A year ago December, Jessica Dimson, the former Picture Editor at Departures Magazine sent me to Ethiopia to shoot a dream assignment. A mix of aerials and portraits about a helicopter safari to the hottest inhabitable spot on earth: The Denakil Depression. (Jessica is now at the New York Times)
I’ve been meaning to post a couple of blog entries about this assignment and never got around to it. Feature Shoot posted a piece about the assignment and recently tweeted about it.
The first part of the shoot involved a 17 hour flight from Washington DC to Addis Abba with a refueling stop in Italy. After I arrived in Addis I met the fixer for the shoot and several government officials who I needed to sign off on the authorization for me to shoot aerial photography. After the paperwork was taken care of, I met the writer, Sophy Roberts. Sophy was a joy to work with: she is inquisitive, funny and nothing seems to bother her.
The next day we hopped a courtesy ride from Addis to Gheralta on a private aircraft. Dealt with a customs agent in the middle of the country who thought we had flown direct his little airfield. By the time were finished “clearing customs” it was close to dusk and we had four hour drive on a dirt track in front of us.
Once we got underway we came across a caravan of camels led by a young man. From within the truck I shot a few frames and was berated by a boy of about seven yelling at me, in English, “no picture, no picture!”
After we arrived at the lodge, Sophy and I met Ben, our pilot along with his best friend, Richard who serves as cohort in crime and all-around crew chief. Our goal was to fly the Denakil in the morning and then return with the helicopter to Addis. As always, go with the flow, is the rule for editorial on location in another country. The schedule changed and Sophy and I took advantage of a free morning to explore the landscape of Northern Ethiopia. Our guide took us to meet two monks who lived in caves that are 1000 meters above the surrounding valley. The monks live in rock-hewn churches carved deep into the mountain and painted with images of Jesus and the Holy Church.
It was a tough climb with little helpers to carry my back pack and tripod. The first part of the climb was up a rutted and rock strewn chute we half crawled-walked up. Then we tackled a kilometer of slick rock and donkey trail. Of course, once we got to the top we found a perfect spot to land the helicopter if we ever wanted to come back.
The monk on the left is seventy-eight years old. The monk on the right side of the frame is 113 years old by the Ethiopian calendar. The Ethiopian Calendar has thirteen months instead of twelve in the Julian calendar. I think the older monk is close to ninety years of age by the Julian calendar.
For some reason, even with the language barrier, the younger monk and I connected. I shot some strong portraits of him and sent jpegs to our guide to show him the next time he goes to the church.
