Eyes of Tanzania

This is a photo of one of the men I meet. He has 2 twin daughters age 3. The other child was unable to come for the photograph because she was sick.

There are many mud hut around. I am staying in a very westernized place, but I am always amazed by these houses.

Elimu is a project to teach students in the local neighborhood and to garentee that the children get at least one good meal a day. I was able to see the porge time and it was amazing.

There was a little girl behind me (not in photo) when I was photograph her classmate that had her meal spilt all over her because kids behind her wanted to see the photo. I felt so sorry for her.

I visited Elimu childerns center today and often as the case the kids start looking for me. I often meet with the school of orphanage directer before photographing the kids. Getting the right to photograph and the story of the establishment etc.

Today, I found these eyes looking for me.

Well, today was safrai day… and kids I found monkees, and lot of other neat anamials.

Here is one that I shot today. So many today 500 images. Hard to pick one.

Crunch time feels like it is happening, Friday seems to be coming real soon.

More tomorrow.

The reality is that I would not be able to do this without the help of these three.

Joesph, James (does most of the driving) and Geoffry (translator Esq). After a hard day we stop for a beer, they had soda…

The theme that keep on hitting me is kids being left behind because of AIDS. This is the vocational training that Good hope does for there older kids. Sewing and farming (chickens) The real pain here is 54 kids 6-16 on 1/4 acher of land.

I am here with another Cape Ann Gail, for the Rockporters out there Heidi Wakemans aunt.

Today was a crazy day at the orphange, the toilet fell off the wall and water went everywhere. Two inches on the hole floor.

This is Gail at the morning feeding that got delayed till 10:30.

One of the more positive process going on if Tanzania right now is the understanding of making money by creating businesses. Mr Shija (a guitar maker by trade)  has started the Educare group which consists of 5 villages and has 111 orphans living with extended family.

As a part of the process he has  created different type of group and these woman are learning bannana leaf weaving. They just got a order for 100 baskets. They are doing some great work.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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

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)

Last week I was on a product photography shoot with Al and he was talking about some of the photography his son had been doing with a inverted loop at the end of his lens.

It got me thinking about the pin hole camera concept and what we could do with digital to try to achieve that in camera. This is one of my better results. One of these days I will take apart a digital camera and turn it into a diga-pinhole camera.

Till then…

(Click on the title of the post to see larger version of the image)

A major part of my trip is going to be story telling about the people of Tanzania. But the artist in me also want to take some time to experiment when I am there. Here is a test shot using the HDR features in Photoshop and pitching the colour.

(Click on the title of the post to see larger version of the image)