Some days you stalk around for hours with your cameras and get nothing you want to shout about. But then you might get lucky and have a bit of a death rattle just before the post. Trawled the streets of St Kitts without producing anything remarkable. It wasn't St Kitts fault, I just couldn't get it right. White-flagged the afternoon and went out for a run instead. The Caribbean dusk falls suddenly and early too. It's a good time to run up a dusty hill and the Caribbean just loves the end of the working day, you can feel it, tangible. We invariably sailed at tea time and there was always the nagging idea that we were leaving the party just as it was getting going - and that they were glad to see us go. Like toys that come alive and creep down from their shelves when everyone goes to bed I often observed jealously from aft deck as harbour streets filled up with real caribbean colour in our booming cruise jamboree wake.
Bowled into port brandishing sweaty ID, and there was my shot. A raggedy troupe in peacock feather hats. There was only minutes before crew leave expired so I sprinted the length of the quay - it's a long one in St Kitts too, 'scuse me, 'scuse me'd' myself up the gangway and made it back with what kit I could locate to hand. Crashed off a fairly decent roll and a half in five minutes and made it back just shy of a written warning. I love this shot I don't mind telling you. It's the colours - and they look like they are rushing off somewhere. Probably to a party we weren't attending.
Margaret O'Hare runs Fine Art Imaging. Commercial creative photography in County Antrim Northern Ireland