Afrika Burn 2017

Afrika Burn 2017

2017 was the year that saw us travel to the Karoo for our fourth Afrika Burn and it is also the year that I turned 40 years old!

I am going to be straight up with you here …… I had a rather tough Afrika Burn experience this year as I just wasn’t feeling myself and this culminated into what felt like one of the worst times of my life! Yip I got the dreaded noro virus which did its rounds at Afrika Burn this year. Being in the middle of the desert without running water is not a place to get so violently ill. Climbing out of a roof top tent and crawling to the nearest porta loo in the middle of the night on many many occasions was not fun. I won’t speak too much about the state of the porta loos other than the fact that I wasn’t the only one who was sick at the time! But I survived and in between the not so nice bits I found magic.

Here is a tiny glimpse into that magic!

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Afrika Burn 2016 with the Fujifilm XT1

Afrika Burn 2016 with the Fujifilm XT1

Afrika Burn is a yearly festival which is held in the Karoo desert in South Africa and could be likened to a giant playground for adults. It is a space to dance under the stars, ride around on bikes, dress as your inner diva, give gifts to strangers, look at art and have a ride in a mutant vehicle. It is also a place where the values of every day life are left at the door and people are encouraged to serve those around them for the sake of it. There is nothing that can be bought or sold at Afrika Burn other than ice. There are no adverts or expectations … Just a safe space to find yourself, loose yourself and be yourself.

At Afrika Burn I am constantly torn between feeling the need to shoot absolutely every single last thing that passes before my eyes and feeling the need to put my camera down and be truly immersed in the moment. I think that most photographers feel this internal struggle. Riaan and I weren’t going to go this year but the FOMO got to me in the end and we decided to fly down at the last minute for the weekend. Because we had such a short time this year Fujifilm kindly loaned me their XT1 mirrorless camera to play with. Thank you so much to Hein for being so incredibly generous. I will tell you more about this in another blog post. Also huge thanks to my sister Lisa and her husband Ty for lending us all the camping gear! We couldn’t have done it without you!

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