The Archive: Sudan
Trying to land in Sudan during the rainy season probably isn’t the best idea, but what else are you going to do. A year before this, I couldn’t get a fight into the country because all the landing strips in the region I needed to get to, were flooded or just too muddy to land and ended up having to drive in.
This weeks Image Retrospective comes from Sudan, shot just before I landed a remote landing strip. It took quite a bit of extra time by the pilot trying to find a suitable landing strip. As you can tell from the photo, a pretty gnarly storm system was moving through the area and most of strips were flooded, all the while getting farther and farther away from my planned rendezvous point with my contact. As the pilot kept ascending and descending to look at different landing spots, I kept referencing his moves with my map; even if we could land, catching up with my friend on the ground was still in question.
I personally like this image, just because it brings me back to the moment and I can remember all the logistics running through my head. The pilot told me he had to leave as soon as he landed because of the strong cross winds picking up as well as another column of water, like the one in the image, just behind us. He was also the same pilot who would be picking me up a week later, but at a different landing strip, which one? where? what if it’s raining then? what if it’s raining for the next month? Normally, I would be ok riding out whatever came to be, but I had an assignment back in the States, soon after this trip. So my calendar didn’t account for rainy season unpredictability.
In the end, the landing was smooth, I caught up with my friend on the ground, I completed my Sudan assignment, and I made it back to the States just in time for the other.
Nikon D2x - Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8
