Aggression

This is a blip that I have had on my list for a while and discovered that there is no way to adequately capture the motorbike riding experience in a single frame. Perhaps video would be a better medium. I have often thought of doing one of those speeded up, time lapse movies from a bike mounted camera.

This particular junction is well managed by four policemen whose job it is to keep things flowing. Back in the UK, such a police presence would put all road users on their best behavior, but here in Bandung, it makes no difference what so ever. I was only here for two traffic light cycles and witnessed dozens of traffic violations, mostly riding on the wrong side of the road and jumping the lights.

Today was meant to be just an exploratory session, to make a plan for a more detailed shoot. But, it was obvious from the start that 28mm was not going to do the job and a 16mm wide angle would be a much better tool, so the shot will have to wait.

The roads are aggressive, especially in the busy periods between 6am and 9pm. Just on the 20 minute ride to this location, I saw one accident with two bikes sprawled across the road and had several touchers. The amazing thing to me is the lack of road rage, apart from me screaming obscenities all the way.

The rider in the foreground of the blip summed up the aggression very nicely as he actually went out of his way to try and hit me. I was fully expecting this to happen, even hoping, as it would give me 'the shot'. I looked at the policemen standing behind me and he just kind of shrugged with a bit of a grin that implied, "well, you asked for that one".

Amazing response to yesterday's dragon, which just happened to be on St Georges day, a fact that I could have made more of. A stupendous number of stars and hearts for which I am most grateful. I thought when I clicked the button that this could be one of my better dragon shots but never anticipated that it would make my all time No2 spot.

Dave