Still Africa: Wild Coast

A wave breaks over the wreck of the BBC China.
The Wild Coast is known for its treacherous and unpredictable weather.
Canon 7D
Canon EF 24-105 F4 L IS USM @ 24mm

On January the 15^th, 2011 during the final heat of Pili Pili big air kite boarding contest at Myoli Beach, I landed rather badly after coming down from a large jump and blew out my knee. I thought that I had just pulled a few muscles in and around or bruised it quite badly so decided to take it easy for a few days so that I could recover. When I woke up the next morning my knee was extremely swollen, about twice its normal size and looked very bruised. Unperturbed I chose to ignore it and get on with life; and so I did.

Six months down the line I was still struggling with it. Walking down stairs had become a serious issue, as my knee would buckle underneath me. I couldn’t run, walk long distances or cycle and I most definitely couldn’t kite. After listening to me moaning about it for half a year my girlfriend Joss, finally persuaded me to go and see the doctor that I had been threating to go and see for quite a while; so off I went. After an MRI and a few consultations it became apparent that I had torn my ACL and it required surgery to fix it.

Three weeks later I went into hospital and had the operation. It took over 2 hours and the doctor took two tendons from my hamstring and drilled holes through my femur and tibia through to the middle of my knee before using the tendons to create a new ligament and screwing them into place. Painful stuff! It took a good couple of weeks and a lot of painkillers before I was able to walk around comfortably again.

However, after a while I was back on my feet and I felt like I had a new lease of life. I was able to do all the things that I had been longing to do for so long, mainly kite boarding. I threw myself at it and have spent as much time in the water as possible since.

In the time since my surgery, my passion for photography has taken a bit of a knock. Partly because I’m able to do other things I love again but also because I’ve become tired and bored of shooting in Cape Town the whole time. It takes a serious amount of imagination to try to come up ideas for photographs that I think will yield beautiful pictures as well as huge determination to achieve that one good shot and after a while I started coming up empty handed.

Photography drives me crazy. There are times when I want to grab hold of the neck strap and wildly swing my camera above my head in a blind rage before hurling it down onto the concrete, smashing it into a million pieces. There are times when I want to scream until my voice becomes hoarse when I cant get the shot I want.

I really do wonder sometimes why I keep going out to shoot. Does the occasional decent picture really warrant this amount of stress? Could I not find sometime else that I enjoy that doesn’t make me want to rip out all of my hair or punch a brick wall? Probably not…

There is this feeling of satisfaction that get when I know that I just took a good shot. It’s a calm yet exciting feeling that I haven’t experienced with many other things in life. After taking a break from shooting for a few months I really started to miss it and began to get disappointed with myself for not making more of an effort to get back into it.

When I found out that my family was planning on spending Christmas on the Wild Coast in the Transkei I took it as a great opportunity to get back behind the lens and start shooting again; and so I did.