Southern Thailand
Koh Tao & Tonsai
After four years without leaving the country, it was time to go overseas. I took an older camera that I hadn’t used in a while and purchased lens adapters to utilize vintage glass that I primarily use for motion work. A mix of helios, minolta, pentax, and zeiss lenses is what was packed. The 28mm lens quickly became my favorite. It allowed me to capture frames as I saw them, leaving me immersed in the world and enjoying my time with Therese.
Having shot on digital cameras for years, I was growing bored of the bloated library of images queued for processing. The speed of newer digital cameras, is the cuplrit, along with my trigger happy tendancies. The cost of shooting on film is too high, which rules out going analouge. I’ve decided shooting solely on manual focus lenses and choosing slower digital cameras, forces myself to contemplate the frame before clicking the shutter. My next step is to find some old 8GB cards limit myself even further.
Mt Buffalo, Victoria
Victorian Alpine Country in the summer.
Climbing at Mt Buffalo was intense. We started off the trip with “Where Angels fear to Tread”. The description of the route is in the name. Our feet took a beating from all the foot jams, and an off width section to top it off gave me all the fear I needed. Type 2 fun most of the time, but very worth it. The final pitch for us, and the only one which induced tears from us, was tearing off all the extra tape that ran up our arms to protect us from having our arms buried deep into the crack, giving ourselves an unexpected wax job.
A couple of storms hit during our other days, holding us back from some of our objectives but it didn’t dampen our mood, it only made things more interesting. As a lighting storm approached, I remember running up a slab, not thinking about the mega slack between Mungo and I, and the inevitable death swing I’d take if I tripped, out of fear that I was more lighting rod then climber with all that metal hanging off my harness.
Here are some photos of the scenery in-between climbing.
P.S. If the guidebook says “excitingly slab”, the direct translation is run out, and scary. Regardless of the grade. It’s very humbling.
