Eyes of Tanzania

I seem to have so many list right now and everthing is living in a pile in my office.

Tomorrows is the day that I turn that pile into something understandable. That and I compare it to other list that I have found on the web.

Fellow photographer and traveler to parts of Africa, Steve Simon has posed this great list of things that he is taking on his next trip… Take a look at what he brought.

BTW this is also a test of the blogging camrea that I am take with me… Let see what that image looks like…

I will be the first to tell you that I don’t know the complete story of the histories of the countries that make up Africa. Though there is nothing better than going to Tanzania and forcing yourself to learn something.
I feel lucky that Lisa picked up the book “Unbowed” the memoir of Wangari Maathai. What a great read, to learn about the changes of Kenya in the last 60 years (there have been many). She has a great story telling ability that makes want to reach out and learn more. Also, as a historian makes me want to cry at what we have-lost.

I feel lucky that I was asked to photograph the deconstruction of this local barn, because it really has become a great tune up. The process of taking of photo so easily gets rushed and then mistakes happen. By example, the image here i clipped the left roof support, which would have created a nice line. Plus, even though my view finder has the cross hairs I did not line them up to the floor and the image is turning just a little. These both are easly fixed with slowing down and looking twice

One of the keys of this trip is image storage. I decided early on that I was not going to bring my laptop and in one of my photography magazines I read of this great product call the photo safe. It is cost effective, simple and did one thing well, store images. So, early on I went out and got one, the 40 GB one.

40 GB, that’s a lot of images, 7000 with my Nikon currently, but if you break that out over 14 days (like I did a few nights ago) that’s 500 images a day. This scared me and honestly my fear was that this is not enough and that the storage might start censoring myself. That might sound funny, but I can shoot 120 images of a barn in a hour, put me in a orphanage in Tanzania and how many will I take. It really is a question I can not answer.

So, I have gone out and purchased another one. This way I can create some sort of back up and it will give me enough space to feel like I can be creative if I want to.

Well, in good humor Dennis was upset that his questions about the medications didn’t have a photo of him with it. Nancy is he like this at home? Anyway, here is Dennis and a dinosaur at the Madrid, which is one of the strangest places you can stop on your way back from Quebec. Thought when ever we are up there visiting the office we need to stop by on or way home to visit the wooly mammoth.OK… No back to the trip.(Click on the title of the post to see larger version of the image)

The copywriter at the office has asked me, more times than I can count if the medications for the trip where costly. For the most part no, if I was going for more than two weeks they may add up, but for the most part my copays took care of everything.

I think my issue is going to be finding the fatty meal that I need to take with the Malarone.

A few days ago I stop by the local camera  (the Camera Corner) store to pickup an extra lens cap for my Nikon. Carl has been a great help the last 6 months with some small projects so I fingered I would buy the lens cap from him. He was looking at my camera and exclaimed something to the effect, “great camera and very nice lens, but why are you destroying your image quality with the cheap UV lens filter”.

He was right I did have a cheap filter on the lens, but I never of it down grading my image quality, I always thought of the lens and never beyond it.

Good lens = good photo

Good lens, poor filter = ok photo

So, I left his shop with a new Rodenstock filter and a little wiser.

Well, today was the day to go to the Travel Clinic and get my shots. I went to the clinic in Danvers and meet with Kathleen Tremblay R.N., F.N.P.-C. I would highly recommend this to anyone that is going on this type of trip, the whole crew there was fantastic and went over all possible issues and options that I have for medications and shots.

After five shots my arms feels like lead weights, but it is one more thing to check off the list.

Lisa also came back from Barn & Noble with this great book from Lonely Plane “Healthy Travel Africa”. So, It but be the be safe day on the road to TZA.

Well, yesterday was a fantastic day when it can to new power solutions for my trip. My ASI rep from (Source 4) Ken stopped by with a small solar bag that Gemline has donated for my trip. I am ecstatic about this because my camera batteries will charge with this setup nicely.

He also had 3 crank flashlights for me to take with me. One of them has a USB power out on it and during my quick tests I was able to start charging my ipod from the crank…