Eyes of Tanzania

This a photo of my room this morning.

Errr… Might be nice if I posted the image with this one…

Here you go.

The is the orphanage that I hear every night. it is a ball throw way from the house that I am staying in.

I got half a tour of the hospital yesterday. They brought me into the X-Ray room, the equipment was from the 40’s and the dark room caught me off guard.

I have been doing fine emotionally to this point. This is a HIV center for teaching and helping out this people effected by HIV and AIDS. These kids were amazing, the teacher they had was fantastic to. But they are directly effect of HIV/AIDS or have it.

I meet with some the mothers. Single mom with 5 childern husband died of AIDS etc…

Hard very hard not getting emotional about it.

After this I realized I need to take the morning off tomorrow and wander around.Need to clear out the head.

I saw two orphanages yesterday, and I say one today. This is me and the kids at St Thaddeaus. We were singing and running around. The kids love seeing there photo on the back of the camera.

Hi Everyone,

The internet has been down and me and the other 8 volunteers have been trying to get on line.

Here is a photo from the New Paradise,  The kids were fantastic and a lot of fun to play with.

I am off to my first orphanage today. Geffory is picking me up at 1300. I am slowly getting the lay of the land. There are about 8 volunteers here with me and spent some time with them last night at the canteena, having stale donuts and Chi tea.

My room is better than my fears, but I was woken up last night by ythe cry of a dog or something. It seemed like there was some sort of gaming going on beween the animals at 2 am.

On a nicer note being woken by kids singing at 8 am on there ways to church was a nice alarm clock.

The network here is slow. I will be down grading my olympus camrea so I can post images.

More soon.

I made it. lots of stories on that ride. But that will have to wait for another day.

My stomach is in knots, I sleep a little in my three days of traveling. So, we  are off to get water and drop me off to where I will live.

It  is a complete culture shock. but I should get the acent down soon.

I hope to post images, more on that tommorow.

i have made it to the uk.

the e-mail system here is cryptic. but all is well.

i am about 1/4 threw my trip to get to tanziania.

i hope everyone is doing well.

Well, I am off…
It was a day of running around but I got what I could get done, done.
Meindert asked me yesterday if I was traveling light, I answered “yes”.
Well, I need to rethink that answer. I am not traveling light. Honestly, I do not know how it all got to weight so much, but it has.

In other news, I met with Gail today and she has given me a list of contact and orphanages that I will visit. It is all starting to feel real now. 13 visits in total and I hoping to spend a day looking for animals. We, will see how it all goes.

Big thanks to Lisa and the kids for sharing this dream with me. It has been a lot of work on everyone.

I will update as soon as I can.

Designer Tom showed up today with a grocery bag full of stuff for me to take to Tanzania. Ten thousand thank you’s to him and his church for putting this bag together. I will pass the bag to Dr. Sam when I arrive.

I have started or should I say continued thinking about the stories that I will be photographing and filming in Tanzania. I really have no script for this trip, other than I know that I will be photographing a lot of orphanages. I often fear that it all might become to fragmented, but then again fragmentation can become a rhythm of miniature master pieces.

Years ago Andrew suggested me reading this book “On Directing Film” at the time I had put together a short film that missed target badly and I was in search of repair. I pick the book up today for the first time in a few years and started flipping threw it realizing that it was time to revisit this book and ideas and that the theory of directing film is similar to that of still photo’s.

To simplify, It all comes down to the story line, the feeling and editing.

This weeks weather

Days away from leaving on my trip, and I think it is a good time to take a look at the weather. It looks like a lot of 8’s

I think I have a warm trip to come, in my reading there was a remark that it sometimes takes a week to get used to the heat. I will let you know!

As part of my trip, I will be leaving behind two Olympus camera’s and teaching kids how to use them. The program is designed so they will create images that a EPIC Change will turn into cards that they will sell online.

Understanding a camera is the easy part, understanding the photography is the hard part. I have asked a few freinds to help me with this issue and I have got a fantastic minuter of different answers. The reality is they are all correct.

I need to let go and see what happens. To much plaining is too much.

Illustrate feeling

And the best images ask questions, like why is that rabbit in a cage and the cage is not catching the rabbit.

(a few years back, a rabbit started eating our garden. I went on a full attach to get that rabbit. Months later of failed catchings it snowed, the rabbit was able to eat the bird seed and use the cage as shelter.)