Jim Lowry: African Fantasy

February 24 to April 29

In April, 2016 my wife of 35 years suddenly died. My life was shocked out of it’s norms, and I pledged to say “yes” to everything that came my way. One day a friend called and told me a small group of photographers were going to Africa for a month, and he invited me to join them. What could I say but yes. Yes to everything.

The months marched by rapidly, and it was time to go. I met my friend in the Vaxhall area of London where we spent a couple of days walking and taking photos. From there we caught a flight to South Africa, where we met our other four companions. We rented vehicles and headed out to Kruger National Park.

Kruger Park was in the third year of a three year drought. Many of the animals were suffering, especially the grazers and Hippos. Elephants were pushing trees over to eat the roots; Bones were in abundance; rivers were very low and water holes were drying up. Many areas looked like a war zone.

Kruger is about the animals. Photographers with enormous lenses and fancy equipment were all about the close ups. Being primarily a landscape photographer, I sought to incorporate animals into the landscape, rather than do just animal portraits. The land was telling a tale of gritty survival in a difficult environment. I needed to shoot that.

I spent days and nights in bush camps, out tracking animals on foot at sunrise with half a dozen other travelers and two rangers walking single file, an arm’s length apart so as to appear  to be one large animal. If someone needed to stop for any reason, everyone stopped. The feeling of being last in that line is something I expect to remember for a long time.

After a month, I came home with 6,000 photos. While it will take a long time to do justice to this many photos, this show is a collection of my first choices.

I hope this show inspires the “yes” in you.

Exhibition Sponsored by Gale Becker