Welcome to Nigeria
So all I wanted was a picture of the cow being loaded up for slaughter. We pulled over to the side of the road and I got out and put on the long lens, the CIA-style lens, and started snapping photographs of the bull with it's head tied back and one flailing leg, and the men glossy with sweat, muscles pulled bare across their arms and back wrestling it into the truck. All around the bush was hissing with mid-day heat and flies
And while I was concentrating on this I hear a screech of breaks and an even screechier voice, someone yelling, and I turn away from the truck and the bellowing animal and there is this man, in army fatigues, waving a very impressive firearm in my direction. "Restricted area, no photo, no photo!" I play dumb. He comes closer. It is explained to me that am next to a Nigerian army base; it no photos of the area allowed. I tell him I only want photos of the cows. He demands that I remove my film. I say that it is just the bull on the film, no harm done. I attempt to look very stupid. It works; I go back to the car and keep the film.
I did not, of course, tell him that I have three or four shots of soldiers lounging around the roadside with their weapons and walking through the bush towards the base. It just, well, didn't seem like the right time...
And while I was concentrating on this I hear a screech of breaks and an even screechier voice, someone yelling, and I turn away from the truck and the bellowing animal and there is this man, in army fatigues, waving a very impressive firearm in my direction. "Restricted area, no photo, no photo!" I play dumb. He comes closer. It is explained to me that am next to a Nigerian army base; it no photos of the area allowed. I tell him I only want photos of the cows. He demands that I remove my film. I say that it is just the bull on the film, no harm done. I attempt to look very stupid. It works; I go back to the car and keep the film.
I did not, of course, tell him that I have three or four shots of soldiers lounging around the roadside with their weapons and walking through the bush towards the base. It just, well, didn't seem like the right time...