You can go equipped with heavy-duty winches, knobby tyres and a 500 horsepower engine. The sneering rainforest takes no prisoners. It will swallow your shiny 4wd vehicle into a giant mudhole and spit it out as colourless vomit, if you are lucky.
Sometimes torrential rain, floods or mudslides sweep away the vehicle before one can even grab the camera bag. It has happened before and will happen again. This is the nature of the merciless monsoon and tropical terrain. And it is these risks and challenges that attract international participants from as far as Russia and the USA.
The torturous journey for men, women and vehicles in the annual Rainforest Challenge (RFC) makes tough but interesting photography subjects. I try to follow the gruelling expedition whenever schedule allows. Here’s looking forward to this year’s coverage with the new all-terrain Olympus OM-D 🙂
