The Baobab Avenue #1
Visiting a really famous tourist spot in any country makes it very difficult to come up with an interesting photograph of that place because you always have to assume that everything has been done before, all the angles have been covered and you’re just another tourist with a better camera – sometimes even the argument about a better camera doesn’t stand up as tourists are pretty kitted up nowadays!
So arriving at the Baobab Avenue, a stretch of road in Western Madagascar surrounded by baobab trees, feels a bit daunting from a photography point of view. After realizing that it was virtually impossible to take a day shot without lots of tourists in the scene, I decided to wait out the people, brave out the mosquitoes and take some blue hour shots of the place. The great thing about this was that everybody comes to this place in a 4×4 vehicle that’s scheduled to get here at sunset, stop to take some pictures for half an hour or so and then move on to the next destination, just in time for dinner, leaving the place completely deserted when the blue hour kicks in.
And let me tell you, when the sky gets that deep blue colour, the place feels magical. It’s dark enough that you can’t see anything else except for these huge trees silhouetted against the sky and the only sounds you can still hear are those of local kids having a late swim in the lake. Right then, it feels like you’ve truly arrived in Africa.