When the going gets tough .....
- Peter O'Neill
- Sep 5, 2016
- 8 min read
2nd September, 2016, was a special day for me as I experienced three types of ‘toughness’ that made me feel good for the whole day and will sit in the memory forever.
I was going to post just a small message on Facebook with an image or two about these events, but thought that going down that route would not tell the full story properly as more explanation was needed. And so I decided the blog route was the best way to record it as all the incidents have an impact, one way or another, with Photo Model Holidays.
The story is about a stray dog, a nurse and a piece of photographic equipment.
During the past week, a small male black dog has regularly shown up at our gate who looked as though he had not been fed for quite some time but, by the time we got a dish of food ready for him, he had disappeared. On the 2nd September, we found him immobile in a ditch nearby so I stayed with him while Pauline brought food and water. He was ravenous but, as hungry as he was, he did not get up to eat and we found the reason why, his rear right leg appeared to be broken, probably hit by a car or attacked by other dogs. Very carefully, I managed to lift him from the ditch and despite my care, he squealed a number of times as his broken leg was subject to movement. Despite his pain, he continued to wag his tail and never made any attempt to bite me, and the appealing look deep in his eyes which said, ‘Please help me’, I will never forget. We eventually got him into the outside kennel area and every time we approached during the day to comfort him, he staggered up yelping in pain but still wagging his tail. No-one who witnesses such toughness and tolerance of pain could not be moved by this little guy’s courage and his faith that we were friends after so much rejection as, no doubt, he had been ‘dumped’. Saturday, 3rd September, we took him to the vet in Yambol for treatment. Why did we not take him on the day we found him? The answer is simple, he would not have had the strength to face surgery and needed feeding urgently to give him some chance to get through the painful ordeal which was sure to come as part of his examination. After a full examination and X-ray while tranquilised, the vet’s prognosis was that he had a broken hip which they could mend if we were prepared to pay for the operation with it not being our dog. The alternative would have been euthanasia and, our dog or not, this was out of the question. As we had not fed him that morning, we were able to leave him to have the operation later in the day and then pick him up the following morning. The vets, M & B from Yambol, are one of the best in Bulgaria and they gave every confidence the little guy would be fine after the operation, given sufficient recuperation time. A tough doggy indeed.
(Click to enlarge each image)
Later on the 2nd September, after the stray dog had been settled down, it was time to meet up with Rositsa Kuncheva for a late afternoon photo-shoot which we had been planning for some time but, as Rosi is a nurse, fitting the shoot into her heavy work schedule was proving quite difficult. Despite this, we finally had it all arranged for the 2nd and her idea was for us to create images of her fully clothed in the river by the waterfall at Medven. The waterfall is quite a hike from the parking area and, as we had to carry everything we needed to the location, we ensured we had a full equipment list made up and did a final check against this in the car park. All was in order so I swung up the camera backpack from the tailgate to experience the sickening sight of the Nikon, with its 18-140 attached, flying through the air and bouncing off the rocky surface of the car park as I hadn’t zipped up the entry cover properly! A quick check and, to my utter dismay, it showed a broken lens hood and a shattered protector filter over the front element.
I tried to unscrew the broken protector but it had been forced in tight and would not move. As we were travelling light, I had not brought the spare body and I thought the shoot was over before we had even left the car park. I took off the lens and replaced it with the 18-55 and, with great trepidation, took a test shot. I got an image, it was exposed correctly and it was in focus. I fired off a few more at various settings and to my amazement, everything worked. I could not believe that the camera, a Nikon D7100, would survive the impact because I had swung the bag up quickly, which literally flung the camera out at great pace as if it had been catapulted, and landed almost eight metres away. The Nikon D7100 is not rated as a 'pro' level camera yet it absorbed all the impact and carried on working normally without missing a beat. The only one thing that was strange, is that the two card slots on this camera I have programmed for Slot 1 to fill first, and then Slot 2 to take the overflow, seemed to have reversed in order. Back at the office, when I went to download the images, which I knew were there because I check after every couple of shots, Slot 1 had no images and all the images were on Slot 2. How this happened I have no idea. I thought maybe the card had been damaged. A quick check by firing off a few more images into it in Slot 1 with Slot 2 without a card, discounted this as it started storing images immediately. I am still baffled but delighted to say the D7100 is working as if it were new, despite its heavy fall.
So, what about the lens.
Well, fearing it was done for, I used my micro hacksaw to carefully cut through filter rim to enable me to remove the broken glass without, hopefully, damaging the front element of the lens. This I completed by putting Blue-Tack onto the end of a pencil, holding the lens filter side down during the operation and picking each shard out individually. It worked. I blew out any remaining dust or fragments with canned air and re-attached the 18-140 to the D7100. Once attached securely and without any movement, I fired off a range of test shots at different zoom lengths and distances at a printed page from a photographic magazine and had a look at each frame in high magnification. I couldn't notice any deterioration in image quality and the auto focus on all settings seemed to be spot on. I guess I have been lucky this time but it goes to show how good the build quality of Nikon photographic gear really is and how tough they can be when subject to abuse. OK, the lens hood didn't come out well, but it probably helped to cushion the fall a bit as it was reverse fitted onto the front of the lens and took the first impact. A quick wrap of electricians black tape will hold it together and eliminate any extraneous light from the broken gaps and I am sure it will work as normal. Tough camera equipment for sure.
My third example of toughness is Nurse Rosi Kuncheva. i
If ever a woman could pass selection for Special Forces, this young lady is one I would put my money on.
Having organised all the props and wardrobe for her shoot, Rosi was well 'up' for it and nothing was going to deter her from completing it.
Joining us on this shoot was Rosi's friend, Polina, who I knew from previous shoots. Polina was to help with the flash units, as previous experience has shown we were sure to get wet at some stage of the shoot and stand mounted flash units are quite unstable and vulnerable on a rocky river bed. So, with the Nikon working again, Rosi picked up her share of the props plus my extra backpack containing the Godox collapsed soft boxes, spare clothes, towels, a flash stand and the bag containing her personal items and spare clothing, before setting off with Polina and I in pursuit. Twenty-five minutes later we are at the location to find there were a large number of tourists enjoying the site too. This prevented us using the prime site we required as space is limited, so we dropped off part of the gear and proceeded to re-locate across the river to a more suitable place. To do so, we opted for a number of low weight trips instead of one lift as the rocks were very slippery and we had a lot of gear which was not water friendly. Anxious to speedily re-locate and get shooting before we lost the light, Rosi took her bag of personal belongings plus a few other small items, turned and immediately slipped head first into the river! Fortunately, at this point the river is not deep but, water is wet no matter how deep it is and all her personal gear including money, documents, mobile phone etc, became waterlogged.
Amazingly, she was not injured and even though I took a couple of shots of her mishap, Polina and I still needed to help her to the bank. It was at this point that I experienced the fact that the water was extremely cold and really, too cold for us to shoot on the day and I told Rosi to get dry, change her clothes and we would head back home and come back another day.
To Rosi, who is an outdoor girl and much at home in the forests and mountains, this was not an option, 'We came to shoot and we shall do just that!' was her response. I have been on many survival courses in my military life where Parachute and Marine soldiers would have opted out, but not this girl, she is made of tougher stuff. So, shoot we did and, what is more, the very appreciative audience who watched the whole thing were full of admiration of this and recorded her every move on their mobile phones and included themselves in the shoot on many 'selfies'.
Was it worth it? Well, let the pictures give their own verdict.
Rosi's verdict is that 'She loves them and every minute was well worth it!' A tough cookie indeed.
(Rosi feeling the cold after leaving the river)
(Click on an image to enlarge).
This morning, Rosi reports on duty at 07.00 for a typical twelve hour shift as a specialised 'Theatre Nurse'. Everyone loves nurses, this one is extra special and probably my first ever 'Super-Super Model'. For the technophiles amongst us, the D7100 with its 18-55 lens was aided by the faithful Yongnuo YN560 speedlights with their YN560TX controller fired through a Godox collapsible soft box. The exposure information was ISO 800 as we were chasing the light, and mostly at 1/125 @ f6.3. We look forward to meeting you again on our next blog when we shall tell you what is new for 2017 with Photo Model Holidays and introduce you to the new faces. In the meantime, stay safe, stay happy.
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