Vrystaat Confessions

Tag: photography

  • Where Eagles Dared

    Where Eagles Dared

    We drove off the dirt road and onto a green hill, stopped the light blue Holden station wagon and walked up to the top of the low hill which ended in a steep cliff overlooking Natal down below. We were on the edge of the Drakensberg escarpment and about 30m below us (I’d guess) was a nest, just as Robbie Sharratt had told Dad there would be, and on the nest was an eagle chick.

    – location Normandien Pass arrowed – detail in inset –

    The main reason the ole man had taken his dearly beloved son on a rare outing was his new Canon FT QL SLR camera with a 200mm telephoto lens. It needed a subject, and there was the Black Eagle chick right there in the hot sun. Aquila verreauxii, now called Verreaux’s Eagle.

    The way I recall it, we got pics of the nest and the chick, and a parent landed on or near the nest while we waited, but I could be imagining that part. Wonder where those Agfa slide pics are? I’d guess this was ca.1965 when I was ten years old.

    It looked something like this (this pic from the Western Cape Black Eagle Project):

    The top pic was taken at Giants Castle, also in the Drakensberg, by ‘Veronesi.’

    PS: Normandien Pass is worth a visit. It’s beautiful country.

    The Normandien Formation is a Triassic-age rock formation located around here, but about  251 million years before I was born. Lots of fossils! And Donald found one of them.

    ~~oo0oo~~

  • Ancient Fillums & Stills

    Ancient Fillums & Stills

    The old man bought an 8mm cine film Eumig camera and Eumig projector very like these. Made in Austria. This was ca.1963, I’d guess. It once did a bit of – potentially – famous footage!

    eumig 8mm cine camera
    Super 8 Sound Projector Eumig Mark S810

    Later he bought a Canon SLR camera with a 50mm lens like this, and a 300mm telephoto lens. An FT QL exactly like this one. He used Agfa slide film. Had to be Agfa, not Kodak! Agfa ‘had better greens and blues.’

    Once I heard Dad had been present when I won a 100m race at the town’s President Brand Park athletic track. I didn’t know he was there – found out later that he had been taking photos. At the finish, in my lunge for the tape, I fell and somersaulted, skidding on my back on the cinder track. I tied for first place. Never did see a photo of that finish – !? Had two roasties on my back for a while.

    Once – 1967 – he took a photo of the all-winning U/13 rugby team holding a trophy. I must try and find out what the trophy was for. So I do have one photo a father took of his son’s school sporting career!

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    fillums – films, movies, videos, moving pictures; usually not talkies

    stills – pictures on paper, photos; often in ‘albums’

    We saw other ancient movies too – those were 16mm.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    EUMIG was an Austrian company producing audio and video equipment that existed from 1919. The name is an acronym for Elektrizitäts und Metallwaren Industrie Gesellschaft – “Electricity and Metalwarendustry Company” –

    In 1982 EUMIG went bankrupt – punishment for choosing such a boringname?

    Eumig’s patent for the macro system in lenses was sold to the Japanese company Canon.

  • Beaut Bird Pics

    Beaut Bird Pics

    Old school friend Piet Steyl went to Kruger Park and sent these magic pics of wire-tailed swallows. His cousin Leon Steyl took them.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~