig is amicably sent off with a couple of smacks to his rear, its virility already a distant memory. In all of this I have a role too: I am proudly defending the freshly harvested gonads from the bold appetite of the dogs.

Later, when calm (and boredom) have been restored to the beach, and the dogs have eventually been fed with what I had fiercely defended, I take the liberty of questioning Satiro about his newly discovered talent.

-          Have you done this (i.e. castrating pigs) many times before?

-          Oh yes. People know that I can do it and they call me when they need me.

-          But you don’t have pigs yourself, do you?

-          No

-          Did you have them in the past?

-          No

-          Someone taught you?

-          No

-          So how and where did you learn?

-          I saw it done once.

-          …

Astounded by the last answer I stop questioning and he wanders off. I can’t stop thinking of how I would feel if, minutes before undergoing surgery, having asked the surgeon if he had done many of these operations before, maybe just to relieve the tension, I was to receive the following answer:

“ No, but I once saw it done on YouTube”…

Blessed was the pig in its obliviousness.

Cats in Príncipe: Eat, Pray, Love

The inhabitants of the island of Príncipe have a rather multifaceted relationship with their cats, which can be pretty much summarized in three words:

EAT: Feline meat is considered a delicacy by quite a few, but how much this practice is common or socially accepted is hard to tell. When questioned, locals would provide unconvincing and evasive answers, despite the practice being well-known.

PRAY: Cats have long been associated with mystical and supernatural powers and this is also true in São Tomé and Príncipe. Cats are kept at home or in the shop as a sentinel against evil spirits, but the animal alone is not believed to be up to the task if it is not empowered by the tying of a red ribbon around its neck.

LOVE: After all, people in Príncipe enjoy raising cats for their company and for their more practical use as a vermin deterrent. Sometimes their love might manifest in mysterious ways, like keeping the cat tied by its red ribbon for days on end as in the worst of canine nightmares. On the other hand they are brought up on the finest fish leftovers and chubby rats, of which there is no scarcity. 

African Chiaroscuro

San Joaquim: some fifty souls braced together against poverty in a few dilapidated concrete houses - leftover from, and a reminder of a “glorious” past. A time when there may have been more wealth, but it was still not allowed entry into the homes of the labourers. 
Pigs, dogs, ducks, goats and chicken share with their fellow human residents a rather small central courtyard filled with screams, swine shit, smoke and little else . Being far from the capital, somehow forgotten by the developers and politicians, nobody has ever bothered to bring electricity to San Joaquim. Thus every evening the village dozes off soon after darkness has fallen, in the await of a new day, which won’t be much different from the previous one 
But tonight is different.  Some money has been found, some petrol has been bought, to quench the thirst of the old, battered generator (the only handout from a distant government) and …“let there be light!”.

The inhabitants of San Joaquim, despite being among the poorest on the island of Príncipe, 
are also the warmest and friendliest people I met here

It is not exactly Las Vegas, but the usually bleak village is, for once, somewhat illuminated and that is enough for the unpredictable to happen. From those same smoke-stained houses from which you would expect nothing but scarcity and frugality to surface, the  inhabitants  suddenly  drag out two massive speakers, a TV and a DVD player…and let the music play! . Only a few venture out of their homes looking for an unusually late night (the generator will be turned off at 9 pm). Some of them, made bolder by some extra glasses of palm wine, dare to show their moves, while others do their best to sing along. At 21:00hrs sharp, with a precision worthy of Cinderella’s spell, the village drops once more into the dark and into silence. 



The following evening I try my luck again and walk the few hundred metres that stand between my camp and the village but all is quiet. The money has finished, the generator has drunk the last drop of petrol and any light has vanished with the sun. Darkness cloaks the village, but as I turn a corner I can make out a dim glow and some life. A small gathering of people, puppies and ducks are consuming their evening meal around a dying fire in an evocative scene, reminiscent of the play of light and shade in Caravaggio’s paintings. And for once I am glad, albeit selfishly, that power (electrical and political) has forgotten San Joaquim.