Life Happens

Life Happens

I have been ignoring my blog of late. Life happens. It certainly wasn’t intentional, but a confluence of personal and professional reasons made it difficult to find and dedicate time to my hobby blog. I plan on returning to the social media sphere in 2017. I have a number of stories rattling around in my head documenting my spring travels across South Africa. I will get around to posting about some of the amazing places I visited and others will exist only in my memory. There were trips to the beach, Hout Bay, Paternoster, and Hermanus; to the city, Cape Town; to the winelands, Babylonstoren; and to the bush (of course), Phinda and a phenomenal WildEye Photographic Seminar at Sabi Sabi Game Reserve. On nearly all of these sojourns I was accompanied by my amazing plus one. Sometimes this meant the camera stayed in the bag. I spent less time on the details that make a phenomenal blog post and more time staring at him. Life happens.

A Lightroom crash compounded my absence from my blog. While I didn’t lose my raw images, I lost my entire catalogue that I am painstakingly rebuilding from scratch. I think it may take eons and perhaps it will be sorted one day. At the moment, it still feels like a monumental task and most of my limited spare time has been invested in reloading, sorting, and cataloguing nearly 20,000 (primarily) wildlife images that I have captured in over three years of living in South Africa. It was a strong reminder to always back everything up and then keep a back-up of your back-up. 

Of course the year is not quite over and with family visiting from the US for the holidays, I have a few more trips to squeeze in, including return trips to some of my all-time favorite spots in Southern Africa. We will be spending Christmas on Benguerra Island in Mozambique and then on to two of my favorite safari lodges in South Africa, Ngala Tented Camp and Londolozi for their renowned New Years Eve bash in the bush. While I am busy planning more adventures for two in 2017, the past few months have been a reminder to take time to enjoy the moment and not be so consumed with documenting every second of it. Life happens and sometimes you have to sit back and be present for every second of it. Enjoy sharing a table with your loved ones this holiday season and see you in 2017.