Newsflash: My Cape Town Military Tattoo 2012 articles have all been published!

The lights of the city in the early evening are reflected in the Castle moat

Last week was a pretty hectic one for me: I was allowed behind the scenes of the CT Mil Tattoo 2012, which meant that I spent every free hour at the Castle of Good Hope, listening to awesome music, observing the participants’ diligent rehearsals, getting to know some great people, and in the process taking just over 6000 photographs.

On the weekend before the Tattoo, preparations were in full swing, as they say, with equipment being set up and performers starting to arrive. Monday was, probably for all of us, the longest day: I arrived before 09h00 in the morning, and got home at midnight – physically exhausted from running around uneven cobbled stones and up and down ancient staircases with all my camera gear, but nonetheless quite hyper-active. Two hours of photo-downloading and skim-sorting later, I finally got some sleep.

Devil’s Peak and Table Mountain up above

Tuesday wasn’t quite such a long day, though I only got home after midnight. Unfortunately, I had a bit of a crash-landing on Wednesday… and, much to my dismay, missed Opening Night. Very upsetting, as it meant missing an opportunity to capture the lone piper on the roof, and the firing of the guns during the 1812 Overture!

Thursday, Friday and Saturday gallopped past in a blur of writing articles, editing and uploading photos during the daytime, and attending the Tattoo in the evening, until way past midnight, camera in hand and making notes in my head for the next article. Three-four hours of restless sleep later, I’d be back at my desk, sorting through images and trying to put my experiences into words…

The main arena is all lit up, as the spectators arrive for the final night’s performance

It was utterly exhausting – but, at the same time, invigorating and thrilling and absolutely awesome!

So I was really delighted to see that the articles I wrote about this event, pretty much while it was happening, have been published on the Reserve Force Division website! They link up with the blogposts I wrote at the time. I couldn’t include many photos in the articles, so I included them on my blog instead.

Here they are:

• 28 Oct 2012 – Blogpost: Preparations for the CT Mil Tattoo 2012 – PDF document
• 29 Oct 2012 – Blogpost: Preparations continue – as above
• 30 Oct 2012 – Blogpost: Almost blown away by the wind – PDF document
• 30 Oct 2012 – Blogpost: A march through the city streets – PDF document
• 01 Nov 2012 – Blogpost: Daytime rehearsals at the Castle – PDF document
• 01 Nov 2012 – Blogpost: Evening rehearsals – PDF document
• 03 Nov 2012 – Blogpost: Dress rehearsal – PDF document

I’ve written two additional articles about the Tattoo, which have also been published on that website, but I haven’t yet written blogposts about them (backlog!). Here are the links, if you are curious, and don’t want to wait until I get around to blogging them!

• 04 Nov 2012 – Colourful costumes, rousing music and precision drills at the CT Mil Tattoo 2012 – PDF document
• 08 Nov 2012 – Thank you for the Music: The CT Mil Tattoo 2012 – PDF document

Pretty neat, eh?

Waiting in eager anticipation for the guns to fire during the 1812 Overture