doesn't it look like the Moon surface? Most of these pictures show the southern plateau of the volcano which is inactive.
these last 2 shots are enlarged for details. It looks there have been some serious showers of 'bombs' as the scientists call them...
Internet is pretty crap here sometimes...that's why I have to send 2 posts a day because one didn't go thru for 2 or 3 days. Or like today, I'm sending a second one because I'm going away for 2 days. So here we go with a bit of anticipation. For once the morning flight tomorrow will be a scenic flight around the volcano Lengai! Let's hope for some nice weather conditions around.
in the meantime today, the lake Natron and some flamingoes.
little flock of flamingoes
another bunch of nests.
similar picture as the one above but enlarged. The grey mud nests are visible.
the 2 following pictures are enlarged from the previous one. Check the white eggs in the nests.
maybe I enlarged too much, but for documentary purpose.....
same lake, western shore.
and remember that petition last year to save the lake from some greedy bloody company which wanted to mine and destroy the lake for salt? The project is back to the loo where it should have stayed. On top Walt Disney has produced a film to promote the lake. Let's hope now it will be classified as a park or whatever else for good.
hope nobody minds that I change subjects on an irregular basis...
after bush fires in the Serengeti. Interesting patterns.
2 hot-air balloons over the Serengeti while I was having breakfast in a lodge.
check the bright little spot in the low part of the balloons: the burners in action.
the volcano Oldoinyo Lengai with mount Gelai in the background. The northern range of the Ngorongoro in the foreground. Daily flight to the Serengeti. But different vista everyday.
about the same legend as above.
opposite view, the Ngorongoro mountain range now in the background.
I know I know guys, I can hear you screaming "where is the naked girl in that pool??". Maybe another day, sorry....
stormy night in lake Manyara.
Mount Meru, that warm light lasted a few minutes only...
art everywhere....
more in Lengijave area...
dunno where she got to pose like a western model...
precious piece of corn!
Mount Meru in the back ground, seen from Mount Monduli slopes.
one tends to forget that digital also allows B/W pictures....though I always carry my Leica loaded in B/W. But that takes a bit of time for processing.
this boy, above and below, was quite shy. From the moment I saw on top of that curved path, he frequently stopped, reassessed the situation, resumed walking and so on...
but even very close, he looked puzzled by the jeep and our ugly faces...
he just smiled, returned my greetings and carried on. Just the way I love.
and a lady to close this post... interesting face. Influence from North Africa, no doubt.
miracle!! Finally got a bloody day off after more than 2 weeks of flying! So we took the Land Rover, which hasn't run for more than a month since I go to the airport everyday by bicycle, and we headed 40 km north towards masai countryside, though other tribes live there too. No need to go far to get out of 'modern' life...
Karine took the opportunity to test her Nikon D300. Fabulous camera in high sensitivity. 6400 iso equivalent to 1600 on my D200! Maybe Nikon will notice the advertising I'm doing some day... ;-)
Rough rutted tracks, away from the main road. Very hilly area. Drier than Arusha because of a ridge running between Mt Meru and Mt Monduli that separates the 2 zones and the wind prevails from Arusha, leaving most of the moisture on one side.
the area is named Lengijave ("place of strong winds" in masai) is a lot less populated...
Here few people ask for money in exchange of a shot.
at an early age, boys get responsibility of herding the cows. Hardly no school. Happy kids at that stage? Girls though go and fetch water, tend for the younger siblings. Not so free to roam and play....
sometimes, I can't help thinking kids look older....
this plane, a Caravan I used to fly for a previous company that ripped me off, has been quite damaged ....so this pilot is a now a lifetime friend. I wish I had done it myself though....curious to know the costs to fix and the loss of profit because this thing won't fly anytime soon! The high season has just started.
it looks like some serious low level flying nearly killed the pilot. He has hit some power line! Extremely lucky to be alive. Some lodges around the area have been deprived of power some a day or two.
looking at the rudder and vertical fin, it looks like he went under the cable to rip off 10 inches of the tail. Initially I had thought a bigger plane with high wings and propellers had chewed it. Like a giant can opener.
here is a full Caravan rudder...Big chunk missing he? The equivalent of the orange bit....
He managed to come back to the airport with one aileron missing and a funky tail, the rudder was jammed, compressed! Quite a feat I guess.
for those who know the caravan, they'll notice the top tail is quite shortened!
curious how the rudder is now slightly bent vertically...
but I'm not judging him since it had happened to me too(many years back!)...though I had only hit the landing gear, without damage.
and after more chat around, not only did he fly under that cable, he flew between cables!! the belly shows some little damages too, 2 antennas have been ripped off! The cable bounced and went below the landing gear.
Lake Natron and flamingoes. I have been surprised to see the flamingoes nesting again. The young grey flamingoes were still there a few months ago...
here is a broad view...drier surface, dull colors as I said. The flamingoes are there but they blend quite well until you come close....
and see their footprints...
and here we go, the pink spots on this funny surface that looks like a piece of wrinkly silk.
this shot is just a similar picture of the previous one, just seriously enlarged and cropped. Imagine I took a one by one cm square from the original shot , had to play a bit on Photoshop for contrast and sharpening. So this twisted picture shows a superb flock of flamingoes taking off all together without crashing into each other. I never fail to be impressed by this skill....
enlarged as well but not as much. To get a sharp shot of flamingoes it is very difficult to come very close to them and fly slow and low with a Caravan and its shitty window, its lack of slow speed....if at least I had another plot with me, I could focus and frame.
huge blow up again, not so sharp, but this is only for blog purpose, right? I'll have to be very nice and sweet with Karine and borrow her Nikon D300 and try it at higher sensibility and shutter speeds, at 1600 iso for instance. That's the big improvement over the D200.
Look inside the grey nest! White eggs. Nests looking like egg holder, made of mud and whatever the birds find on the lake crust.
another location, more nests.
maxi enlargement, not the best quality as a result, pixels are visible... cool sighting though, I just love that.
aahh, that lake. I'd fly everyday above it....though the shallow waters are drying out these months the colors are still reasonably bright at some sparse locations....
these two shots are on the shore line. Notice the tracks, Maasai herders and their cows I guess.
the water channels are closing, the shores are drying out, the salt and other chemicals get white.
no clue why it shifts from orange to black, or vice-versa ....
another example of vanishing colors. This brownish tone used to be bright red.
mix of blue-purple and old red.
and the famous volcano Oldoinyo Lengai to close this post.
dominating Arusha is Mt Meru, about 14500 ft high/4500 m. It used to be a volcano, probably higher at some point than Kilimanjaro, which also used to be a volcano. There is still a crater at its top by the way.
Kilimanjaro sits clear of clouds on the horizon. The weather on the ground was so bad to day. One must enjoy the feeling to fly above these weather conditions...which I did with no passengers.
That little ash cone had some activity about 100 years ago they say...it sits much lower than the mountain itself.
here is a side view of the top. It looks like a sharp wall because this volcano collapsed during the last serious eruption.
the curvature of the mountain is a bit visible here, encompassing the ash cone.
in order to climb it, one has to walk in equilibrium on that thin ridge....the one time I tried with friends, we had to quit 30 min short of the summit because a hailstorm was raging, because none of us were really at ease with the useless drunk guide, and mostly because one professional climber had slipped and died the week before in similar conditions....
sorry guys, for not keeping up or just making short texts but I'm spending one night out of two in some lodge, which starts to slightly piss me off. If one includes the long days of flying, it gives me no time to do anything. Going home, unpack, repack for the next day...it sucks. I'd rather go for a few days in a row, with some free time on the spot like in the good old days....
a biker on a public bike passing a row of public bikes
open museum, Paris....
Notre Dame, la Seine, a dinghy.
type of picture to do if one doesn't want a law suit. No one can be recognised thanks to blurriness. Stupid French law...if it had been applied years back, can you imagine how many famous pictures would have been discarded and lost? How many famous photographers would have been stuck to sports or wedding pictures?
but I hope this colorful lady won't see this one...
Place Saint-Sulpice.
from the Eiffel Tower, facing the Trocadéro across the Seine.
Let 410, that code name is our new airplane. Pretty ugly, a Czech airplane with Russian engines. A workhorse quite appreciated in Africa. Crossing my fingers to fly it soon.
here it is on final approach above the hills of Lake Manyara airstrip.
2 pilots, about 20 passengers.
and the tail will be painted in tingatinga style, a famous Tanzanian naive style, quite colorful.
that was a cool sighting today: people on the top of the volcano. Quite unusual view though tourism is expanding there but because the climb starts around midnight to reach the top just before 6 am to admire the sunrise on Mt Kilimanjaro (with a bit of luck )and then go down again usualy after a couple of hours for the visit on top. So by the time the airplanes start to fly around, everybody is out....
the other day, I gave a web site about the volcano, run by a scientist named Fred Belton. He is precisely visiting the volcano and the area these days. Maybe he is one of these 4 persons...
full view of the crater. The 4 specks on the very right side are people. The whitish crown is the new crater since activity started in August '07. The old flat plateau used to stop at the dark edge.
there was only a slightly veil of white smoke but a strong smell of rotten eggs.
here are the guys, near the crater edge. Notice the footprints. Curious to know the thickness of the ash, how hard it was to move in it. This picture here has just been enlarged for clarity. Thanks to my fabulous Nikon D200 for allowing such enlargements. No, am not on Nikon payroll (but if they contact me....). But now am slightly jealous 'cos my girlfriend, Karine, got a D300!! Well am just waiting for the D400 in 2 years I bet....
they're in the middle of the picture here, tiny dots. In comparison with the 4 people, one can sense the huge size and thickness of that crater.
I've climbed that thing twice, once when a bit of lava was flowing out. Quite a wonderful unforgettable experience. We had stayed overnight, quite tired after the climb and 20 kg of gear to carry on but worth. We slept through the night nevertheless the roars from the thin chimneys. Pictures soon one day....
groupies of Napoleon and his troops, walking through Les Tuileries.
one of these beautiful buildings hiding shops. This one is being refurbished and a whole part is hidden by a huge painted canvas representing what the final work will be. Nothing new maybe except that was the first time I saw a giant 'trompe-l'oeil' like this, a mirroring effect of the opposite building. Fabulous piece of art. Too bad for the huge advertising panel on the right side...
shopping at all costs....but still a long way to beat the Tanzanian bikers....
preparing a double cancer ...
alongside the Seine river.
remember that blue 2CV I mentioned last week? Here is another version of it, built on the same frame. Plastic body, even lighter than the regular one. Her name is 'Méhari' after the desert guides in the Sahara. The engine is the same, a 600cc,( that is about 40 Cu In, tenth of a regular American V8), 2 cylinders.
old man having a hard time to meet the ends...
near Notre Dame.
wonderful light and the colors explode... 15 min of flight above the Rift Valley...
shadow of the volcano Oldoinyo Lengai and the smoke...
same shadow and a rainbow...
all of that was in April 08, beginning of the long rains....
long time I didn't put a post on this marvel... here are a few shots since my return in May 08. The beast is pretty lazy these days. But it might just be the sleepy monster according to some volcano specialists. It did the same pattern in the 60's before a major eruption. Let's hope it happens sooner rather than later...
for those who are interested in this volcano, have a look for more spectacular shots from various shooters at www.oldoinyolengai.org. Worth it.
sometimes, she pretends to be shy...wrapping herself in white clouds....
In the distance, left of Lengai is Mt Kilimanjaro, and right is Mt Meru (Arusha). Exceptional visibility, more than 100 miles, which is pretty rare in the dry season.
and a vertical view to finish this post...
I love it when the authorities get serious and close down some neighborhoods to cars...
rows of public bicycles all over Paris. Very impressive. Politically impressive too. One of the few kept promises that I can think of...too bad some guys think too high of themselves as being artists and trash properties...
I'm no expert in fashion, clothing etc but I can't help thinking some people are even worse than I am... pink glasses, a stud below the lip...well at least it is entertaining to watch people. Perfectly knowing that I might be somebody's target...
many companies share the juicy business on the Seine....usually called 'bateaux-mouches'. Mouches being flies (the insect...).
a memorial for the French deported people in WWII. Outside Notre-Dame.
and an inside view. Very sober architecture, All the names are craved but there is no real view on them. Also no stories, no pictures.
the book shops along the Seine. You get wonders, vintage things but also the fake or touristy crap...
Notre-Dame and people snapping thousands of pictures per hour I guess...
nice parks and grass bits all over Paris, including les Champs de Mars spreading from the Eiffel Tower. People resting all over.
unfortunately, these soldiers too. Though, probably a better job patrolling around such a place than a set of barracks or other boring sites....
les Champs de Mars. Skin cancers on the prowl but good viewing and for the morale...
nice way to avoid the traffic jams...
and a bicycle too of course. Paris has set public bikes all over the place. You take one here, drop it there. One little flaw with this way is that lazy people leave the bikes down any hill and it is harder to find an available bike on top of Montmartre Hill for instance. Quite a success as far as I could see. Enemies of the system are of course motorists but they complain for whatever reasons that reduce their "right of way" , their "king of the road" status anyway. Other people who affirm that cycling in a city is dangerous. True 2 dead cyclists so far in Paris. One due to reckless riding, so what to do? And if anything dangerous should suppressed as these people want to do with these bikes, what about cars...? Or horses, airplanes and trains and boats? And I bet they smoke anyway. So just shut up guys...
I must say I didn't mind too much going shopping in these conditions. Those big department stores like Samaritaine here are pieces of museums, as the rest of the city, I know I've said that already, but touring inside or waiting outside such a shop half an hour is then no problem for me. Well one still has to carry the goodies of of course...girls say it is a form of sport to convince their guys...Samaritaine: from the Good Samaritan, yeah sure, try to get in there and get things without money, specially in the big names areas like Dior, Chanel...
French people and their cigarettes....
antiques...
hi guys,
long time no write... from late April to late May, I took my (short) annual leave, spent most of it in Paris, and in Brussels. One month is definitely too short when one has been used to two or more...bloody job. Can't wait for the next one some days...
so back in Tanzania. Bad news, my boss got rid of the Cessna 206, a wonderful little 6 seater that I loved for special funny flights. That's the plane on which to get people scream their heart out...Good news the big twin, a Let 410, has arrived. Waiting to be trained on it now.
anyway some shots from Paris. Wonderful city, an open-air museum... art and culture are what I miss most here.
any European knows this wonderful car, a Citroën 2CV. For Americans and others, say Deux Chevaux (2 HP in fact though it had a little more than that). I used to have one, a bright red one. Underpowered but dead cheap to run. People have crossed the World with that. Citroën stopped production in '89 after 40 years or so. Another myth dying out. Still being built in Chile under licence. Never made it to USA for safety issues except some real old vintage models. I'd love one here in TZ as it is quite excellent on dirt roads...this one here is used as a tour taxi with the canvas roof rolled back. Great idea...
another oldie superbly restored. Sunny days, everybody gets out with their convertible toy, girls are half dressed getting tanned and admired (though am not supposed to watch....), the famous Paris book stalls open again along side the Seine...
lovers take a walk and rest here and there.
Notre- Dame...will I ever go up there again? I climbed it once 20 years ago on a winter day, hardly nobody in sight. Now it is packed like hell. One hour queue is common...
I just love these typical buildings. What else to say...
I could spend ours in this city, shooting, drawing, just walking. So many artists have done that before too...
the famous tower. This one too is too busy nowadays. So just walking around and trying to find new angles or subjects is an activity like any...
that spot next to the military school talks about Peace. Those glass panes show the word Peace translated in many languages. Columns are spread around. When I started photography 20 years ago, I couldn't stand tourists or even regular people in my compositions. I realized quickly, thanks to books from famous photographers, that the empty shots were boring...and you don't have to wait 50 years to laugh at the changing fashion or way of life...
see , I would have waited for this lovely girl to get out of the picture. But I'd get her full frame later on....
yes I knows, pretty stupid but fun to do sometimes...
sorry no more posting lately. I'm in Belgium or Paris for a month...maybe I'll post some pictures from here. I've been laughing at our tourists/clowns but there are quite some interesting specimens too around....
these shots of Kili were done on my way out of Tanzania. I usually fly with Ethiopian Airlines, cute stewardesses for one reason. The pilots surprised me by slowing down the Boeing and turning a bit around the top of Kilimanjaro. Airlines pilots are experiencing a Big Brother atmosphere in big companies....
of course, I wish there were no bloody thick windows which distort the sharpness of the pictures by diffracting the light rays...I also wish the pilots had flown straight above...but, hey, that was a nice surprise nevertheless!
that was a problem free flight. Only one anecdote to mention: I had some nuns next to me for one leg. We were sitting across the emergency aisle. Once in the air, 2 Muslims, shaven head but long beard in typical traditional outfit, came in to pray in that aisle, they dropped a carpet slightly to the right and kneeled down. But they had asked with a smile the sisters, not me, if they were OK with the exercise. The sisters smiled back and nodded. Quite a different exchange from what we read daily in the news....
woman praying towards a Buddha located on the other side of the alley. She looked so peaceful, switched off from her environment.
those Buddha were cheaply made, and unusually painted in brown.The paint was leaking on the white color...that reminds me of Tanzanian painters I've met or hired(and nearly killed...). Lunch time. Bloody plastic everywhere. Wouldn't it be nicer to see woven bags or something?
the most sober place I've seen. Only 3 Buddha...nothing on the walls. Maybe It is a new room, still looking for donations...
I wish there had been some blue color in this composure...
she would have been so disappointed if I hadn't snapped her...
sometimes one nearly needs sunglasses with all that gold, real or not.
I had forgot to mention the paintings in some temples, like here near the ceilings. Nothing impressive in terms of skills.
what are these two little clowns doing in a holy place?
young flamingoes gathering as I'm flying overhead.
another group walking together as the footprints tell, which the aeroplane shadow.
Star Trek trip...
this whitish cream surface is a thin layer of dry crust, slowly breaking down after the rains make the water level rise.
even slightly purple.
it keeps on fascinating me: why does it change from red to brown within half a mile?
flamingoes again. Flying around once or twice makes them walk back and forth, creating an interesting pattern on the ground.
and something else tomorrow.
had a chance to fly again over lake Natron the other day. Big storm to avoid et voilà...
located south of the Tanzanian-Kenyan border, in the Rift Valley.
south eastern shore of Natron, all starts normally like a gentle lake...
Mount Gelai to the SW...nice reflection in the water which is deeper south.
coming to the center, some dry crust, very shallow waters were flamingoes feed and breed. These grey dots are baby flamingoes, not pink, not flyers yet. But they are safe there, far from the shore and the predators who don't venture in that hot acid salty water. Flamingoes have a thicker acid proof skin around the legs.
different chemicals, water depth and currents give that incredible amount of colors and patterns.
and by the way don't think this a collection of pictures done over a long time, all of these shot within 10 min! Such a variety...
bright red being the common average color.
southern view towards the volcano Oldoinyo Lengai, that is the kind of triangle in the middle of the horizon. All the previous are small parts of the surface. Here's a broader view.
no jealous people allowed, so for good measure, even the buses would stop by, too bad for the non compliant passengers...
all day, no loss of rhythm....look at the guy in red, doesn't he think there might still be a dry spot on these voluntary victims?
a lot to observe on this picture: cops or soldiers checking what was going on near a stage, a stage which is built to lat one day if that and very kitsch, people with umbrella under the bright sun, a church. A bystander had told me that it was not the brightest idea to get a picture of soldiers...I think it was a bit of usual paranoia...
on a quieter note but even in posh neighborhood the splashing game was going on.
here a jeep Willis, still being built pretty much like the original apparently. But common scene that day, people all over a car yelling and laughing.
wet family cruising around. I think the poor skinny peddler deserved some applause...the street is wet though the sun had been fierce all day.
Rangoon. It was the new year and the water festival in Thailand and neighboring countries too. That year 2004, I was lucky enough to be there when it happened. It is pretty hectic I must say. Asian people who look so quiet and reserved get wild. Don't even think of staying dry if you venture in the streets. They'll whack you again and again with water from any kind of containers or hose. Drivers and people queue everywhere in the streets at water points like this one where other players wait with water. They get splashed to the bones and speed up to the next water point to start again. Same story all over the streets, people walk around and splash each other. At shops, houses, on street corners...from the little kids to Grandmas, everybody participates. And they're quite happy to spot a visitor. I needed 4 eyes and a plastic bag. 4 eyes to spot the attackers, a bag to quickly protect my camera and hold it high in the air. They were nice enough to pause a second for that...It lasted all day. There were music stands with Burmese rock (like Chinese rock to give an idea, I didn't feel like calling a producer...), food stands too of course. There was such a burst of joy in the air. Of course, living under one of the worst dictatorships in the world, they enjoy every opportunity when the government pretends to let it go.
in Burmese papers, I didn't read any news about it but in Thailand a few people died in the process, alcohol involved. There would have been some murders as well. Brazilian carnival style? Girls were not so hot here though...
somewhere around Bagan and the 4000 temples. I had rented a bicycle for a few days, cruising around from dawn till dusk. Loved it of course. Spotted this Buddhist place. Not impressive as opposed to the Schwedagon he?
Life goes by...I was tempted to ask for a haircut too but my bag and the clean razor
were at the hotel...
I forgot the name of this tribe but the women are always dressed in black. Only the headdress and the bag are colorful.
doesn't she look like a hippy?
dunno what she smokes but it doesn't look bad...
lake Inle, locust village, floating garden, few bridges. The houses are so huge, brightly lit by big windows. As opposed to mud huts, or most brick houses in Tanzania: tiny and the windows always small, even on big houses, aargh. Burmese are apparently not richer than Tanzanians but they seem to enjoy a minimum of comfort like space!
instead of learning to ride a bicycle or bloody soccer, they learn to steer a boat.
you want to meet your neighbor? take the boat...
many tourists around but people still 'like' us? Not sure but there's no begging anyway. Just some curiosity. Which I can definitely understand. Some of us, even me maybe, have a way to dress....
2 beggars but not every active....
a remote monastery. I was the only visitor at that time, it was a bit of the beaten tracks but not that much. These guys barely looked at me. Which puzzled me. If they're are so many tourists in the area, they should be a nuisance and the place should be closed to us. If I'm a rarity, I'd think they'd watch me in detail...maybe they had travelled a bit and knew about our species...
would it be interesting to read her biography?
repeating myself I know but people were so easy for pictures, as opposed to Tanzanians anyway...
a couple in Rangoon. Somehow I prefer the traditional outfits than this street wear. There is my reflection in the girl's glasses.
in Mandalay I think, I only bought some parts of watermelon after she posed. In her eyes, all I could read was something like "is this dude going to buy my fruit?"
ah kids in Burma even in touristy spots, such a relief! They were not yelling "white man" on sight. Here it is "slightly" a pain...even the adults call "mzungu", here in Arusha! They never seem to be bored of it. And we are quite a few thousands, not a rare species. Weird.
at least twice in their lives, men have to enter a monk period, as a young teen, and once again around 20. More often is welcome but not compulsory.
"giraffe-girl"...I have mixed feelings about that term, a bit derogatory. The only tribe to perform this modification, to women only, is the Padaung or Kayan tribe. They stretch over Thailand as well. 7000 members only. For long times, it was believed the vertebras were in a mess with such a modification, that the women were to die with a broken neck if the coil was removed ( as a punishment for adultery for instance). New research tends to prove that the neck has a normal size, that the vertebras are OK. The illusion of the 'giraffe neck' is due to the ribs and clavicles being pushed down by the heavy coil. And it seems that the women can cope and somehow recover their muscles without it... thanks Wikipedia.
easy people, really. What a shame they have to endure such a horrific life. The events from last year prove it again unfortunately.
of course, next to the touristy spots, like Bagan, the same people become a real plague. Visiting their shop, having a look even a free look (luckily), following a bit in the streets... same all over the world sadly.
traditional fishing on lake Inle.
she accepted to pose but didn't change her attitude at all. Though it was a bit of a remote area without foreigner in sight. I was not worth much in term of entertainment...
a nun and a young food seller. Her cheeks are painted yellow. It is a Burmese skin care product that I've seen all over the place at any age, even on boys.
2 local restaurants. I must say that Burmese food is not going to catch up anytime soon with Chinese, French or Italian food. Luckily there is a big Chinese (for that purpose) and Indian community so I only ate there after a few trials with those restaurants. Too much salt for one, even on packaged fruit! A local guide and a doctor confirmed that their diet was really crap, unhealthy on top of being unsavory. But as said they're not fat at all.
the last restaurant I tried, with new friends from all over the world, was tempting because there was a buffet with 14 different dishes. All of us, all, stuck to rice, tomatoes and potatoes, leaving aside the dishes with sauces and spices. I missed Thailand and Cambodia on that matter.
a big difference between Africa and Asia: architecture. Here is the pagoda Schwedagon in Rangoon. 98 m high, 50 tons of gold leaves, on top there are more than 4000 diamonds and other jewels. It is surrounded by dozens of other temples.
though not of the spiritual type myself, I loved the place. Peaceful, hardly no tourist, no advertising, no tourist shop, people didn't mind me hanging around (a silent camera helps I bet), thousands of details to watch, to learn...
a man praying at one of the numerous little altars. No queue, convenient. Sobriety is not the main trait of this type of art.
kids are kids everywhere, but these two were not disrespectful, they were just not wasting time on the boiling hot pavement.
This holy place, like the others I've visited, are organised a little bit differently than a church. People gather here to socialise, have a nap, take some food and pray. Kids are allowed to play around and further like these two above BUT silently, pfew.
another example of family gathering and watching life passing by.
nuns passing by, always in red and pink, shaved heads too.
a monk and a civilian praying together facing one pagoda of their choice. In fact, there are numerous pagodas packed next to each other. Wealthy people have the right to buy and bring their own....
or quite a few Buddha here and there... a bit packed in the end. Imagine so many crosses with the nailed statue against each other.
I'm processing about 40,000 pictures in my files. That is pictures that I have saved. I must have discarded as much as that. Which I still had to process, watch them at least once at some point!
Mom offered me a superb camera with some lenses for my 18th birthday. As usual she trusted me in my choices, not scared that I would drop that expensive hobby within a short time. Maybe she was pleased that I didn't just ask for a second hand car...I preferred to carry on by train or on my tiny motorbike.
that passion never failed me. Before I bought my first digital Nikon (a fabulous D200 by the way), I had shot about 1350 films, or roughly 47,000 pictures, in 18 years. Pricey hobby so I was 'careful'. Since my digital period started less than 2 years ago, I'm coming close to another 40,000 clicks, but this being free of charge, one tends to go wild. Funny enough my left and right indexes look the same...
so down to 40,000 from a total of 100,000 but still discarding...
at the moment pictures from Burma keep me busy. Denise, don't worry it is just a quick break, I don't forget the exhibition. I couldn't help seeing some similarities with Tanzania, but big differences too. Here we go with some examples...
I was traveling light with a Leica M6, 2 lenses. Perfect gear to meet people and take more personal pictures, instead of stealing with a bazooka lens from 50m meters away. Though you can also steal pictures from close range, true.
common suspicious food...
carts are of a different model ... though I don't remember seeing a kid in Tanzania pulling a cart, even a small one like this.
market day in a remote area of Rangoon. Not much to sell, not much profit I'm afraid... but quite a difference with Tanzania: I was rarely asked for money. This man even looks at me for the picture.
any kind of business, even small, seems here too to drag relatives around. So much for the profit to share...well, what do I know really...
