Serengeti National Park
Serengeti, meaning “endless plain,” is truly endless. I was familiar with the sea horizon because I usually chase waterfowl, but it had been a long time since I had seen the ground horizon. Well, I don’t remember the last time I saw the ground horizon actually, so it might be my first time to see it.
I had seen this vast grassland several times in BBC and NHK programs. I also have the archives and had done my research in advance. However, as is often the case, being here in person feels subtly different from the image I had in mind. Most likely, the experience has overwritten my previous mental picture with something more concrete. So, what exactly became more concrete? The geography, the climate, and, if I were to use a cliché often overused, the reality of life itself. Altogether, it provided a good opportunity to reflect once again on what we call nature. During the time between filming sessions, as we bumped along the rough, uneven roads in search of animals in the jeep, the topic naturally came up in my mind, the thoughts unfolded on their own, and I reached a self-evident conclusion without even realizing it.
In the Serengeti, wildebeest are the most abundant, followed by zebras. Perhaps due to seasonal reasons, the number of wildebeest in the northern Serengeti near the Kenyan border is staggering. I often saw the skeletal remains of wildebeest and birds of prey feeding on them. The vultures and marabou storks, with beaks stained red with blood, which I had previously only seen on my TV at air-conditioned home, were now right in front of me, naturally gathered around their meal. While sleeping in a tent within the Serengeti, I heard hyenas howling at the entrance of the tent, and in the bushes, a warthog with her young cautiously observed us with suspicion.
In the spontaneous mental debate that unfolded in my mind, I arrived at the conclusion that the idea of “liking nature” is strange. It’s not about liking or disliking—it’s the fundamental foundation, the starting point. Our ancestors made various efforts and innovations to protect themselves from such environments, and as a result, we have built the society we live in today. But that doesn’t mean we’ve distanced ourselves from nature. Since it’s our foundation, nature is connected to our society and cannot be separated from it. The act of hunting down a bear with a rifle as it rampages in Hokkaido isn’t much different from a hippo charging at a lion attacking its cub.
I was driven by such delusions, and when I came back to myself, my camera was white with dust, my hair was stiff and white with dust, and the wind made it stand on end like a Super Saiyan’s. Nature gives people hair like a Super Saiyan. Stroking it with my hand did not fix it, so I continued photographing as a Super Saiyan.
