Some shots you plan, others just happen. This one nearly came with a side of hospital bills.
I was in Amanzimtoti, Durban, chasing giant snails. Yes, snails. I’d seen them there years before, and the idea of photographing those slow, slimy tanks fascinated me. Only problem... not a snail in sight. So, like any stubborn photographer, I found something else that caught my eye: the train tracks cutting toward the coast.
It was one of those moody coastal days... soft rain falling like mist, the air thick with ocean salt and wet vegetation. The kind of day that makes everything smell alive. I started shooting, trying to capture the way the two rails merged into one, the symbolism not lost on me... paths converging, choices narrowing, life blending into direction.
Then came the hoot. Not a polite warning but a get-the-hell-out-of-the-way blast from a train that had just rounded the bend behind me. Cue pure adrenaline imagine tripod, camera bag, me... all flying off the tracks in a scramble that would’ve made a slapstick stuntman proud. I landed on the beach, heart pounding, clothes soaked, laughing like an idiot because somehow, I’d still managed to get the shot.
That image, mist, tracks, and all... has since been requisitioned for a client’s lounge wall. I like to think they’re hanging a little piece of that chaos and calm, that salty Durban air, that moment where instinct met art. Photography isn’t always about stillness. Sometimes it’s about the rush, the risk, and that split second between disaster and capture.
You can see “Tracks to Nowhere” (and other moments that nearly killed me) in my portfolio
