BLOG CLOSED - visit www.ConfessionsOfATravelJunkie.com

THIS BLOG HAS BEEN MOVED

2008-08-07T00:32:00.000-07:00

Loyal readers,

I've moved from blogger to typepad, for a few reasons. One is the flexibility and control over the blog, the layout, and the content. Another is the very Mac-like feeling of the typepad website and publishing tools (even if I do have to use Firefox to publish my posts… sigh). And finally, because typepad has a really cool iPhone app that lets me publish blog entries with MULTIPLE PHOTOS (gasp) and even to categorize them on post! I know, shocking.

Oh and it allowed me to do something I've been wanting to do for years on blogger… MERGE BLOGS! Yep, if you haven't found my other blog (this one was noticeably quiet but still had some photo-specific action on it), I have been doing most of my posting on another site. Well, now they're all together in one big happy family.

So blogger comes to a close. Soon http://www.ConfessionsOfATravelJunkie.com will point to the new site, but in the meantime you can visit it at http://traveljunkie.typepad.com -- see you there!

RSS FEEDS -- I've had a question on this already; yes you'll have to re-sub to the RSS feeds, sorry. And if you do it now, you'll have to do it again when the proper domain parks on the new site. Sorry for the hassle folks… I don't know that there's any way around it.

Canon 1Ds Mk III: auto-noise reduction & UDMA cards

2008-01-26T13:57:00.000-08:00

I've been using the new Canon 1Ds Mk III recently, and as with pretty much any gear I play with, one of the first things I'll do is dig through the preferences/ settings of the kit. After setting up the Mk III as I wanted it, I went out to take my first shots. One thing I noticed right away was that I was only getting two shots off before the buffer was filled! When you look through the viewfinder of this camera (as on most Canon pro cameras), you'll see a display of how many frames you can fire sequentially before the buffer fills and your fps drops below maximum.

Anyway on this 1Ds Mk III I was seeing only two. (I never did switch to JPG to see what I'd get there, as I'm not really interested in JPG shooting on this camera). My first thought was that this was because my CF card wasn't fast enough. Even though my cards are Lexar 2GB 133x cards, they are not UDMA cards. I basically accepted that this was the case (these are 21megapixel files after all), shrugged my shoulders and picked up a UDMA card.

2GB 133x

8GB 300x UDMA

Imagine my surprise when the UDMA card made no difference. So I started looking through the settings, trying to figure out what the problem could be. Digging back into the C Fn's (Custom Functions), I noticed that I had both Long Exposure (C. Fn II-1) and High ISO (C. Fn II-2) noise reduction turned on. I know that the idea behind the long exposure noise reduction is that the camera will process for as long as the exposure was; i.e., a 20 second exposure means a 20 second post-process before it's written to the card. OK.

Just out of interest I turned them both off. And guess what… up shot my continuous exposure count to 12! And in reality, it's more like 15.

This smelled like a bug to me. Because even at ISO 100, if I turn on High ISO reduction, the count drops to 4. Turn it off, it goes back to 12. ISO 100 does not count as high ISO!

Likewise, turn on long exposure noise reduction to "auto" or "on", and it drops to 10 frames in display. This is with a manual exposure set to ISO 100, f/2.8 1/8000th second. Not exactly a long exposure. And it actually stops after 11 shots fired.

So obviously this demanded some research. After some digging, here's the information I came up with. Even though the camera does not utilize the noise reduction at exposures under one second, having it enabled still affects the cameras buffer performance -- and this has been the case in all EOS bodies. The user should not have to turn this on or off if the exposure goes over or under one second, so IMHO this qualifies as a bug.

As far as the High ISO noise reduction, this is a misleading term as when enabled it does process the files differently at ALL ISOs. The higher the ISO the greater the correction, but even at ISO 100 it is handling the files differently to optimize image quality and keep noise to a minimum. This is why the buffer is reduced in this case.

So what's better, let the camera do the noise reduction, or let Aperture do it ('cause that's the software you're using, right?!). If you're shooting RAW, the noise reduction is NOT embedded into the file (thank goodness). Apparently you can alter the embedded reduction settings using Canon's Digital Photo Professional software (never used it myself), or if you're using Aperture (or anything else) to do the RAW decode, that camera data is thrown away and the software does its own thing.

So the short answer is… if you're shooting RAW, turn off the noise filters. If you're shooting JPEG, turn it on. Of course in my not-so-humble opinion, there are only fringe example reasons of why you would shoot JPEG anymore. It's all about the RAW file, baby.

As far as the UDMA / non-UDMA cards are concerned, it turns out that until the buffer is filled you will not see the write speed of the card in action. This will only be visible when the red "writing data" light is on and you see how fast the images are transferred to the card from the buffer. Basically the real question is not how fast you can shoot to the buffer, but how fast can the buffer transfer to the card and clear it for new shots. To test this, just hold down the shutter release on continuous for a set amount of time. In a test of one minute, with my Lexar 133x card I was able to take 64 pictures in one minute; with the Lexar 300x UDMA card I was able to take 77 shots in the one minute. This is a substantial improvement! Of course I think this would be more interesting in a camera like the 1D Mk III, which is all about shooting as many frames per second as possible.

So did I need the UDMA card? For my purposes, no. BUT I now have an 8GB card, which with a 21Mpixel camera is handy!

Barack Obama in San Francisco

2007-11-16T05:39:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama spoke at the Billy Graham Civic Auditorium last night on November 14, 2007. After nearly three hours in line outside, I got in and pushed my way near the front on the floor. People tend to get out the way of a big lens.

I was able to move around a bit, but not without some resistance. Oh well, all in the name of getting an image.

These are all shot on the Canon 5D, 70-200 f/4.0 lens. It was fun to shoot the president. Wait that came out wrong… it was fun to photograph the next president! (I actually was talking to a photographer who does follow the current president and photographs him regularly, and asked him how the secret service thinks of that term, because of course photographers always "shoot" things. He chuckled and said they get used to it).

Fleet Week 2007, San Francisco

2007-10-11T23:17:00.000-07:00

Gallery

Last weekend was Fleet Week here in San Francisco, and as always it was a blast. This year I decided to try to get a different angle on things, and so took the ferry to Angel Island to shoot from there.

View Larger Map

Shore to shore is about 3 miles, so it's not exactly close. A 400mm f/4.0 on a Canon 1D Mark III made for a 520mm equivalent, so a good telephoto but still pretty wide at 3 miles. This is a wide view of where I was shooting from… the iconic Transamerica Building is in that clump of skyscrapers to the left of the frame, just to the right of the Bay Bridge.

Mix in the typical haze for looking over salt water and the smoke left behind by all the planes, and that adds up to a pretty hazy shooting environment. I got some decent shots, nothing award winning but it was still a fantastic day. The weather was gorgeous, and I spent it outdoors shooting the Blue Angels from an island. Not bad for a days work.

One of the more exciting maneuvers was when one of the Blue Angels flew the length of the Bay, barely off the deck! You'll have to click through to the gallery to see a sequence, but here's a teaser… you can see the plane amongst the boats, and the tail of water she's pulling behind her!

Another beautiful day on the Bay.

IHF needs help!

2007-07-15T09:04:00.001-07:00

I woke up this morning to find this email in my inbox from Carol Sasaki, founder of IHF.

Dear Volunteers and Sponsors,

IHF is currently in an extremely vulnerable financial situation. I am being told by board members that there is simply not enough money this month to continue providing for all the children in my centres. I cannot let this happen. I cannot tell any child that they must leave because there is not enough money. I cannot tell them that they have not been picked when they have been told this so many times before. I am determined to prevent this from happening and I hope that by revealing to you all the true situation of IHF, you too will feel my determination. This letter, therefore, comes to you as an urgent appeal for help.

I am pleading with you, with whatever dignity I have left, to come up with enough money for at least one class ($30) and donate it today. This month, IHF's children depend on it. For next month onwards, I am asking you to please make it your personal duty to find at least one sponsor. If everyone who received this email did this, IHF would survive and thrive. We need to just make it until February when we have regular funds guaranteed. It would be absurd to for IHF to fall apart now.

Please, please, if you are in denial, let this email be a wake up call. Please help ensure the future of IHF, by going to http://ihfonline.org/donating/

Yours Faithfully,

Carol

I already volunteer many hours to this organization, as well as the photo trip to Kenya I did on their behalf, and am additionally going to sponsor a child now because of this situation.

Just to drive the point home, these are photos of children who are not under the care of IHF.

And these are children who are.

Yes, you can make a difference.

Please, if you can, help.

More Baseball

2007-06-30T14:09:00.000-07:00

I shot another game yesterday. A couple of fun shots out of it. These kids are going through bats like nuthin'!

Canon EOS-1D Mark III baseball results

2007-06-28T20:58:00.000-07:00

[gallery]

I learned a few things about the camera and about shooting baseball (not something I've done before)…

The camera is pretty impressive. It maintained focus very well, even doing a good job tracking runners coming almost straight towards me. Obviously it lost a few, but for the most part it did a good job.
I know this camera is getting panned for not focusing well in low light, but frankly how many sporting events are shot in low light? Baseball is fast. Really fast. Even shooting at 10fps, there are many sequences of shots where I have to think to myself… what happened to the ball??
The camera isn't forgiving on overexposed highlights, even shooting RAW. My best exposures are the darker ones. Seems like it might be a better idea to shoot a bit underexposed and lift in Aperture. Which is nice for sports frankly; you'll gain a bit of shutter speed.
I need to go out and shoot another game!

Check out that bat!

Here is a small [gallery]

Canon 1D Mark III

2007-06-17T12:21:00.001-07:00

Playing with the new 1D Mark III. Seriously cool gear.

A "welcome letter" for future Pokot visitors

2007-05-22T15:16:00.000-07:00

I thought this would be fun to share. I've written a (lengthy!) letter/document on "what to expect in Kenya", written for the western traveler, which will be included in a "new volunteers manual" that the IHF is working on.

Probably a good read for anyone going into the wild of a developing nation!

It's too long to just drop in the blog, so you can read it here.

Shooting the album cover for Home Again

2007-05-22T07:25:00.000-07:00

I had a business trip to LA last week and took some time aside to photograph my friend and colleague Scott Wilkie for his upcoming solo album release, Home Again. The album is a beautiful collection of original solo piano music, blending jazz and pop. His previous albums are available on the iTunes Store [link], and this one will be released this summer.

Here are a few selects from the shoot, some of which will be coming soon to an album near you.

[Edit] If anyone can tell me how to not have Blogger strip the color profile from the preview icon (the ones you see below), please let me know. Click through and you see the images properly; on these small views they look rubbish. *sigh*. Hmm and it appears that Firefox doesn't honor the color profile anyway. Browse in Safari! You are using a Mac, right? ;-) *ahem*

Room to Read

2007-05-17T00:13:00.000-07:00

I just finished the book "Leaving Microsoft to Change the World" [amazon.com link], written by John Wood, founder of Room to Read. It's an amazing read, and a phenomenal story of what can be achieved by smart, ambitious people who refuse to watch the children of our world suffer because of lack of education, and refuse to hear the words "no" when asking others to help change that.

I eagerly recommend this book to anyone who's ever thought the world could be a better place.

Letter to the children

2007-05-10T08:08:00.000-07:00

The 'goodbye' letter I wrote to the children in the Pokot orphanage has been posted on the IHF website; how sweet. I'll copy it here for your enjoyment.

My dear children,

I am so sorry that I was not able to say goodbye properly. When Past President Moi departed, I ended up getting a ride with his security team back to Nakuru and had to leave immediately. It pained me to not be able to say goodbye in person.

I so very much enjoyed my time with all of you. You are wonderful, wonderful children, and I wish I could take you all home with me. The welcome you gave me when mommy Carol and I arrived was one of the most amazing, warm, and loving welcomes anyone could ask for. Your constant hugs were a treasure and made me feel immediately at home. When I went to Nakuru for a couple of days then came back to you all, I felt truly like I was coming home again.

Thank you for your love and affection and for teaching me so much about your lives. And thank you for such a wonderful opportunity to photograph all of you. I will be sure to send pictures for you all to enjoy just as soon as I can.

Chemariach Lomertelo, my poet. We never had time to record your poem or for me to write it down. I hope that you will write it for me and have Daniel send it to me by email. Never stop writing. You are, and can always be, an inspiration to us all. I love you.

Chepkopus Lale, always with a smile for the camera. Never stop smiling; you can brighten any room. I love you.

Kevin Kiyech, never stop looking to the stars for knowledge and wonder. You are blessed with one of the most amazing sky's in the world to gaze upon. Always know that when you look up to the stars and the moon, your daddy Joseph will be looking up as well. I love you.

Newton Kamarino and Patrick Ruto, you both have amazing futures ahead of you. Stay strong in school and you will go far. I love you both.

Moses Korireng, You amazed me with your knowledge of American politics and your thirst for knowledge. I wish you the best in your quest to study Business at Kabarak University. I love you.

And of course Chepanga, my special Pokot daughter. I will miss you terribly, and I will be watching over you from afar. I look forward to hearing about your life as you grow into a young woman, and know that you always have a daddy, somewhere in the world. I love you.

And to everyone else, my greatest love to you all,
Daddy Joseph

Back in California

2007-05-07T09:35:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

I'm home now. After many long flights from Nairobi to London, London to Los Angeles, then Los Angeles to San Jose, I'm home. Amazingly my baggage made it 10,000 miles to LAX where I cleared it through customs, only to have them not manage to make it the last 350 miles to SJC. Go figure. (They just arrived at home a few minutes ago)

It took a while to find my way home last night as every freeway entrance to downtown San Jose was blocked off for the Cinco de Mayo weekend, but I finally got through. I wandered out for a sushi dinner (ahhh, food!!) then passed out around 10. So good to be back on a nice mattress instead of the 3-inch thick foam I've been on for two weeks. A hot shower! Smooth roads! Cappuccino! Ahhh

But… I miss Kenya already. I miss the kids. The smiles. The stars. The sound of animals instead of traffic. And lots of other little things that will undoubtedly sink in over the course of this first day back.

I love you Kenya, you were good to me. I will return one day, without question.

I have a TON more to write and post, and will do it as quickly as possible. I shot over 6,000 pictures and need to finish sorting them. On Friday, the orphanage was visited by past President Moi, and I have a massive gallery of that visit.

[picture: Me meeting former President Moi. Photo credit: Solomon Kipsang Tallam, President Moi's personal photographer]

On my last day we went out at sunrise to see the Lake Nakuru National Park, home to 1.5 million flamingos, as well as giraffe, zebra, hippo, dik dik, black and white rhino, baboon, monkey, and many many more wonderful animals. As I go through these and other pictures I'll recall other stories to tell, and will get them up here quickly.

For now though… it's back to the other world.

Thank you all for following, and for posting comments, and generally coming along for a ride with me. The show is over but the stories will continue.

hwakerini,
-Joseph

Let's talk about food

2007-05-07T09:25:00.001-07:00

(Written Friday May 4, 19:44 Kenya time – regarding the whole trip)

As I sat having lunch in Nginyang, it occurred to me that I haven't talked about food that much. And for those who know me, you'll recognize that as a glaring omission. So, let's talk.

There ain't much.

And by that don't mean quantity, but variety. There is a very short list of what is on every menu, in every restaurant, in every kitchen, in every hotel. Here's the list.

VEGETABLES

White rice – usually served with some tomatoes mixed in, almost always undercooked (nearly crunchy). Flavorless
Beans – sometimes served alone, but usually served with maize. Can be tasty, and is a staple at the orphanage
Maize – looks like corn but much bigger and tougher kernels, never served alone (see Beans)
Potatoes – boiled or fried, but if they're fried, they're soggy
Cabbage – also usually served with tomatoes mixed in. There's cabbage everywhere here, and in the markets it's very sadly wilted looking. I guess it lasts a while though as it's everywhere
Kale – again with tomatoes (I think). The single most flavorful dish I ate while here. But as anyone who's cooked kale before will tell you, you have to cook it to death to make it edible.

FRUIT

Bananas are abundant
Watermelon on occasion
Pears? Not really sure if that's what those were…
Mango, maybe? Again not sure, never had one

PRODUCE

Eggs – quite dreary looking in restaurants, although out at Joshua's home we had fresh eggs from his own hens, and WOW those were good.

BREAD

Flat bread (fry bread?) – unleavened bread cooked on coals and served covered in ash
Sliced bread – only in restaurants, and oddly when served with breakfast, never ever toasted

MEAT

Goat – Usually served as a stew. I heard it is also sometimes roasted, but never saw that. Unfortunately they don't carefully remove the meat from bone and gristle – instead it's chopped up by a large cleaver and all mixed together. You pick up a piece with your fingers and eat what you can. It is, however, quite tasty. They say the meat is so good because the goats eat the nettle trees. These trees are covered with poisonous 3-inch spikes and hurt like hell if you touch them. Yummy.
Chicken – only seen in restaurants in Nairobi and Nakuru. Very scrawny birds go into this – not a lot of meat to chew on.
Fish – Talapia, talapia, and talapia. I had it once in Nairobi with some kind of breading and sauce, but otherwise it's served whole. In one place it was actually fried up beautifully with crisply skin and while overcooked, was still a delight to eat. The other time it probably started off well, but by the time I got it it had been soaking in run-off from the veggies (of which the sauce is liberally poured over everything else) and so the entire fish was soggy.
Suasage – hard, dry, but tasty. Only saw this with breakfast at the Carnation hotel in Nakuru

BEVERAGES

Tea – black Kenyan tea, served everywhere all the time. Milky and sweet and quite good.

SPICES & CONDIMENTS

Salt – and actually a very good salt. Don't know where it comes from but it's nice
Pepper sauce – generic, not-too-spicy, red sauce
Green Chilies – got these once at a the restaurant in Nginyang, but even the second time we were there they didn't have them. Too bad, they added some flavor to the rest of the food.

UNCLASSIFIABLE

Ugali – that tasteless, incredibly thick (like super-thick mashed potatoes), cornmeal foodstuff that is served with every meal. It's very filling, and is what is made from the cornmeal we were giving out at the famine feeds. To eat, a chunk is pulled off in the hand and squished and pressed into the fist, then dipped into sauce or used to scoop up kale or cabbage. [link - Wikipedia]

And that's pretty much it. The entire food supply of every restaurant I was in. Most places don't even have menus – seriously – because they all serve the same stuff. And asking what they have is like a comedy routine. For example…

Pokot – what do you want?
Me – what do they have
Translated to server – what do you have?
(response)
Pokot – beans
Me – um, ok, anything else?
(I'll cut out the back and forth translation, but trust me it's a "who's on first" routine)
Pokot – rice
Me – so beans or rice… ok. I'll have rice
Pokot – do you want a vegetable?
Me – oh they have vegetables! Great… what do they have
Pokot – vegetables
Me – oh right. Ok, sure

and so on… finally, you get a plate of rice or beans, with kale or cabbage or boiled potatoes or a combination of the three, and either ugali or flatbread.

On occasion you get some meat, but unless it's a big city it's chicken or fish or goat, never a choice, just one of the three

And curiously, beer is usually not available in restaurants. Never saw wine anywhere.

Damn I can't wait to eat cheese… and fresh vegetables… and fish other than Talapia… ooh, sushi. Yeah. And pizza. And anything Mexican or Italian or Spanish or Thai.

I'm hungry now :(

Oh a curious point – so I have to assume that Nairobi, a big city, has restaurants serving food from around the world. But everyone I asked who goes to Nairobi often – or even lives there, has never been. Not once. I haven't met a single Kenyan who has eaten anything other than Kenyan food – and that includes the students in University! It's very curious.

I'm meeting James, one of the Pokot university students, in Nairobi for dinner before my flight out. Hopefully I can get him into something other than goat and ugali. Wish me luck.

Snake Bite, Famine Feed, more celebration, and more TEP kids

2007-05-02T22:21:00.000-07:00

(Written Friday May 4, 18:30 Kenya time – regarding Wed May 2, noon)

We arrived in Kadingding after about 30 or 40 minutes of driving. This is the village where Amos is the chief. We came to deliver some food, and to photograph a couple of TEP kids.

While there I was asked to photograph this young boy, Korkor Lomakul. As you can see from the photo, he's missing a leg. This is one of the very sad examples of inferior medical care in the area. He was bitten by a snake. I don't know the whole story, but the medical services either didn't know how to treat the bite or didn't have the anti-venom, but for whatever reason, they decided they couldn't treat him – and so amputated his leg. This is part of the painful reality of the society out here. One one hand, there is medical treatment, but it's not great and it's hard to get to. And that treatment occasionally does things like cuts off an entire leg to treat a snake bite. On the other hand, if there were no treatment available at all, then the boy probably would have died. Cutting off his leg probably saved his life, but it also partially destroyed it. His family abandoned him when he lost his leg. This goes back to something I was talking about earlier where deformed children are said to have "bad spirits" and will be shunned, abandoned, never married. It's a very rough life out here in the bush. Amos's clan adopted him, and he lives here now, in Kadingding.

More celebration was had to thank our delivery of food. This was much lower key and smaller than the big feed at the Watering Hole, as it was only one village. But there was no less enthusiasm. It's such a treat to see this native dancing and singing, and to know they are truly grateful for what they are given. It's incredibly heart warming to see.

I photographed two more TEP kids here at Kadingding. We then moved on to Watering Hole where I photographed one, and to Nginyang for another. Yes I was supposed to see more kids in these villages – but if they weren't there, they didn't get their picture taken. Frustrating and sad.

Food is highly overrated

2007-05-02T21:50:00.000-07:00

(Written Friday May 4, 18:19 Kenya time – regarding Wed May 2, noon)

Not to sound like a whiney American, but it really just adds into the disorganization of it all. And it's time to vent.

When the famine feed was over, it was noon. The orphanage cook had been making lunch since morning, and it was nearly ready. And since my breakfast consisted of tea and a few biscuits, I was hungry. OK it sounds really lame to talk about being hungry when we just handed out cornmeal and potatoes to support the various nomadic tribes in the area who mainly subsist on roots and the occasional goat, but still, a man's gotta eat. And I was looking forward to the beans and maize that had been stewing all morning.

So, Moses says it's time to go. Since we were supposed to leave hours and hours ago, I feel in my right to ask him "what about lunch". He says we'll eat on the way (not like there's an In-N-Out Burger along the way, mind you). I say, "look the food here is nearly ready, let me just grab a bowl and I'll eat it in the car". "No no, it's OK, we'll stop at a shop and get some food".

Shop??

OK then… he's the chief. Off we go.

We drive for about 10 minutes, and in the middle of freakin' nowhere, very close to the orphanage, is a shop. Really! It's no 7-11, but it's a typical base-supplies (meaning dried beans, rice, maize, soap, etc) shop. He goes in, comes back with a bunch of warm soda's for everyone in the car… and a bag of crackers. Honestly. This is to be my lunch. I'm hot, cranky, and hungry, and have just been denied a proper lunch because we're in a hurry. Which is obviously not my fault. So now I'm pissed.

OK, enough whining. Back to work.

PS – a warm coke in 100 degree heat is still refreshing.

PSS – to make myself feel better about this post, I'll note that the Pokot are used to surviving on a lot less food than we are. And at first I felt bad when Carol would get mad at people for not feeding us, but now I understand why. This is an on-going battle with them, and many more volunteers will follow me out here. If the volunteers aren't fed, they'll stop coming.

Famine Feed at the orphanage

2007-05-02T21:19:00.000-07:00

(Written Friday May 4, 17:49 Kenya time – regarding Wed May 2, late-morning)

Ah, the truck has finally arrived! As they were unloading, Moses (village chief) showed me the receipts for the money they spent on the famine feed, for cornmeal, potatoes, and fuel (which they bought on credit). The total was Sh 18,300. I had Sh 13,000 and a receipt for Sh 5,000 in fuel in my pocket. Clearly the money wasn't enough. And to make things worse, I couldn't give it to him. Until the confirmation comes from Tim, I'm not to hand the money over. And the latest word was that only 10 of 30-something emails had been sent. Ugh.

This was a much smaller feed than the others as people came to us. It was interesting to see the clans gathering in the orphanage though, waiting for the truck to arrive.

American Politics

2007-05-02T20:37:00.000-07:00

(Written Friday May 4, 17:41 Kenya time – regarding Wed May 2, mid-morning)

Well I'm impressed. One of the orphans, Moses, wanted to talk politics. American politics. Moses is in high school, with a B– average (third highest in his class), and his goal is to go to Kabarak University near Nakuru to study business administration.

He wanted to clarify a U.S. presidents term. How many years, how many terms? In Kenya it's similar; two terms max but a term is five years instead of four. He knows that Hilary Clinton is running for president, and knows that Obama is too. Although I've found that everyone here knows about Obama, and many ask me about him. Apparently he's Kenyan (or of Kenyan descent – I didn't know that). So people here are quite interested. They are very curious to know if the American public is ready for a black president.

Are we?

Anyone who wants to write to Moses, you can reach him at korirenges at yahoo dot com. Tell him you're responding to my blog entry, I'm sure he'd love to hear from anyone.

Waiting… waiting… waiting

2007-05-02T20:13:00.000-07:00

(Written Friday May 4, 17:36 Kenya time – regarding Wed May 2, mid-morning)

Again a morning of frustrated waiting. We were supposed to have a very early famine feed here at the orphanage, then get an early start to the other villages, but at 10:15 I'm still waiting.

At this point our driver, Kip, has disappeared. Moses, the village chief who's supposed to be organizing this, is nowhere to be found. Apparently we're waiting for famine food to arrive here, as various tribes are currently assembling here for a famine feed at the orphanage, also waiting. It's getting later – and hotter. Ugh.

Losing Sponsorship

2007-05-01T21:45:00.000-07:00

(Written Friday May 4, 17:27 Kenya time – posting this in this chronological place to make sense of a few things)

In reading through some old blog entries, I realized that I should probably explain something.

One of the goals I had here was to photograph each sponsored child for their thank-you letters to their sponsors. Many of these children are at risk of losing sponsorship – or already have. The reason behind losing sponsorship is understandable. Donors from around the world give money to sponsor a child. If the child does not return a thank-you letter, with a picture preferably, eventually the sponsor stops sending money as they lose faith in the existence of the child. This has proven to be something extremely difficult for the Pokot to understand. It's not part of their culture to say "thank you". I've found this all over Kenya – in a restaurant for example when served food, of course I say "thank you" as this is our culture. It's often met with puzzling looks. Likewise the locals do not say it. It's just not their way. So it's difficult for the locals to understand the importance of sending these thank-you letters.

Sadly this has been going on for a long time, and most children are a year behind on thank-you letters – and they are supposed to send them once a month. Since the Pokot were not taking their own pictures and writing the letters (even though they have been given a digital camera, a laptop computer with cellular modem card, and training for this exact purpose) Carol wanted me to photograph the kids while here. However even then, organizing the children proved extremely difficult, and many kids were never photographed. Those that were did write their thank-you's (while we were here – this wasn't already done), and those have finally been scanned, transcribed and emailed, along with my photos.

As a result, many of these kids will lose their sponsorship. And even this month, then entire orphanage isn't getting their funding because so many donors have complained that IHF in the U.S. is withholding funds until the letters are sent. They managed to send many of these letters while we were here but a week past the deadline for funding. The IHF U.S. sends funds by bank wire once per month to all orphanages around the world, and has to do them all at once. So, this orphanage has to get by on what they have for the next month. It's painful, but the money simply isn't coming in without these letters.

In addition, the hold-out for these letters is so bad that Carol was withholding donated cash for the famine feed. As she had to stay behind in Nakuru, she gave me Sh 18,000 to hold until I had confirmation from Tim (the Pokot doctor, and who was handling emails this week) that they had been sent. That was on Tuesday. As you will see, I didn't get to hand the money over until Friday.

Good Morning

2007-05-01T21:36:00.000-07:00

(Written Wednesday May 2, 07:36 Kenya time)

Another morning in Pokot. I was up early again, just in time to catch the sunrise. There are few clouds in the sky today so it's going to be hot. Already, only at 7:30, the short walk from the orphanage to my cottage has me sweating. And today is the day I'm traveling deep into the bush, spending the night in another village, then in the morning going into that really remote village, Maron. [picture: kids playing a rope jumping game]

We're starting the day with a famine feed in Loruk. I will be visiting, to photograph TEP children (The Education Program; children that are sponsored for education only, meaning not orphans), the following villages: Loruk (3 kids), Kadingding (2), Chesinima (7), Watering Hole (1 child – and where we've been a few times), Nginyang (5 children, and where we had lunch the day we took a van load of people to the clinic), Chemolingot (5), and then the following morning, Maron (15). There are also 11 children in Riongo who we won't have time to get to. Again a shame as this is the town where all the politics were involved when we went to do the famine feed before. Those children won't get their pictures taken, unfortunately. Which probably means they will lose sponsorship.

For now, I'm enjoying my morning tea.

Home

2007-05-01T11:31:00.000-07:00

(Written Tuesday May 1, 21:31 Kenya time)

We arrived back in Pokot around 8pm, and it felt like coming home again. The children all ran out to greet us, and every single one of them came up for a big hug. Many asked where mommy was, and I had to tell them that she'd be along either tomorrow or the next day. Unfortunately the legal business is keeping her in Nakuru longer than she would like.

The moon is full tonight, and looks amazing. I took a few pictures between clouds. It really is quite stunning out here at night.

Goodnight.

A Stop in Marigat

2007-05-01T08:05:00.000-07:00

(Written Tuesday May 1, 18:05 Kenya time)

We left Nakuru this afternoon to head back to Pokot, and are currently stopped in Marigat. We're trying to get in touch with Moses, who is supposed to be here buying some more supplies for another famine feed tomorrow, but so far we haven't reached him. I think we're about to go wandering around town looking for him. It's a small place.

This morning Carol and Tim had to meet for a long while, and then I spent some time with Tim identifying each of the children in the portrait series I did. We copied tiny versions of the files (320x280… their bandwidth is so slow for sending email that he didn't want any bigger) to his computer, and he then went off to the Internet Cafe to email the sponsors. The point here is that each child's sponsor gets a thank you letter (handwritten, then scanned) along with a photo of them. This goes for all IHF children around the globe. However the Kenyan IHF has been so very far behind that they've been losing sponsors. People who don't believe that the children are real; an easy thing to understand. So I did the portrait series of the kids so they had nice photos to attach to the letters. Those letters are being emailed today. In fact, I have Sh 15,000 in my pocket that I'm supposed to hand over to Moses, but not until we have confirmation that the thank you letters have been sent. That's how far behind Kenya is. The region is literally on the verge of being dropped because of this problem!

So now I'm heading back to Pokot, but without Carol or Tim. They still have more business in Nakuru regarding the lawsuit, but I need to get more pictures of more kids for more letters. The disorganization of the council here is so bad that tomorrow I'm going back to some places we've already been, but when we visited before no one thought to organize the children for the pictures. This is a problem mainly because of cost. Petrol is very expensive here (it just cost Sh 5,000 to fill up the van), and these are not short drives we're going on tomorrow.

In fact tomorrow night I'll be sleeping in another village, because early in the morning I need to head into one of the most remote Pokot villages – on motorbike. It's somewhere where the van simply can not access. This ought to be interesting.

Well, let's go find Moses

Hair

2007-05-01T02:33:00.000-07:00

(Written Tuesday May 1, 12:33 Kenya time)

Ever since I arrived, the kids take any chance they can at touching my hair. Some are very bold about it and will just come up to me when I'm sitting and start rubbing my head. Others will tentatively approach and reach out to touch, only to run away. And others will walk by pretending to do something else, then reach out and brush my head as they pass. It's very funny to watch. They also seem fascinated with my arm hair, and will touch and pull on it every chance they get!

You may have noticed from the photos that many of the kids are completely bald. This is not malnutrition, but is required by the school they go to. The children from the orphanage are required to have shaved heads to prevent any lice or other head bugs from getting into the schools population.

Pokot online, the future?

2007-04-30T18:26:00.000-07:00

(Written Monday April 30, 16:26 Kenya time – regarding Sunday April 29, afternoon)

I spent several hours outlining a possible future Pokot website with one of the students and our resident doctor. It was quite a fun experience, as I learned a lot of little snippets of their culture as we wrote the map. I've been asked not to post the entire outline of the site we mapped out, so this is just a few little cultural tidbits I noted during the discussion. These are high-level notes but really quite interesting, and an appetite whetter for what will come!

PEOPLE AND TRADITIONS

Language and dialects. Pokot is a unique language apart from Swahili, but clans have their own variations. In Kenya, the official language is English, the national language is Swahili, and then tribes have their own language. Most educated Pokot speak all three languages. Remote tribes generally speak their own language only.

Body modification/decoration: scarring, piercing, teeth removal (ouch… yes many of the photos you see where they are missing teeth is actually ritualistic. And no, there's no anesthetic!

Justice system: Clan based; trial by jury of neutral clan. "Judge" is a council of elders from neutral clan. Punishment is usually based on the removal of cattle. A big enough offense (i.e. murder), and they take all the cattle from the entire clan. So this doesn't happen to often. In the case of adultery, the adulterer is beaten and their personal cattle are taken.

Diet: Animal products; meat, milk. Only a very small area in the entire Pokot region supports any agriculture. They barter for beans, maize, cornmeal. Blood letting from animals like cattle as a food source is common.

Cultural stories and proverbs. There is a children's book called "Chebet and The Lost Goat" (author: Ben Alex) which is actually written about Tim's sister (the Pokot doctor) [Link to Amazon.com]. Unfortunately it would appear that none of the proceeds from this book ever made it back to Pokot. Tsk tsk.

LAND AND ENVIRONMENT

Pokot region is in Kenya and Uganda. Local volcanoes are Pakkaa and Silale. There are caves, volcanic vents, craters of course, and mineral springs in the area.

Tiati mountain - highest on Pokot. Bamboo forests, different vegetation, never dry. Some, but few Pokot live there. Generally inaccessible.

West Pokot has more vegetation and agriculture; still in Kenya but towards Uganda border.

Lake Baringo - the northern shore in Pokot

Native animals: Baboons and monkeys, some zebra, buffalo, 'dik dik' (small gazelle-like animal), wolves

internet costs

2007-04-30T10:20:00.000-07:00

OK, 11 hours and 10 minutes of internet cafe cost me Sh600. That's USD$9.60. Of course half the time I was banging my head into the desk 'cause the connection was so slow, and we lost power (and therefore internet) about 10 times, but hey… I posted!!!

Sunrise

2007-04-30T10:06:00.000-07:00

Time for a sunrise photo

Starry Night

2007-04-30T09:50:00.000-07:00

(Written Monday April 30, 19:50 Kenya time)

Something else to enjoy… the stars out here are phenomenal. The moon is nearly full so the first half of the night, the moon overpowers many of the stars. However at some point the moon sets, and for the hour or so before sunrise that I've actually managed to crawl out of bed and set up a camera, the stars are pure magic. The milky way spreads from horizon to horizon.

I'm no astral photographer so I'm still trying to figure this thing out, but this shot is taken with a 14mm lens. That's a really, really wide lens. What you see here is a very large portion of the sky – not a zoomed in, cropped close-up. Yes, it really does look like this out here. (click through for a larger version)

My Pokot daughter

2007-04-30T09:32:00.000-07:00

(Written Monday April 30, 19:33 Kenya time)

From the moment I arrived, one little girl has really taken to me. Whenever I sit down she comes up to be held, and if I'm not there she's asking for daddy. It's going to be hard to leave her behind.

Not able to Geotag for the moment

2007-04-30T03:54:00.000-07:00

(Written Monday April 30, 13:56 Kenya time)

Unfortunately I'm not able to geotag my images as hoped at the moment. HoudahGeo, the awesome software I've been talking about, has a memory leak and is crapping out after about 30 images. Since I'm trying to throw several thousand at it, it's simply not happening. And I don't have the time (or patience) to do 4,000 pictures in batches of 30. Pierre, the creator, has been in touch and is aware of the issue and trying to fix it. For now though, I can only feasibly tag images after export. So we'll see what I can accomplish here. I don't have much bandwidth to upload large galleries so it may be irrelevant anyway until I return home.

Cost of goods

2007-04-30T01:53:00.000-07:00

(Written Monday April 30, 11:54am Kenya time)

I'm at the internet cafe right now working on these posts. I just bought a Fanta; it was (Kenyan Shillings) Sh 20. That's USD 29¢. Four hotel rooms last night (two triples and two singles) cost Sh 3,400. That's USD $52. Of course it's like a YMCA so not exactly nice, but it's a room with a private bath, breakfast included. No charge for the cockroaches. Can't argue with that.

Yet I'm told that if you want to buy expensive goods, like computers, they cost 2x to 3x what they should. Someone will buy a $1,000 computer in China and sell it here for $2,500. That's messed up. That's nearly Sh 180,00, which is, by all accounts, a shedload of money.

Back to Nakuru

2007-04-29T06:39:00.000-07:00

(Written Sunday April 29, 16:39 Kenya time)

After a long day of training and meetings with three of the thirty Pokot university students (of an estimated 200–300,000 Pokot people), we're getting ready to head to Nakuru. Carol has a meeting with the lawyer and police in the morning, and I'm going along to get some reliable power and to get online. I haven't even begun the photo edit since I've wanted to use what valuable battery power I have on this thing to write, and have shot nearly 3,000 pictures so far. I expect to get started on that tonight.

It's been interesting talking with the students about setting up a web site for the Pokot, initially as a source of information and eventually as a business tool to bring in funds for the Pokot as a whole. There are political ramifications to doing this that I don't fully understand, and even the students and the one Pokot doctor, Tim, who came out yesterday from Nairobi, think that Carol is being over protective in her warnings. But she has unfortunately seen people literally murdered over trying to establish their own freedoms – which is essentially what the website would be; a step towards financial independence – so she's very cautious in advising what the students should and shouldn't do with a website.

Today has been very enlightening. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what the role of IHF is meant to be; discussing and actually arguing with Carol on these points has been a big order of the day. What follows is my attempt at understanding this.

On one hand it's a way to help the Pokot to establish their own representation in leadership positions in business and politics in Kenya, and to ultimately have their own independence from outside assistance, while simultaneously teaching the rest of the world what the Pokot tribe, traditions and cultures are all about. Yet at the same time, Carol refuses to use the phrase "helping people to help themselves", which I find very confusing. Even the Pokot seem to feel that's what she's there for. However she insists that the role of IHF is not to be an organization that comes in and helps them. In fact she hates having to use the name IHF, and while she has been doing this work for 30 years, up until just a few years ago she did it entirely of her own volition with her own funds. A large sum of personal money she had has gone towards funding this work, and only recently has she had to ask for outside help (and hence been forced to become a non-profit business). I believe that she's having a hard time reconciling with that. So while on one hand her only involvement is meant to be to offer some advice and be one vote on an advisory board of 20-odd people (in the case of the Pokot), she walks and talks as if this is a major organization and things must be run by the rules. Which is true – she is the head of IHF which is now a real non-profit org in the U.S. which therefore must follow some very strict rules to remain a non-profit, and therefore she has the authority and necessity to demand that certain rules be followed or the IHF will cease to exist (not to mention that the rules are, of course, for the benefit of the children, which at the end of the day is what she truly cares about). But going back, at the same time as doing this she's insisting that the IHF is not an organization who's come in to "help the people help themselves", but that the Pokot themselves are the IHF, and that she's only here with her influence and connections.

I need to spend some more time listening and talking with her to really understand this. She's appreciating my objective input because she does recognize that this needs to be summarized and explained easily. If she wants people to continue to donate to the orphanages, famine feeds and more around the world, she has to get this summarized into a tidy little elevator pitch that will explain her work. But we're not there yet. It's an interesting journey.

In fact she's asked me to stay on with IHF as the director of photography. Over the years she needs photos of all the centers, orphanages, etc. worldwide. While I may not be able to do all that myself, she has asked me to oversee this. She understands my commitments to work and family are extremely taxing already, but I've agreed to give it a go. We'll see what that really means.

Two days of training

2007-04-29T04:00:00.000-07:00

(Written Monday April 30, 13:34 Kenya time – regarding Saturday and Sunday, April 28-29)

Saturday and Sunday have been dedicated to training. The staff for the orphanage, new and existing, spent they day being trained in IHF rules and practices. I spent some time listening in, but primarily spent my time trying to get their solar panel and batteries functioning and trying to get my laptop and theirs charged up. In Nakuru I'm going to buy some tools and try to fix their laptop; it has a loose charging connection and is very difficult to get charged. They have a GPRS card for their computer though and I was able to get online there, but very very slowly. And I had to walk down to the main road and sit under a tree in the shade to get a connection.

Saturday evening I spent quite a bit of time with the university students that had just arrived.

Sunday was more training. Not many photo ops, so I sat in on most of the training just to observe.

Battery power again!

2007-04-28T12:08:00.000-07:00

(Written Saturday April 28, 22:08 Kenya time)

Well this is unfortunate… since completing my last entry and wiping out both laptop batteries, I haven't been able to charge up again. My solar charger outputs only 75W; this MacBook Pro uses an 85W charger. The company that sold it to me insisted that it would still work but would just take longer to charge. This may be true, but the inverter screams a high pitched tone when it's being overdrawn, and so I can't plug this into it. In fact, the damn thing is screaming its song when I plug even half that wattage into it. I'm gonna make me some phone calls when I return stateside. It has at least been able to charge my camera batteries.

I had expected that I might want to use the solar system that's here already, but unfortunately it seems I've been thwarted at every turn. The first day no one put the main battery on solar charger. Then the smaller batteries got used up for watching TV. Yesterday I got the large battery fully charged, only to find out the power inverted had a blown fuse. And of course, no spares to be found. Someone was coming to the village today from town so we called in a request for the fuses, but when he arrived this morning he hadn't had time to get them. Finally tonight I jerry rigged two batteries together to get enough power and after 5 hours of charging, got one battery up to 100%. I gotta make good use of this! Although tomorrow (Sunday) I'm heading back to Nakuru for the night as Carol has business Monday morning and it'll give me a chance to get online and post all of this.

So now, to catch up on the last few days. (FYI I have backdated the posts written since this point so they are all in chronological order)

Famine Feed at Riongo… and politics

2007-04-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

(Written Monday April 30, 12:49pm – regarding Friday, April 27th)

Another famine feed was on the schedule for today. This time we went even farther out, about twice as far as the watering hole. Along the way we stopped at a storage shed where the sacks of food were being held for us (really, a shed, in the middle of the desert. Go figure). Here we loaded up with our deliveries for the day. I think we picked up at least one more passenger here, too. Maybe a few more.

Before Riongo though, we first stopped at the watering hole to deliver some goats the IHF had purchased for some families out there. No, they weren't in the van with us… we purchased them from a herd arranged to meet us at the Watering Hole. While there, we picked up some other people who were from Riongo and wanted to come out for a visit. So off we went!

Several hours of driving over marginally worn and never marked roads (turn left at the third big tree past the dry riverbed), we finally arrived. Oh, not before all having to get out and walk so the van could make the steep climb up an all rock "road", with several people behind it pushing for good measure. This whole trip is truly an unforgettable travel experience. This is all done in this beaten up Mercedes van. It's not even four wheel drive. Oh and at some point the starter died, so to get it started at any point we have to get out and push while Kip, the driver, pops the clutch. He's gotten good at parking on hills where available.

Upon arrival though, things got very interesting. There was no welcome group, which is, by Kenyan standards, extremely rude. In fact, it's insulting. Not that we would particularly care, except that it shows that something is amiss. While Carol got into heated discussions with who I assume was the head (perhaps the chief?) of the village, I wandered off to get some photos of a herd of camels passing through. By the time I'd returned, another vehicle with military personnel showed up, although they did nothing but observe. A very curious situation indeed.

Again this gets far deeper into the politics of the region than I understand, but it turns out the chief had not told the women that we were coming. Some of the people with us were from this village, so they ran off to find the women. Within an hour we had tons of people show up, just as happy to see us as the clans at the watering hole. And as the story came out that they hadn't been told of our impending arrival, they were pissed. I wonder what the results will be of that fiasco.

Without getting too deep, and only because I don't fully understand this yet and I don't have the time to really research and truly comprehend what's happening, here's what I see of the political situation.

The ruling tribe of Kenya, the Kikuyu, don't much like the Pokot. The president, chief of police, and basically every person of power here is Kikuyu. It's nepotism with a capitol N.

From there it gets into religion. The majority of educated, "westernized" Kenyans are Christian. And the aid group that is strongest here is Christian. IHF on the other hand is non-denominational. One of their directives is to not interfere with religion, and in fact volunteers are forbidden from trying to convert anyone they are providing aid to. So this leads to political conflicts… the other aid groups are providing aid, making money, and "saving souls". IHF just wants to provide aid (and doesn't profit). There's money to be made, and IHF won't have any part of it.

So add those two up, and suddenly you have an excuse for local politicians to get in the way of little IHF. For example, when the orphanage was built, it was built in the wrong place (near a Christian school out in the bush, and not at the watering hole where it was planned), when Carol was not in the country. Of course it was built using IHF money, with contractors used by the other aid agencies. The person in charge of construction lied to IHF, agreeing to their building terms then breaking ground elsewhere. And that's just one example.

It's really quite interesting. This isn't the story I came out here to tell, nor is it something I have time to get into in my short two weeks here. But I am going to try to enlist a certain investigative journalist I know to start digging into this story, which really is just one small door into a much, MUCH larger, global story.

But not in this blog post.

So this all brings us back to the people who were supposed to benefit from the famine feed. Once they arrived they, like the clans at the watering hole, were so grateful for what we brought that they sang and danced the afternoon away. And just like at the watering hole, we piled a few more people into the van to take to a clinic for medical attention.

What a day.

The babies survived!

2007-04-27T09:36:00.000-07:00

(Written Monday April 30, 19:36 Kenya time – regarding Friday April 27)

We found out that the babies survived! The two infants that were sent off to the hospital the day we arrived… they both got re-hydrated and are both feeding now, and back to the orphanage. What a wonderful relief. And, the father was so guilt-ridden he's been poking around the orphanage to see them. Wonderful.

Famine Feed at the Watering Hole

2007-04-26T14:00:00.000-07:00

(Written Saturday April 28, 22:35 Kenya time – regarding Thursday, April 26)

Today would be the first day of truly going out in the bush. Yes, this orphanage is in the bush already (4 hours or more of driving led to more and more extreme bushiness, but least the orphanage had buildings). Todays stop was a location called the Watering Hole. Along the way we stopped at a water pump, built quite literally in the middle of nowhere with funds donated by Dan Gray. He donated $40,000 to build four pumps at a cost of $10k each. The pump is solar powered or hand cranked. Unfortunately something was wrong with the powered side of things, so it had to be hand pumped. A local nomadic family appeared out of nowhere and got their pictures taken with Carol (who they recognized) and the pump. One of them had two sick children with her, both orphans. They piled into the van with us for a trip to the orphanage, in what I would soon learn to be a very common practice for us.

From there we went on to the watering hole which was, by all accounts, an actual watering hole. A couple of small lakes were sitting in the middle of the desert, with several nomadic groups/families, goats, and camels surrounding it. They were all there for the famine feed. Again we were met with an amazing array of song and dance, which quite literally went on for a couple of hours. During the ceremony I was adorned with a beaded headband and a metal bracelet; gifts from Pokot women so happy to see us with our food supplies.

What's been remarkable about my ability to photograph the people here is how well I'm accepted. When I first arrive anywhere, I'm met with wary glances. But Carol soon explains that through my photograph, the IHF hopes to raise more money for them. And this is always met with huge cheers and then a sudden willingness to be in front of the camera. I'm capturing some amazing images of the people out here.

Portraits of the kids

2007-04-26T06:16:00.000-07:00

(Written Monday April 30, 18:57 Kenya time – Regarding April 26, afternoon)

Today I shot portraits of the orphans for their thank-you letters to their sponsors. This was a lot of fun, with many of the kids really getting into it. Here are a few random selects.

Morning at the orphanage (photo gallery)

2007-04-26T02:00:00.000-07:00

Woohoo! Enough people left the internet cafe that I finally got some bandwidth… I've posted a gallery of images from the first morning at the orphanage. These kids are all wonderful. Many have come into the orphanage with severe malnutrition, but as you can see in these photos almost all are incredibly healthy looking. Those that still show signs of malnutrition are quite new and will quickly improve.

Gallery is here: http://homepage.mac.com/linaschke/Orphanage-morning/

This is the third morning I woke up in Kenya, but the first morning I woke up in Africa

2007-04-25T21:00:00.000-07:00

(Written Saturday April 28, 22:15 Kenya time – regarding Thursday, April 26)

The roosters were crowing well before dawn. The goats started pushing around shortly thereafter. The chorus of morning bugs grew louder and loder. After fits of feigned sleep over the hour of pre-dawn, I finally gave up and got out of bed. As I groped for my clothes and tried to remember where I left my right sandal, knocked over my flashlight lamp and nearly pulled down the mosquito net, I finally navigated the 6 feet to my door and opened it up to the the most glorious, rich red sunrise I'd ever seen. Except maybe the one on Haleakala on Maui, but that's a totally different animal. The sky and clouds were gorgeous, silhouetting several "African" trees (I'll have to figure out what these are called) and two young African men standing at the ridge, for all intents and purposes looking like warriors holding their spears. I rushed in to get my camera, hitting my head for the third of what will turn out to be many times on the low roof line, and dashed back out to get some pictures.

Unfortunately by this point, the two silhouetted men were joined by the approaching Carol. I walked up with a cheery "good morning", only to be met by – which I am still trying to figure out completely – the unhappy Carol. She was on the warpath and it was barely 6:00 am. She stopped long enough to yell at me something about no cook and ignored children before stomping up to Maria's door and pounding on it demanding to know where she was.

Keep in mind this is something like 6:15 in the morning.

Also keep in mind that I'm now writing this after several days of reflection and a deeper understanding of what and the how of business around here, but I will try to keep this true to what I remember thinking at the time.

Carol was seriously pissed off. Apparently there was no one to cook breakfast for the kids, and no adult besides herself had slept there last night. The kids were up making their own breakfast (42 children ages 2 to 16). They had just started boiling water, which was supposed to have been started nearly two hours ago (to boil out the nasty river parasites… although 2 hours does seem a tad excessive, I wasn't about to argue). Maria insisted that the cook should be there soon and that she was often late, but always came by before the end of the day. I'll repeat that. She always came by before the end of the day. Oh, and Maria was off to visit her sister for the day.

So I've come to understand that Maria is (was) the matron of the orphanage. She lives about a 10 minute walk away on her own property, and it's her job to oversee that all employees are doing their job with the kids. Carol was accusing her of failing this job miserably.

Over the next couple of hours, Carol fired the cook (who eventually arrived), the night-watchman who showed up in the morning instead of the night before and was reportedly usually drunk, and some other person who I've no idea what they did.

It turns out things were running a bit slack at the orphanage, to say the least. There's a long, sorted history behind why certain people were working there, mostly involving religion and politics and rival charity organizations (if you can believe such a thing). But Carol cleaned house and within days had all new staff on board.

Anyway it made for an interesting morning. And yes, we did finally get our tea.

Arrival

2007-04-25T12:31:00.001-07:00

(Written Wednesday April 25, 22:31 Kenya time)

There are no words to adequately describe our arrival in Pokot today. But I will give it a try.

As we drove up the last of the dusty, bumpy road to the Pokot orphanage, after passing through the town of Marigo to purchase supplies for tomorrow's famine feed, driving through (not over; through) an active river, and picking up a pregnant hitchhiker from another pokot village, someone in the front of the van yelled "there's your children!" (Carol refers to the orphans as her children. This goes for all 4,000 orphans the IFC cares for worldwide). Carol started bouncing in her seat like an excited school girl. This was it! We were here, and the children were waiting for us at the entrance to the orphanage!

We pulled up and opened the door, and as we both struggled out of the car over errant luggage and runaway watermelons, the children broke into song. Led by one of the older girls beating on a small yellow plastic container with a stick, she would chant and the rest would repeat. It took several verses before I fully understood what they were signing, but the moment I did I nearly broke into tears. I've never seen a group of children so unbelievably happy to see someone. This is what they sang.

We are happy, to welcome you,
to welcome you, our mommy

We are happy, to welcome you,
to welcome you, our mommy

We are happy, to welcome you,
to welcome you, our daddy

We are happy, to welcome you,
to welcome you, daddy Joseph

Simply unbelievable. Such love and caring in their eyes. I wasn't even sure I was hearing my own name at first but yes, there it was. Pure elation.

They danced and chanted and sang all the way up the path to the orphanage, probably for a good 15 minutes. Carol was dancing and in tears. The few adults there were following behind, smiles beaming on their faces.

Yes, it's safe to say, we had arrived.

We spent another half hour with a procession of hugs for mommy Carol. She knows every one of these kids, except for a pair of twins born (and who's mother died in childbirth) since her last visit. Of course she knew all about them and couldn't wait to meet them. Many of the children are teenagers, and have had growth spurts since she last was there – and some of these kids are really tall! It was fun to watch her reaction as she saw each child again.

Then, they gathered and danced again for us. This time they grouped off into threes, and jumped up and down to the music. This seemed more impromptu than planned, and everyone quickly got into it. Song and dance is such an important part to their culture, and it's wonderful to see everyone so involved, singing and dancing together, from toddler to adult.

From here we all gathered in their classroom where Carol put on a little English quiz show for them. She would ask, "what's the English word for…" and then walk across the room. Point to her ear. Cry like a baby. Point to me and pretend to blow her nose. Yep, kids all around the world are now making fun of my for the way I honk my nose when I blow. Wonderful ;-) It became quite clear that their english lessons are going well (along with swahili, math, geography, and more).

Unfortunately, the tone turned very sad after this. Carol was shown two babies, twins, that were barely alive. They were being held by two very elderly, uncaring, and unapologetic grandmothers. They clearly had no desire to be caring for these babies at all. Their sad story starts before they were born.

Their father died while they were in the womb (never heard how). As is tribal tradition, the most senior member of the tribe inherits any widowed wives. It is then his choice if he wants to take her children or not as well. Since the babies father died, their mom went to this senior member. As he didn't want the children, he provided no care to the mother. When she went into labor, she labored, birthed, and died, entirely alone. The newborn babies laid there through the night until a neighbor came to visit in the morning and found the dead mother and two nearly dead babies. One can only presume that the mother had the strength to pull them to her breasts before she died, or they assuredly would not have survived the night.

The babies were brought to the orphanage, and given to two elderly members of the tribe to care for. For whatever reason, these grandmothers did not want to care for the babies. However they did, albeit reluctantly. Sadly they couldn't have seemed less interested in the barely alive infants in their arms.

This all happened a week ago. The orphanage was unsure of what to do with the babies, as they were under directive from IHF to accept no more orphans until more financial sponsors were found. (Believe it or not, the IHF houses, clothes, feeds and educates 4,000 orphans around the world for only $8,000 per month. That's $2 per child. But more on that later. Much more, and in a future post). Anyway since the orphanage knew that Carol was coming soon, they decided to wait until she arrived to make a decision. In the meantime, the babies were bottle fed but no attention was paid to their deteriorating health. When we arrived, these children had virtually no response to any stimulation whatsoever. When asked if they'd been feeding, we were told yes, but we watched one repeatedly fail to take a bottle. Any milk squeezed into her mouth dribbled down her chin. (I actually don't know if they were boys or girls, but writing "it" when referring to these babies just isn't right). I pulled up on the skin of one babies arm only to see it very slowly pull back to form, a sure sign of dehydration. I told Carol that these children needed an IV or would almost certainly die. Carol immediately arranged for our driver to take the grandmothers and the babies to the closest hospital, three hours away. But not before first making the grandmothers promise something.

Before deciding to take them to the hospital, Carol kept asking them what they wanted her to do. They had no answer. So finally she said, and this sounds cold but I'll explain in a moment, that she would allow them into the orphanage ONLY if the grandmothers PROMISED to visit the children regularly, to be a part of their lives. Otherwise, she would have to refuse them. But here's why. Carol has been doing this for 30 years, and one of the things she's learned in any culture like this is that if an orphan has NO family at all in their lives, then as they get older they will be identified as having "bad spirits". No one will marry them, they will have few friends, and they will essentially fail at life. It sounds horrible but without some sort of family to love and care about them (outside of the orphanage), they are lost souls. So tonight, finally the grandmothers agreed, and so Carol was able to promise to ensure that these children will have food, clothing, and an education, in exchange for simply a few regular visits. She'll find another sponsor or pay for it herself. After all, it's only $2 per month per child.

It was a sad way to enter the evening, but in the end the babies were taken to the hospital and are promised a home. If they survive. I'm obviously no expert but I unfortunately don't think their chances are very good. We did hear one baby cry a few notes at one point; a good sign. The other lay completely still and silent the entire time we saw them. We should know more tomorrow when the driver returns.

Ending the evening on a higher note, once they babies were sent off to the hospital, I was taken to my room. I've been honored with quite a nice place to stay. It's a private hut, built of mud with a thatch roof, on a cement foundation. There is a makeshift shower in the back that will be filled with water in the morning, and an outhouse within a few minute walk. The outhouse consists of a cement platform with a small hole in it over a very deep hole which you, er, squat over. One can only hope the cement is thick and solid.

The village has a solar panel brought over by Dan Gray, another volunteer, some time ago. This charges a large battery cell (like a triple sized car battery), and is used to power their one computer, rechargeable flashlights, and cell phones. Yep, they have cell coverage out here. No electricity or running water, but they have cell. And a small black and white TV which they were quite happy to have in my cottage. It gets horrible reception but they love it. I immediately detached it from the battery since it's about the last thing I want to waste energy on here! In doing so though I saw the truly frightening way in which it's wired up. I'll let the picture speak for itself.

Once I dropped off my gear in the cottage (in the pouring rain), we headed back to the orphanage where dinner was being served. This was cooked over an open fire, and consisted of ungali, a cornmeal based staple that is served with every meal. Think grits, but with less flavor. For those who don't know what grits are, think wet sand, with less flavor. This was served alongside a vegetable medley that appeared to be cabbage and perhaps tomatoes. It did have some nice flavor to it, but from what I understand this is nearly every meal. Something tells me in ten days I'll be looking longingly at the family dog.

After dinner, Carol had asked if I would read stories to the boys in their dorm. The entire orphanage consists of three buildings; a girls and boys dorm, and a general room in-between them. So off I went to their dorm, surrounded by a dozen beaming faces. They picked out two books and we laid on the cool cement floor as I read to them. Only a few of the boys spoke english well enough to stop me on occasion to explain a word they didn't know, and the rest enjoyed the funny voices and sound effects that went along with the stories. Then they all had questions for me about where I'm from, what it's like where I live, family, and so on. They are taking geography lessons in their classroom, so I promised to show them on a map where I live. They also wanted to know what sports I liked ("soccer" was met with a round of cheers and a challenge for the following day), and wanted to know if I knew how to fly a plane. Such wonderful kids. It's going to be a great week.

Tomorrow morning we are driving to another village for a famine feed, where apparently conditions aren't nearly as good as they are at the orphanage. The following day we'll be going to another location for another feed, this time to nomadic tribes that are somehow being told where and when to meet us.

There are lots of objectives for me on this trip. I need to photo-document the true cost of food here, so NGO's that claim that food costs 10x what it really does can be forced to start explaining themselves. I need to photograph the orphans so they have pictures to send with their thank-you letters to their sponsors. I also need to train some people here how to take pictures with a donated digital camera they have, then to download them to the computer and email them along with the thank you letters (on an old laptop PC with a donated GPRS card). I will be photographing children in various stages of malnutrition to show the progress that can and is being made here. And documenting the orphanage itself, the famine feeds, and whatever else we do over the next ten days. These images will be used for fundraising events, for an exhibit Carol wants to create to show the true cost of sponsoring children in programs like this (which will be hung in art galleries around the world that a friend of hers manages), to create postcards for awareness and fundraiser projects, and also to create a coffee table book. And of course to use on their web site.

OK, time to sign off. It's now past midnight, all my photos from the day are downloaded, and this entry is written. As I get ready to sleep, I have to close this by describing the sounds around me. Since I've been sitting here in silence, I've heard crickets and other night bugs singing their song, dogs barking, cats meowing, goats doing whatever goats do, what sounded like a geriatric old man being beaten to death (I think it's one of the goats complaining), coyotes howling, something bigger than me following me to the bathroom, and at least one werewolf. Yep, gonna sleep like a baby.

Famine Feed Shopping in Marigot

2007-04-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

(Written Sunday April 29, 08:05 Kenya time – regarding Wednesday afternoon, April 25)

Along the way to Pokot we stopped at the last village with electricity and enjoyed the last cold soda we'd get for a while. This was also the town where we were to buy the needs for our famine feed. After sorting out the budget in a small, dark, hot cafe with cold Fanta's at our side, we headed to the market. First was corn meal. We purchased 8 large sacks of cornmeal for Sh1700 each (USD$27). These were loaded into a truck for delivery to our distribution point. I photographed the transaction along with the receipts to show the actual cost.

Next up, potatoes. We purchased several large sacks of potatoes, and I watched as they filled up these sacks from the back of a small truck filled to the brim with fresh potatoes. Potatoes cost Sh250 (USD$4) for a large sack. There was also bananas, papayas, cabbage, and more available at the market, but that's what we were here to buy. Another item I saw that I was tempted to buy to bring home but wasn't sure if it'd get through California agricultural customs was honey. They sell it by the bottle, loads and loads of roadside stands along the way. However these aren't hermetically sealed with a big fat FDA approved label on them, so I figured I'd rather not take the chance with customs. Besides, the thought of one of these cracking open in my luggage was enough to put a stop to that idea right away.

While in Marigot, I couldn't help but observe a pair of very unhappy looking elderly Japanese tourists sitting in a safari pick-up truck, probably waiting for their driver to return with supplies. They looked positively petrified.

The Equator!

2007-04-25T03:50:00.000-07:00

(Written Monday April 30, 16:04 Kenya time – regarding April 25, mid-day)

Hey, we drove across the equator! Enter totally cheesy tourist shot. Had to make everyone get out of the van and pose. Cheese!!

Broken down

2007-04-25T02:58:00.000-07:00

(Written Wednesday April 25, 12:58 Kenya time)

Oh good. We're currently broken down on the side of the road. This is a paved road with loads of traffic going by however, so no big concerns. Carol barely even looked up from her Blackberry as we pulled to the side of the road. Fred, our driver, is fixing it up now. It appears that one of the shocks kind of, well, fell off. Might have something to do with the moderately bumpy roads we've been driving down.

Hm, maybe they can't fix it. They're discussing making alternate arrangements to Pokot. I left home almost exactly three days ago. I wonder when I'll get to the Pokot.

Oop scratch that. We're moving again. Bravo! Let's close with the first scenic picture I've managed so far. Notice it's still pretty dreary out.

Chicken or beef?

2007-04-25T02:00:00.001-07:00

(Written Sunday April 29, 07:45 Kenya time – regarding Wednesday afternoon, April 25)

Here's an interesting factoid. This is one of the only places in the world where chicken costs more than beef. Where in most developing countries you'll find chickens running around literally all over the place, here they are not (although it's starting to change and you do see a few of them). Historically chickens have been raised only in pens and only with a special diet, as for whatever reason it's been believed that chickens must have a special diet or they won't survive. Therefore the cost of raising them has been higher, meaning as well that eggs are quite expensive. I saw signs in restaurants that chicken was up Sh50 (50 Shillings) from what was printed on the menu, and on the menu a beef dish might cost Sh180 while a chicken one would be Sh250. In the U.S., we have a big push towards organic meats, and organic chick which eats a controlled diet of organic grains, corn, or whatever is they eat, taste the best by far. The meat is better quality, and the eggs are a brilliant yellow-orange, vs. the more yellow yokes of their battery hen counter-parts. But here, even though the diet is controlled, it's still quite clear that the quality of food they get isn't that great. The chicken meat is very lean and meager on the bone, very little fat. And the egg yolks are practically white. Curious.

Here we are enjoying our last sit-down meal before Pokot land. Beef, chicken, rice, fries, and more. Yummy!

Shopping for the journey to Pokot

2007-04-25T01:00:00.000-07:00

(Written Sunday April 29, 07:50 Kenya time – regarding Wednesday afternoon, April 25)

Before heading out to Pokot, we stopped at a grocery store to stock up on some basic supplies (for us; famine feed food would come later). We needed water; I bought five 5-liter containers for myself (which turned out not to be enough since someone kept pilfering from it… I ended up with half that! Good thing we're going back to Nakuru again mid-trip). I also bought some snack foods to enjoy come comforts along the way. Chocolate. Oops. Chocolate melts in extreme heat. Well, I enjoyed a few nibbles in the cool mornings ;-) I also got some more mosquito repellent just-in-case, and bought a souvenir English to Kaswahili translation book from someone on the street. This market however was amazing. Almost like any American drug store with canned and boxed foods (no fresh here), there were aisle after aisle of shampoos, household cleaning products, breakfast cereals, small electronics, and more. It's quite the contrast when you step from there out to the dirt roads and open sewer ditches.

Lawyers, police, and criminals… oh my! (or nice guys, corrupt ineptitude, and smug success, oh my!)

2007-04-25T00:30:00.000-07:00

(Written Wednesday April 25, 13:10 Kenya time – regarding earlier today)

There's an irony in this story in that over a conversation between Carol and the head of the Criminal Investigations Dept. for the regional Police, in which even through my stuffed up nose I couldn't help but smell the corruption, a calendar hung above the officers head protesting sexual harassment in the workplace, provided by none other than the Kenyan Anti Corruption Commission.

Allow me to paint a picture.

Still in Nakuru, we met for breakfast at 7am before our (ok their, I'm just tagging along of course) 8am appointment at the police station with the aforementioned head of the CID. At 8:00 we walked a few blocks through the morning rain and muddy streets, trudging past street vendors reluctantly setting up shop in the rain, people walking, bicycling and driving to work, school, or other morning business, and the stares I'm getting accustomed to of being one of the very few white people in this part of the world.

We arrived at the police station, where I immediately had to grab a photo of this sticker on the wall, which was immediately followed by getting harassed by the police for taking pictures in their station. I showed them the picture, promised not to take any more without asking, and was left alone. We waited probably 30 minutes for our appointment to show up, and finally he did. While we waited I observed that nearly everyone, even the janitors, wore suit jackets of some sort. Most were far too large for the people wearing them, further highlighted by the fact that most of the workers were incredibly skinny. Apparently it's quite important for the Kenyan people to dress their best, and they want to be quite formal. It was only at this observation that I asked about my casual dress (shorts and a t-shirt), and the first time that Carol thought it could be a problem. She asked her lawyer and was assured it wouldn't be, so I followed them in to their meeting.

The officers room is quite small, painted with a pastel-ish blue and green, with a few posters and calendars on the wall (see opening paragraph) and crooked photos of the chief of police and some high ranking military official. His desk appeared to be makeshift, but was covered with a red tablecloth. The chairs were old worn dark red velvet, and the floor a parquet hardwood that probably at one time was gorgeous. Unfortunately now the varnish is long gone, and as it is wet mopped every morning (as it was being when we entered), the water soaking into the wood has been less than kind to it. The officer sat behind his desk, and six of us sat on the other side. Carol, her lawyer, the chief of the Pokot tribe, two other Pokot who've been traveling with us, and myself, whitey, who was met with disapproving glances and an immediate request to explain my presence. Carol quickly explained I was a volunteer for the IHF and was only there as I had no where else to go, and would certainly take no pictures. I decided against asking him to smile for the birdy.

The purpose of this visit was to check on the status of the pending arrest of two individuals who the IHF have charged with stealing $70,000 USD from their bank account. Unfortunately the cops have failed miserably at apprehending the suspect, even though they've had two years and been told exactly where to find him repeatedly. The officer went on to explain one stake-out that lasted until 4am, and how just yesterday and the day before they planned on going to arrest him, but their cars were broken down so they couldn't. But they'd probably get to it today. After much arguing and headshaking on Carols part, it became clear that each of the three times Carol has flown to Kenya to meet with them, they were "just about to" go get the guy. But they never do. It became further clear that they really don't want to. The problem now, besides the obvious, is that the trial is set for May 3rd. If they go to trial and the suspect isn't there, the case will be dismissed. And according to Kenyan law, at that point, the suspect can sue the plaintiff for harassment! Fabulous system. So they arranged another meeting a week from now, and Carol has promised to sue not only the Kenyan police but the Kenyan government as well over this embarrassment and obvious lack of interest in her case. What really hurts her is that she came to this country to help; helps thousands of people, and yet is thanked like this by its government.

We left the station in a cold drizzle, a fitting end to the meeting.

That's probably the last post for a while

2007-04-24T08:42:00.000-07:00

(Written Tuesday April 24, 18:42 Kenya time)

That may be the last post for a while. Tomorrow we go to Pokot and there ain't nuttin' out there.

I will write every day and post as soon as I have access!

The (paved) road to Nakuru

2007-04-24T08:13:00.000-07:00

(Written Tuesday April 24, 16:13 Kenyan time)

I finally met Carol over breakfast this morning. She's doing much better, having been suffering from a severe headache and not the stomach ache I'd heard the night before. We spent the morning chatting about her other projects around the world and the intense drama that goes with them. More on that later though. For now, let's take a road-trip, shall we?

What a ride. And this was the paved road. The drive from Nairobi to Nakuru was, once out of the Nairobi city limits, insane. Caltrans could keep busy for a decade on this one road and never get it in shape. Lines were rarely seen. Passing on the shoulder (or what passes for one) was often seen. Near misses from oncoming semi's were rarely seen, but only because I found it more soothing to watch the hills, lakes, trees, monkeys, cows, and mountains than to peer through the windshield. On the occasions when I did, I turned white. Well OK that's not saying much considering where I am, but still. And the best part? Carol and everyone else thought it hysterical that I found this road bumpy. Apparently the road from Nakuru to Pokot isn't even paved. So it's worse. A lot worse. And something like a five hour drive (this one was two).

Goodness.

We arrived in Nakuru and had lunch at Subway. NO not that one, but this casual sit-down eatery made no qualms of exploiting the Subway name. Or font. Or colors. It's refreshing to not see McDonalds or Starbucks or Blockbuster everywhere you look, so the obviously appropriated Subway sign stood out that much more. Lunch consisted of fried chicken (quite good), and the same slaw and soggy fries from the night before. I think the Y FedEx'ed my leftovers from last night. Yummy. I did have one of my lemon Fanta's with lunch though, which was very nice. And another cup of milky Kenyan tea. Very delicious, however… there must be more caffeine in one cuppa Kenyan tea than 4 cups of American coffee. About half an hour after one cup I could feel my heartbeat in my throat, a repeat of this mornings experience with the same one cup of said tea. (Pictures: the Subway sign, and a fellow doing his laundry in the Subway bathroom)

What I didn't realize last night was that apparently we are NOT driving all the way to Pokot today. I knew they had a meeting with a lawyer here in Nakuru today, but didn't realized we'd be spending the night. We checked into the Carnation Hotel and stepped into something truly special. It makes the YMCA look posh. The nicest part of the room is the key ring; a cross section of a thick tree branch, branded and lacquered with the room number and hotel emblem. It goes downhill from there.

We also went to visit the land that Carol has purchased here in Nakuru, which Carol hopes to turn into a museum/cultural center and mid-grade hotel for safari goers. And what follows is what I've come to understand about the tribal politics as I bounced around the back of the van like a bobble headed grinning idiot all the way to Nakuru. (Picture: Carol's land)

There is prejudice, fighting, and even warring between tribes. The Pokot are considered pretty lowly by most of the other tribes, and as I discovered even in places like the Y, they will often not be served. To many Kenyans, the Pokot should be the servant people… the only way they should be in any establishment is as a servant. Sounds very much like a not-so-distant American history, where blacks weren't welcome anywhere, except here it's tribal not racial.

One of the reasons the Pokot are frowned upon is because they ("they" being this very particular East Pokot tribe which I'll be visiting and with whom I'm traveling) are refusing nearly all western advances. They still dress their traditional dress and follow their traditional ways – although they do dress the part when they go into town; the three gentlemen I'm traveling with are all dressed modern attire. But they even eschew electricity in their home. Although I'll see tomorrow how much of a fixed home they have, as the tribe is mostly nomadic… although I don't fully understand to what extent yet. What I do understand though is that for this reason they are scorned by other Kenyans. Most Kenyan tribes have adopted a western lifestyle and yet will don the ornaments of their ancestors to perform dinner shows at the Hilton. The Pokot refuse to do this; they basically refuse to sell out.

So back to the land and buildings that Carol has purchased. Her goal, and she has the permission and backing of the government, is to build the first school where tribal children are brought together to learn about each-other and celebrate their differences instead of patronizing them. If I understand correctly all or most of these children are orphans – often orphaned by the very battles between the tribes that I'm talking about here. Yet the children will come together to learn together.

The center will also be a resource for others looking for information on the various tribes. Apparently the U.N. has already contacted Carol and is interested in this project.

Anyway, Carol and the Pokot had to meet with their lawyer today on a lawsuit they are currently involved in; pressing murder charges on the father of a boy who killed his sons pregnant girlfriend. So we are staying in Nakuru tonight, and will be moving on to Pokot in the morning.

Before we leave in the morning though, we will be going shopping. Goat shopping. One of the big things Carol wants me to document is the true cost of purchasing a goat; apparently it costs $12 to buy a goat, yet most aid organizations claim it costs $120. That is, according to Carol, once all the padding is added to pay for the bloated salaries, new homes, fancy cars, and expensive lunches for the aid organizations executive staff. This is something I'll be learning and blogging more about as this continues.

For now, since we're in a town we found an internet cafe and hence the posts. The connection is slow but I will post a few pictures now; if you're reading this as I'm posting give it a minute and refresh… hopefully some pictures will show up.

(pictures: local Nakuru children)

Good morning, Kenya

2007-04-23T21:12:00.000-07:00

(Written Tuesday April 24, 07:12 Kenyan time)

Didn't sleep too much last night. I thought I had slept quite a bit but once I gave up waiting for the sun and finally checked my clock, it was only 2am. Figures. I managed to get back to sleep two more times, but by 5am there was no way I was going back to sleep. I finally relented and quietly got out my laptop (there is of course power in Nairobi so I'm taking advantage of it while I can), and finished editing the "haircut" video. Yes, there is one.

Once Joshua woke up I took a shower and got dressed. More interesting conversations with the cultural differences this morning. For example, Joshua has never brushed his teeth with a toothbrush or toothpaste. He showed me a small tree branch with the tip frayed out (like bristles on a brush) and said he's used these sticks all his life. He doesn't recall the name of the tree, but it's a specific type. I remember hearing about this somewhere deep in my memory, and will have to find out what it's called. But the result? His teeth are probably in better condition than mine, and I can pretty much guarantee he's never had the thousands of dollars of dental work I have. Or fluoride in the water.

As I slathered on sunblock (which he obviously doesn't need) and mosquito repellant (which he doesn't use) and took my Neem tablets (which he'd never heard of), we got to discussing malarial prevention. He said that basically they just trust their immune bodies. Obviously this doesn't work for everyone as malaria is a big problem here, however he's never had a problem. And he pointed out that it's so hot that most people are running around half naked anyway.

Then he showed me some of his scarification. All over his chest he has a series of small scars that are for decoration. I'll definitely have to look into this more and get some pictures once we're in Pokot.

Off to breakfast.

First night in Kenya

2007-04-23T11:48:00.000-07:00

(written Monday April 23 21:48 Kenyan time)

I have arrived! The trip out was boring and uneventful, as all good flights should be. When I landed in Nairobi, I went through passport control and got my visa ($50 cover charge for entry to Kenya). When I went to baggage claim, both bags were blissfully waiting for me, nothing missing. So definitely off to a good start. (picture: sunset on arrival in Kenya, from the air)

Customs was a bit more interesting though. The first agent was shaking his head quite vigorously at all my camera equipment, and went to get his supervisor. Once he arrived, he started to explain that to bring this much equipment into Kenya, that I must have arranged for it ahead of time and should have an "agent" in Kenya waiting for me with the proper paperwork. This is, of course, the first time I've ever heard of this. I told them that I discussed my trip at length with the Kenyan embassy in Los Angeles and that they said nothing of this. He went on to tell me that I would have to pay 1% tax on the value of the equipment, which I told him made sense if I was leaving it here but that I was bringing it back with me. I explained that I am a photographer, that this is my livelihood, and of course who I was here to see, etc. etc. He finally relented and said "Ok, this time I will let you go… but next time you must arrange an agent in Nairobi first". Oh good then.

On leaving customs I expected to see Carol waiting for me, as she had described herself in an email as "the only white 60 year old woman with a big smile on her face". However she was not there, but three Pokot that work with the IHF were there in her stead, with a big sign reading "Joseph IHF". Figured that was for me. The three guys are Joshua, Andrew, and Fred.

We headed out to an IHF van and loaded up my gear, then drove for probably 20 minutes into Nairobi to spend the night at the YMCA. The weather is quite nice; like a cool summer evening. However it will be much hotter once we get out to the valley.

It turns out that Carol is quite ill; she arrived yesterday (from Bangkok, I think), and has a terrible stomach ache. Hopefully nothing too serious. I still haven't met her; when Joshua knocked on her door and she answered, she sounded terrible, so we went on to eat without her.

We had dinner at the YMCA's kitchen. Fish, slightly breaded with a kind of jerk sauce on it, accompanied by cole slaw and soggy fries. The fries I could do without but the fish was quite good. We washed it all down with Fanta's. They have lemon Fanta here! They call it citron; now I know what to order next time. I grew up on that in Spain and you can't get it in the US. Dinner for four cost 820 Kenyan shillings. I think it's 70 shillings to the dollar. I should probably look that up. (pictures: Andrew [left] and Joshua [right] enjoying dinner)

Tomorrow morning we will drive to Nakuru, about two hours drive, where we get ready for the trip to the Pokot tribe, another 4 to 5 hours drive from there, depending on the road conditions. There have been rains lately (in fact it's raining right now), and apparently these are mostly unpaved roads so they get washed out pretty easily. Also while in Nakuru, Joshua said they have to meet with a lawyer to discuss some legal matters, so I really don't know how long we'll be there or when we'll actually get to the Pokot.

I'm sharing a room with Joshua, and we got to chatting about his name. His english, or western name, is Joshua, but his birth name is Nalaket. He explained that most children get an english name when they are baptized, but he did not. Instead he got one when he went to school, which was much later than most. He started the first grade around the age of 10, and at that time still had no western name. In school his "prefect" (student leader) was a fellow named Moses. When Moses moved on, Nalaket took his place. In searching for an English name to give himself, he read the story of Moses to see who succeeded Moses. That was Joshua. So, he took the name Joshua.

Quite a cool story; how many of us get to choose our own names?

Andrew's native name is Panga, and Joshua wasn't sure of Fred's native name.

Oh right - no cell coverage, even in Nairobi. Someone call Cingular and yell at them for me please? They said I'd be roaming fine here, however even though I can see three networks, they are all x'ed out in the list and when I select them they're listed as "for emergency calls only".

Time for bed. I took a few pictures of them at dinner as well.

Seriously Slim

2007-04-23T01:25:00.001-07:00

Now on Brussels Air flight SN481, and boy is this a small seat! So far no one next to me... Hopefully we're not simply waiting for the Japanese Sumo team before embarking. 

Aww, sorry Joe, I just realized I forgot to pack your script to read! Bugger :( 

Ok this sick sniffles thing is really getting old. Sure hope it's only a 24 hour bug and will be gone when I land. All my drugs are obviously packed... who gets sick while still on the plane?! Me, apparently. sigh 

Signing off. I'll try to post again when I land in Nairobi. From there, who knows what, if any, cell coverage I'll have.

Breakfast in Belgium

2007-04-22T23:22:00.001-07:00

Huh, picture didn't post the first time… here we go again.

Funny, I'm logged on in Belgium and Google's Blogger is coming up in Belgish. Er, Dutch. French. Something. Good thing I speak Spanish.

Europe-land

2007-04-22T22:53:00.001-07:00

Just landed in Brussels for another few-hour layover. 7am-ish local time. Sure is beautiful here. Gorgeous green countryside, picturesque towns, red roofs... lovely! I have a few hours to kill... waffles, anyone? I managed some sleep on the way. Unfortunately though it would seem I have a bit of a sniffle and sore throat. Great. New icon on the phone, must be 3G. Hm, guess I'll find out in a moment if I'm set up for it! New phone, by the way... Sony Ericsson W880i. Very slick.

In Chicago now

2007-04-22T12:19:00.000-07:00

The first part of the trip is over (ok the easiest part!); I'm in Chicago on a few hour layover now. I'd post a picture but, you know… it's just an airport.

I stayed up all night last night packing and generally getting ready. And working on that Pelican case, which unfortunately didn't come together quite like I planned – but I'm getting what I need out of it. Here's a picture of the lid, where I've either epoxied or velcro'd everything in place. On the right are four Lexar FireWire readers, mounted sideways. These are glued in place. On the left are three firewire drives; the top one is a backup drive for the OS and applications, so I can recover on the road if needed (all personal files are backed up on systems back home and I don't need recovery on the road for those if I lose them). The lower two drives are the G-RAID MINI's, as primary and backup. All master files to go to the one then are backed up to the other. In the middle you see the MacBook Pro power supply velcro'd to the lide, and under that the little white box is a Belkin FireWire hub. The coil of cables underneath are the two FireWire cables coming off the Lexar readers (for the FW400 port) and off the drives/hub (FW400 to 800 for the 800 port).

The computer is living in the protective sleeve that came with the case, and the sunshade sits under that. I couldn't figure out a way of incorporating the shade into the lid with all the other stuff there, so I compromised and put a small velcro tab on the lid of my MacBook Pro to hold it when I want to use it. Not thrilled with the idea but at least it works.

So now to recharge the iPod and have a snack before the 8 hour flight to Brussels! I have a three hour layover there, so may try to go to the other side of customs to see the big Tintin rocket. I grew up on Tintin, and my friend Steve just sent me this picture from the airport there. Gotta see it ;-)

So, this is really it.

2007-04-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

So, this is really it. I'm sitting at SJC waiting for my flight. I stayed up all night so I could get some sleep on the way. My baggage is borderline ridiculous, and I barely even brought any clothes! The tripod and solar panel took up most of my one suitcase that isn't dedicated to cameras; the rest is other odds and ends. Anyway... I'm glad to be rid of it to the baggage handlers. Now let's just hope it's all there on the other side.

Wow

2007-04-20T10:26:00.001-07:00

Yep, I did it

T – (less than) 48 hours!

2007-04-20T09:28:00.000-07:00

Coming down to the wire. I returned from Las Vegas lat night (middle seat, so no further GPS test), and in half an hour I get my head buzzed. The next two days will be manic as I pull everything together, and leave for Kenya on Sunday morning, 6:30am. Wish me luck!

Some older projects, posted

2007-04-19T12:30:00.000-07:00

I posted (and back-dated) a series of older blog/projects here, copied over from another less-trafficked blog. These include A Month in Europe… RAAM 2006 (Race Across America)… Great Grandfather Linaschke (a personal project)… PIE Show, Tokyo… Italy; two weeks in five days… San Jose Grand Prix 2006… and Black Eyed Peas.

Enjoy.

GPS logging in the air?

2007-04-13T17:26:00.000-07:00

I flew to Las Vegas this morning, and I, er, accidentally forgot to turn off my Sony GPS-CS1. And I sorta accidentally left it on the windowsill of the plane. So I sorta got some data of the trip.

OK now can someone please tell me why you're supposed to turn GPS off in flight? It's not a transmitter, it's a receiver, right? Is it *pulling* data from the satellites, or is it just picking up data in the air, like FM radio? The pilots use GPS. Why on earth would GPS not be permitted to be used in flight?

So since I now, er, had the data, I figured I'd, you know, have a look at it. And here's the curious thing. I have some really cool data on the runway, take-off, and a few points after take-off, but then nada for most of the flight. I got one point somewhere about half-way, (bizarrely enough over a populated area) then once we got close to Vegas, it kicked back into gear again.

What gives? Am I completely missing something about how GPS works at high altitudes, in airplanes, at high speeds, or ??

You can download the KMZ file for Google Earth here.

Epson P-5000 and Automator

2007-04-12T03:01:00.000-07:00

The Epson P-5000 arrived today, and it's actually quite impressive on first look. The screen is gorgeous and huge. 4" doesn't sound like much but when you look at that after looking at the back of your dSLR, it's quite impressive. In (very minimal) tests, it seems to pull my CR2 files off the CF cards and display them on screen as advertised.

Immediately of course I wanted to see how it would integrate with Aperture. As expected since it's basically just a hard drive, you have to point Aperture to the devices "Backup" folder to copy content off of it. But in thinking of a way to automate this process, I've created an Automator script that does all of the following automatically. First, I plug the P-5000 into my MacBook Pro, and then…

An folder action detects the drive and kicks into gear.
Content from the P-5000's "Backup" folder is copied to the external FW drive, which we'll call FW1. (The script does not overwrite existing files, so there's no duplicate copying going on)
The P-5000 is ejected from the desktop
The content just copied to FW1 is now copied again to FW2 (this is my backup drive).

That's it… I now have three copies of my images, and once I'm satisfied that the files on FW1 and FW2 are intact, I can delete them from the P-5000 (this could be automated too, but I never automate deletions).

The next step, which is quite easy but I'll get to later, is importing (by reference!) these new images into Aperture, with metadata applied. Of course before doing that I need to do my geotagging, so we'll see what I can automate on that front later.

That's pretty cool… I can simply plug in my P-5000 and walk away. When I come back, I have pictures in Aperture, and backups already made.

Eventually I'll post details of how it's all done, once I get the rest of the puzzle in place.

Custom Pelican MacBook Pro case

2007-04-10T09:44:00.000-07:00

The Pelican 1495CC1 that I ordered last week was suddenly unavailable, but fortunately I found another source. My friend at Pelican hooked me up with K C Specialty Products, who had the case in stock and shipped it immediately. Since the 1495 doesn't come with the riser/dividers that the 1490 does, I have some Peli Quick Mounts coming to help hold things in place, and the special 3M adhesive DP8010 to mount it with.

Just like Chase Jarvis, I've ordered a shade from CompuShade to fashion over the laptop. I'm hoping to find a way to rig it to the case instead of to the laptop, as I have absolutely zero intention of putting velcro strips on the lid of my MacBook Pro!

My drives of choice are 100GB G-Tech G-DRIVE Mini's. I originally chose these as they have no fan, to reduce the chance of dirt being sucked into the drives. It's less of a concern now that these will live under the MacBook Pro in the case, but it's still, I think, a Good Idea™. Mine are FW400 drives so will have to use a small FireWire hub, which is unfortunate, but oh well. These drives will mirror each-other for backup, and are where my master RAW files will live. I'll have additional FW drives in another case in the event I exceed 100GB of RAW files. (100GB should hold about 7,000 Canon 5D RAW files)

I use the stackable Lexar FireWire Professional CompactFlash Readers, so I'm anxious to see how (and how many) I can arrange into the case.

Of course when I have the pieces I'll show it off here!

I'm going to Kenya

2007-04-07T21:24:00.000-07:00

I'm very fortunate to have been invited as a photographer on a trip to Kenya with the International Humanity Foundation, a true non-profit group who has been helping a tribe of people in Kenya called the Pokot (just one of many of their projects). I won't summarize here everything they've done and are doing; for that you can visit their website. However suffice it to say the generous work of everyone involved with IHF, from the founder Carol Sasaki to the volunteers who answer their phones, are greatly appreciated by the Pokot people and others around the world. I've been invited to document the culture of the Pokot people and the work of the IHF. My photographs will be used as preservation of their culture and heritage, as well as used by the IHF for fundraising for current and future projects.

I nearly went on this trip in January, but other obligations got in the way and I couldn't do it. Fortunately the opportunity came up again, and I leave on April 22, returning May 6. It's quite the journey out there; I fly from San Jose, CA to Chicago to Brussels to Nairobi, where I'll be met and driven to the final destination. The nearest city is Nakuru, and the location of the Pokot orphanage is approximately 0°50'16.00"N 36°1'14.00"E (the link will open Google maps). My return flight is Nairobi to London to Los Angeles to San Jose. I hope to visit friends on the 5 hour layover in London.

This is a massively important project for me; since my return to photography I've dreamed of doing a project like this, and certainly didn't expect this to come along so soon. I'm scrambling to prepare for it, while of course maintaining my current work commitments. Those who know me and know my day job know that I'm extremely busy right now leading up to NAB, the big broadcast show in Las Vegas. I leave for that show in less than a week, and return two days before leaving for Kenya. So I'm trying to get everything together now.

I'm going to blog about this trip, every step of the way, including preparation. Internet coverage is essentially nonexistent where I'll be (they don't even have electricity, so I guess asking for a broadband connection is a bit much!). I could of course connect via satphone but what I'm doing isn't urgent enough to require the expense, so all my writing and blogging will happen offline and get posted when I can.

Since I'm currently two weeks out, I'll talk about some of the prep going into this. Of course I'm throwing every bit of technology I can at this, because, well, it's me ;-)

** TRAVEL **

I booked on American Airlines with expectations of using my miles to upgrade to business class, at least for the return flight. But of course there were no upgrade seats left, and... get this... American now charges a $300 co-pay each direction for a points upgrade! So, it's economy all the way. SJC-ORD-BRU-NBO, then home NBO-LHR-LAX-SJC. Thanks to seatguru I should have power points at each seat.

** SOLAR POWER **

For power, there is a solar supply out there and I'm also bringing a little one called, originally, the Portable Solar Power System from the informative and helpful folks at http://www.siliconsolar.com/ which will primarily be for charging camera batteries. I'll be relying on their power to charge the laptop.

** CAMERA GEAR **

My primary purpose in going is of course photography, so I'm bringing all the toys. I'll be carrying one each of a 5D, 20D and 30D bodies. My lenses include a 14mm Aspherical, 24-70mm f/2.8, 85mm f/1.2, 100mm macro, 70-200mm f/4, and a 400mm f/4. I'm hoping to do some kind of safari while there, but am not sure if that will or won't happen. I'll carry a Gitzo tripod with Manfrotto tracker joystick head, and my Gorillapod, and loads of little goodies to go with.

In case I can't get my laptops charged, I'm brining an Epson P-5000 photo storage viewer to store digital photos on.

** COMPUTERS **

My primary computer is a MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 17", with a 15" Core Duo as backup. The 17" will be in a custom built case (which I'm still working on) inspired by this Chase Jarvis blog entry. I'll post pics or video of it when it's done. All photo management will be done in Aperture (more on that below).

** GEOTAGGING **

One thing I really wanted to do on this trip was geotag my photos. All the pieces have come together for this trip (or are about to!) and I think this will really work. The workflow is a bit convoluted and tedious, but I think worth it in the end. So here's how that works...

I have a Sony GPSCS1KA which logs GPS position every 15 seconds. Plug this into the Mac and you can copy off the GPS .log file. Then using LoadMyTracks, convert the .log to a .GPX file. Now the GPS data is ready to be merged with the photos. (Apparently this can be automated with a perl scrip in an Automator action, according to this website. I haven't tried it yet but definitely will)

Whenever I'm ready to capture photos of the CF cards, instead of capturing straight to Aperture I'll first copy the files to the Finder. Then I'll add GPS data to the pictures using the HoudahGeo software. Basically it looks at the timestamp on the photo, looks for the closest time stamp from the GPS log file, and adds the appropriate coordinates to the image file.

Then I import the geotagged images into Aperture, and proceed as normal. When I'm ready to put pictures on the web, I'll use the Connected Flow's flickr plug-in to upload to my flickr account (click here for a map test from Hawaii; these aren't properly geotagged, but the approximate data was added later). This plug-in passes through the GPS data, and then flickr automatically places them on a map.

Cool, huh?

** MISC **

I'm bringing a Kata rain cover for one camera. I have it in my head that I'll set up the camera for some long term (i.e. all day) auto-triggered exposures, perhaps to catch animals at a watering hole, or a full-days excitement at the village. Should be fun.

** MOSQUITOS **

I'm already taking Neem tablets and have 34% Deet bug repellant, and a mosquito net to sleep in. Wish me luck.

** WEATHER **

It's been hard to get a picture of what to really expect. Currently it's only 85º in Nakuru, but I'm told it gets a lot hotter the 80 miles away in the Pokot village. We'll be in the Rift valley. I don't know about humidity, but I do know it's dusty and dirty. Should be fun.

** HYGIENE **

Those that know me will find this part shocking - I'll be shaving my head right before I go. Probably a tad unnecessary, but it's for the heat, to make it easier to keep clean(er), and frankly because it's a great excuse to do it. Don't worry, there will be pictures (and yes mom, I'll wear a hat and plenty of sunblock!)

OK that's a good start to all this. Again I'll do video and text blogs, but not much will be posted in real-time.

Bill Lonero Band

2007-03-22T18:19:00.000-07:00

Last night a friend of mine, Frank Casanova, was playing with Bill Lonero's band in downtown San Jose at the Voodoo lounge. I shot a few for them. See a little gallery here.

An impressive use of Aperture and AppleScript

2007-01-15T21:41:00.000-08:00

I recently worked on a project where I was asked to design an Aperture workflow for a live shoot. It worked out really well, so I wanted to share it here.

SETUP: studio shoot; two simultaneous setups, cameras, photographers, etc. Two days, 11+ hours each, 150+ setups, thousands of photos.

OBJECTIVE: to photo-edit in near real-time… rating, tagging and keywording (aka "tag and bag"); cropping and white balancing; color or other image adjusting as needed. Provide twice-daily web previews for remote client.

TECH: two Canon 1Ds Mark II's and an assortment of lenses and lights, two PowerMac G5's and 23" displays, one Mac Pro Intel Quad with dual 30" displays, internal 1.5TB RAID, fast network, G-Tech G-RAID for backup. All pictures shot RAW.

THE GOODS: All made possible with the power of AppleScript, Aperture, and the Mac.

First step was setting up a tethered shooting solution for the two cameras. Each Canon was USB tethered to a PowerMac G5. Canon's EOS Utility was used to copy the images from the camera to the computer in real-time. The software was set to leave a copy of the image on the CF card as well as copy it to the computer, so an instant after the shutter was depressed, there were two copies of the image - one on the CF card and one in the watched destination folder on the Mac.

The destination folder on each Mac was being watched by Aperture Hot Folder. As each image was captured, it was immediately added to the Aperture library. The current version of Aperture Hot Folder allows Aperture to operate in full-screen mode, and still capture in the background… then automatically advance to the just-imported frame. While in full-screen, the photographers opted to have the HUD (Heads Up Display) open with the RGB histogram displayed, and the loupe loaded. This mean that seconds after each shot was taken, they could watch the screen for their image, check levels on the histo, and check sharpness in the loupe.

The destination folder on each Mac was actually being watched by a second script as well. This script simply copied each image across the network to the Mac Pro, where they landed in one of two folders; Camera1 or Camera2. At this point, again only seconds after the shutter was depressed, three copies of the image existed.

Meanwhile on the Mac Pro, where I sat, I had Camera1 and Camera2 folders opened in icon view, with previews on and the icons set to the largest size. This allowed me (and the producers watching over my shoulder) to monitor the progress of each camera simultaneously. Any image in question could be quickly opened in Preview for a fast check.

As soon as either camera was finished with a particular setup, they would notify me that the setup was complete so I could import the batch into Aperture. At that point I simply clicked on either my Camera1_import or Camera2_import AppleScripts.

Each AppleScript would import the appropriate folder of content into Aperture, then move the images from the Camera1 or Camera2 folder into a Camera1_ or 2_archive folder, as appropriate. These archive folders would later be backed up for a fourth and final copy of each image. Also, since Aperture maintains its links to its referenced images so well, even though the images had already been imported (by reference) into Aperture, they could still be moved to another folder on the drive and Aperture never lost track of a link.

Additionally, the scripts did more than simply import the images. They also applied a series of metadata strings, including copyright data and a camera identifier. This allowed the images to be sorted by camera later on if needed.

Once each batch was imported, in Aperture I would use the Find command to isolate the most recent import session, therefore only looking at the most recent batch of photos. From there I would manually stack the pictures (an easy task to do manually with the studio setup, and not particularly suited to auto-stacking since time between shots varied so much). Once stacked I would select large groups of images and batch-apply keywords as needed. We had a series of about a dozen keywords across four categories; each image required one or more keyword from each category to be properly identified later.

(I also set up smart albums to call out any images that had not yet been keyworded, meaning they were missed in the initial keyword run. This proved useful as occasionally images would get missed, and this process allowed those to be quickly identified and corrected.)

Once stacked, I would select the reference color-chart image (one was shot for each studio setup), define a white balance point, and lift-and-stamp that white balance across all other images from the shoot. In a matter of seconds, Aperture could white balance hundreds of photos to the exact same specification.

At this point, I went to full-screen mode to compare stacked images and pick a best shot. For some stacks, it was as easy as picking the last or second-to-last photo. For others, Aperture's Stack Mode was used extensively, comparing a current pick to the next shot in succession. And finally in yet others, all images in the stack were thrown across dual 30" displays and individually duck-hunted out of the stack selection until it was narrowed down to a final pick. The process used really depended on the individual content and quantity of each stack. The seamless flow between all picking methods in Aperture meant we were able to comb through hundreds, and ultimately thousands of photos in record time.

Once the images were tagged and bagged, some images required cropping or other image adjustments, and so were treated quickly and effectively.

On a final pass through the current selection, favorites would be tagged with a 3-star rating. This would come in handy later.

Meanwhile, the next shoot for either camera setup would continue unabated. The instant we were notified of a setup completion, images would be imported via the two AppleScripts, regardless if ready for them or not in Aperture. As soon as one set was completely photo-edited, I would move on to the next set.

Earlier on, several smart web-gallery were set up to isolate particular keyword criteria and 3-star matches. This meant that publishing updates to the website was only one-click away, as each smart web gallery was auto-created with all the favorite choices.

Finally, twice a day (at lunch and at end-of-day), a Backup routine would be run, copying the master image files and Aperture Library to the G-RAID, providing a fourth and final version of each photo. At this point the original images on the CF-cards would be deleted.

And that is how we shot thousands of pictures in two days… and picked out the best before we went home.

Nangpa La Pass International Day of Action

2006-12-01T10:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I volunteered to photograph the International Day of Action at the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco for various organizations as they protested the killing and detaining of Tibetans following the Nanpa La pass incident.

I have posted a selects gallery and a complete gallery for the organizations to use. I've also posted my favorites on www.josephlinaschke.com

For more information on the incident, please visit http://www.sftyc.org/nangpa

Gorillapod

2006-11-30T21:14:00.000-08:00

Gorillapod at work! Supporting a Canon 5D and 70-200 mm lens while shooting 15-30 second exposures of the San Francisco skyline at night.

A Month in Europe

2006-10-02T13:18:00.000-07:00

I spent basically all of September '06 in Europe. Starting in Amsterdam for IBC, and ending in Cologne for Photokina, with a bit of Berlin and Munich in the middle.

Business is business, but who says you can't have a little fun along the way.

The unique site is here

RAAM (Race Across America)

2006-07-27T12:33:00.000-07:00

I was invited to join the all diabetic race team, Team Type 1, on the (bicycle!) Race Across America. One of my best friends in the world was on the team, Steve Holmes, so of course I couldn't say no.

It was one of the most intense, grueling, and fun shooting events of my life, and one that has proved to have kicked my ass back into photography.

I blogged the entire trip extensively (70-something entries if I recall), had over 20,000 hits to the website, and shot thousands of pictures. If you have any interest in bicycle racing, the dedication of diabetics, or just plain ol' cross-country adventures, I encourage you to open a bottle of wine and come along for the ride. It's a good, long read, and a lot of fun.

This is the blog

This is the photo gallery

Great Grandfather Linaschke

2006-04-01T13:25:00.000-08:00

In March '06, my cousin Michael and I set out Florida to document the history of the patriarch of our family, Great Grandfather Linaschke. The project was all about video – 12 hours of it – but I shot some stills as well

Here is the unique site

PIE Show, Tokyo

2006-03-27T13:13:00.000-08:00

Tokyo is always entertaining, and this trip was no exception. The show was PIE, or Photo Imagine Expo. Big, loud, and very Japanese. What else is there to say?

I just had to build a unique site for this trip.

Italy; two weeks in five days

2005-12-01T13:09:00.000-08:00

I was in Italy for a week for a work shoot. We hit Positano, Rome, Florence and Venice. I shot quite a bit at night, which started my whole night-time architecture kick. There are two galleries…

Daytime gallery and Nighttime gallery

San Jose Grand Prix

2005-07-31T12:30:00.000-07:00

With full pit access, shooting the San Jose's first Grand Prix was a hell of a lot of fun. I got close. Real close. The roar of engines was deafening, the smell of oil pungent, and the heat of the sun and cars unbearable. In short… it was fantastic!

The gallery is here.

Black Eyed Peas

2005-04-30T12:25:00.000-07:00

In April 2005, we did a shoot with the Black Eyed Peas for a company project. I shot some pictures along with one of the company directors. Some of these photos are his, some are mine, with no way to separate them. For this reason, I’m uploading only small thumbnails. Sorry, BEP fans ;-)

The gallery is here.