ABOUT THESE PHOTOS
This gallery contains scanned and extensively recovered 35 mm Kodachrome images shot on a Leica IIIG. The vast majority of these images were shot by David Chudy on a range of safari type trips covering the period 1957-1965.
It features Sabi Valley (Save river in Zimbabwe) imagery as well as a major 6 month overland equatorial African Land Rover trip (1958) over rough undeveloped roads from Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), through Congo, traversing east to Zanzibar and back via Nyasaland (Malawi).
It also features images from a year and a half long overland/shipped journey from East Africa, India Japan SE Asia
The following is an exerpt from the book:
Six years before the Summer of Love in San Francisco, David and Ellen Chudy began a yearlong overland journey to the Far East. It was 1961, the year John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as the 35th president of the United States and Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly in space. J.F.K. committed the U.S. to ‘landing a man on the Moon’, while Freedom Riders took buses into the South, challenging segregation. Also in that year, East Germany began to build the Berlin Wall, the first transistor TV was announced as J.F.K oversaw the early build-up of a U.S. military presence in Vietnam, while the Chudy’s began a nail-biting transit of that already war torn country.
Their journey commenced in East Africa and included India Kashmir Bangladesh Myanmar (Burma) Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. They shipped their vehicle to Japan and finally to Java, Indonesia and Bali. An interest in eastern art, and thought, ranging from mysticism to Zen Buddhism was core to planning this intrepid journey. An enduring friendship with Nrimal and Premalya Singh was a gateway to Indian tradition and world views. They took possession of the brand new VW Kombi – an actual ‘works’ converted’ camper, the first to be imported into Africa. Their journey was pioneering for the time. The hippie trail was not yet a thing, and at that time and Model unknown – sculpture lost or destroyed Venerated Japanese potter Shoji Hamada and David Chudy in Japan Westerners did not travel this way – at least, not in the countries they visited.
Their boldness was born of experience in remote parts of Africa and the ‘early days’ in Northern Rhodesia. In those times it was routine to set out on a journey and have to return because of mud or sand making the only road to the destination, impassable. ‘Bush mechanics’ was second nature to David Chudy. It was not out of character to disassemble an engine or repair his car at the roadside in the wilderness. Roughing it’ on long journeys was the only option in the early days. Hotels and even official stop over areas were rare. The African ethos: ‘it does not get defined as a real adventure, if another tourist has ever set foot there’, was a motivating factor, catapulting them into the unknown with anticipation. Asia, of course is not the equivalent of Africa – where vast unpopulated spaces dominate. The journey took them through the gamut of environments from snows near the Nepal border through chaotic teeming cities, parched deserts and humid jungles.
Having independent transportation and sustenance, they were able to travel to intractable backwaters, where they more often than not, they were invited to stay with locals. Hospitality was not only extended by prominent people within their communities, but ordinary people with humble offerings too.
This was an era apart from our time of mass travel and serviced tourism. David and Ellen Chudy were afforded an intimate view of the people and cultures they passed, and being third world people themselves, they were flexible enough to respond appropriately. David Chudy created art along the way on this trip. Numerous pieces – sizable oil paintings in Java and four life sized clay portrait sculptures. The production of any art is remarkable given the context of the compactness of their means of transport. Also, oil paintings take a long time to dry and are unwieldy in a cramped vehicle interior. The pure bulk of the sculptures he made had to be significant as well.
Additionally, they returned with numerous sizable art pieces they had collected along the way. Angkor Wat was one special destination as it was to be inaccessible to foreigners during the decades of the Cambodian Civil War and the Khmer Rouge.
Their arrival in Japan was considered newsworthy and featured in newspapers. But, not by virtue of their personal qualities as intrepid travelers. No one had ever brought a vehicle to Japan ‘temporarily’, i.e. for the purposes of a visit! The Japanese system was not flexible enough to cope and the compromise struck with customs, required David and Ellen to obtain and display a new vehicle plate, for every prefecture they drove though. On the strength of their connection with famed potter William Staite Murray, they visited the venerated Japanese potter Soji Hamada. Hamada who is described as a ‘national Japanese treasure’ had studied with and worked alongside Bernard Leach. As had been the case in the countries they visited, they rarely came across Westerners and those meet were colorful expats, or at least characters, worthy of having a place of honor, in a novel.
