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An unexpected casualty of the Transgabonais railroad
"On our way to Ivindo National Park, we crossed the Transgabonais railroad tracks. The one-track railway goes as straight as possible, to make it as cheap as possible, through very dense jungle. When the train runs late at night, sometimes it hits elephants—elephants have a very keen sense of smell, but very bad vision. The locomotive is so huge that hitting an elephant just dents the car."
—Photographer Nicolas Reynard
Photography Notes
- Camera: Nikon F4
- Film: Kodachrome 200
- Lens: 80-200mm
- Shutter speed: 1/500th
- Aperture: f/11
- Time of day: 11 a.m.
"How odd to see a man holding a gigantic bone. I wanted to take the attention away from his face, because it is natural to first focus on a face, and then see what he is doing. I wanted to focus on the size of the bone, and the contrast between the blackness of his skin and the whiteness of the bone. There are many people killing elephants, yet we never consider that trains also kill elephants. Later we came across some skulls and a few bones. These casualties are just a simple fact of life."
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