A Blast from the Past !

This is me standing (on the right) with a group of villagers at a high alpine camp in the Aladaglar region of the Toros mountains in south Central Turkey in 1988. They came here with their flocks of sheep for the summer months living in tents.

I thought it a remarkable image because it looks like the group has been carefully posed but in fact happened spontaneously within a few minutes.

The shotgun was very old and held together with a hosepipe clip. It was used to kill local wildlife (elusive birds & rabbits etc) for the pot and to scare off predators - supposedly wolves although I never saw any.

There were also rumours of a giant snake which seems ridiculous now but when you are in a remote place surrounded by empty mountainous terrain and the villagers seem serious........you can start to believe !