Safari… hunting for exciting experiences, hunting for wild animals… big game hunting… hunting for great motifs… motivation to focus on the details of the landscape… fauna… flora… The most skilled big game hunters had an almost boundless respect for the magnificent animals they hunted, and as the gentlemen they were, they distanced themselves from the “slaughter” that was too often carried out.

The camera equipment of the time was primitive, cumbersome to use, and heavy to carry into the bush where it was needed. Many of the wild animals are nocturnal, making them even more difficult to photograph and film. Yet the German professor Fritch and the respected big game hunter and passionate photographer C.G. Schillings succeeded, together with the German photo industry, in developing camera and flash equipment that made it possible to convey both the astonishing beauty of the wilderness and the cruel slaughter taking place there.

Big game hunters such as Frederick Selous and C.G. Schillings were the conservationists of their time. They hunted “sustainably”.

Bring a camera and binoculars on safari… the first professional photo safari. The year is 1903. Ever since Burchell and Cornwallis Harris “sheared heart and purse” and departed on the first famous “white man’s safari”, adventurers fought their way over mountain ranges, through narrow valleys, dense rainforest, and across the savannah. Explorers such as Joseph Thompson, the medical missionary David Livingstone, the journalist Henry Morton Stanley, the explorer Speke, known for discovering the sources of the Nile, and the most famous and sought after big game hunter of the time, Frederick Courteney Selous, all travelled equipped only with binoculars.

Then came the breakthrough. Professor Fritch and C.G. Schillings opened the way for the photo safari.

And then came Knut Mork… in 1978… with KIM Camp & Nordic Safari… Land Rover, crew and tent… picnic en route… community through challenges and solutions… working together… enjoying together… using, not consuming… documenting… leaving no trace… taking nothing but photos… and nothing but good memories.

Safari njema,
KIM

Safari,,,,attached to a film roll …photo safari,,,,

The year is 1863. Professor Fritch, a German explorer, on safari in the Cape Colony, succeeds, using a dry glass plate negative, in taking the first known photograph of an African predator. In 1888, our friend and famous big game hunter Frederick Courtenay Selous can report that the French Protestant missionary Monsieur Coillard, had participated in a hunting safari to Barotseland on the upper Zambezi and further into present-day Zambia. The missionary had brought with him boxes of photographic equipment, used to take photographs of native costumes and landscape pictures from the Zambezi Valley. Selous does not mention anything about photos taken on safari….

A few years later, in 1907, the big game hunter expresses disappointment and distrust of the camera used to convey and interpret real, wild nature and wild animals…

So, the year is 1896 and a young German, C.G.Shilling, has his first encounter with the “velden” in German East Africa, today’s Tanzania. Shilling is himself a hunter, very skilled and renowned, but he is horrified and reacts strongly to the shooting, the sheer slaughter, of the wild animal population, He fears that if this trophy hunting is to continue on such a scale, it will not be long before the big cats, elephants, and rhinoceroses are extinct… Mr. Shilling, widely known as a very skilled hunter, is also a skilled photographer…Schilling decides to put down his rifle and instead use his camera to capture the hunting scenes on film.

Three times he returned to Germany to collaborate with the Goertz Optical Institute in Friedenau, the leading expert in optical equipment at the time. Schiller was aware of the fact that more than half of the bush's wild animals, birds and reptiles, are nocturnal... and he was determined to show the world first-class images of the wilderness and wild animals, - night photos, - day photos...

Mr. Schilling struggled with and against malaria, heart problems and cumbersome, impractical flash equipment on his first safaris in Africa. He had learned the language of the bush, - and experienced that civilization weakens the eyes and ears of city people... but also that these senses can be sharpened... should be sharpened...
Camera equipment and especially flash technology and equipment, were constantly improving, - and Shilling contributed to this development and improvement both in his native Germany. and in the bush. C.H. Schilling undoubtedly has much of the credit for the development of "flashlight photography" - his work in Germany had resulted in the mastery of groundbreaking new techniques in daylight photography, and he had improved all his own camera equipment.

C.G. Schilling, now well prepared and with all the necessary equipment such as wagons and draft animals for transportation, tents, kitchen equipment, provisions and drinks, was now ready to photograph Africa's fauna, the wild animals as they lived during the day, hunted, ate - or were eaten at night.
The year is 1903....C.G. Schilling went on the first, magnificent truly professional photo safari...!!

Karibuni! Knut Mork ....who organized his first photo safari in November 1978

Explorer and film producer Michael Pallin's TV documentary broadcast on NRK last night with the theme "TREET", was the latest in a series of BBC productions broadcast to convey some of nature's own, often simple solutions to what politicians describe as "man-made climate crisis..."

Some people think that I am so wholeheartedly involved in this problem and oppose politicians' solutions and remedies for "global warming" with "electrification"... "electrification" of industrial production - of oil and gas production, - that I say no to offshore wind, say no to mining for necessary minerals deep down in, and far out, on the seabed... - all this because I want to continue to enjoy the driving pleasure that comes from reining in the many vigorous thoroughbred horses that daily impatiently wait to perform their best under the hood of my Land-Rover (a classic Range-Rover built on a solid steel frame in 1974, and given newer bodywork and cleaner energy from a V8 engine produced in Sollihull on the British Isles in 1992…cabin and engine, united in a combination of good craftsmanship and an atmosphere of aristocratic luxury, comfort and quality and solidity.

In my opinion: sustainability, user pleasure and good social economy. Statutory EU control and necessary maintenance are carried out at a branded workshop “in the neighborhood” and cost a fraction of the required services and maintenance of modern vehicles. Today, at Christmas time in 2025, this vehicle has been in daily operation for more than 50 years…engine and driveline work perfectly.

Rigged and ready for the next safari, “The Dessert Queen” still gets approving glances from passers-by. This »Landy» can surely be called «sustainable» …? (in parentheses I would like to mention that in the period 1978 until 2023 I had about 20 Land-Rover series III ex mil as transport capacity on safaris in the forest areas of Eastern Norway…heavily loaded with 8 passengers, tent equipment, food and fuel.

Vehicles that had served in the Army first, then on safaris for about 40 years…3 wagons used on trips from the North Cape to Morocco. …no serious problems…no accidents…Land-Rover…“Not fast, but persistent…“ “You have only one life. Live it !!”

So much advertising….now to my real concern, “The Tree”….and how I myself, through observation and observation, have gained a little insight into the world of “The Tree”. The British King Charles is, by cheerful/evil tongues, alleged to “communicate with trees.. with plants”. I think HRH the King has a point…trees and plants live together in nature…they share moisture and nutrition, they warn each other of dangers such as fire, trees take care of each other….

On the forest floor, right up in the open, you can see how the roots of trees grab each other like when we hold each other’s hands.. This is how trees are supported in storms and droughts…if one tree falls first, more often fall…I am not an academic, but that is why such TV series - published by the great Sir David Attenborough and later, among others, Michael Pallin, are so important and so instructive for such amateurs as me,,, I have often seen thin trees on the forest floor. long threads creep outwards and away… I didn’t know that these are roots that can be 5 km long and form supply lines from the mother tree. That “eyes” on birch trunks are branches dropped to provide light and nourishment for the trunk’s further growth…that dry pieces of bark at the foot of pine trees can be old “skin” that provides new skin for the tree’s continued growth…

If the British King Charles believes that he can talk/communicate/feel with trees and plants, it is not King Charles who should be ridiculed…Everyone who walks in the forest, especially in the morning, feels the power the forest gives. Jesters claim that walks in the forest should be available on prescription…as medicine. This is ignorance…walks in the forest are already free, - At least in countries where everyone has the right to use the forest…

“Everything is connected to everything.” .it is said. Who said it first is in doubt... My view of life is based on the content between the covers of the Bible, with Creation, where God, the Lord of the universe, created the universe including our own planet...

God saw that everything He had created was good, and He promised to be with us all days until the end of the world, From the beginning to the end... from about 7 billion years ago to the end,,,,!? Another 7 billion years...? ?? God the Creator completed the Work of Creation by creating Man,,, in His image,,, as Man and Woman,,, Adam and Eve... and He commanded them to "be fruitful," subdue the earth,,,, And the Creator created Paradise,,, with the "tree of life and knowledge...!!." It is not impossible that we, the heirs of the earth, can harvest more from that tree than apples... Eve and the apple were not a great success.... Little doubt that our planet is experiencing a climate change…but it has happened before…and will happen again… “The Creator’s ingenious cycle…a divine wheel of eternity…!

“a may-be “ by Kim 2020/2026