Monday, July 29, 2013

Tanzania: Did and Did Not List

I'm back from Tanzania and thought I should post something new.  Here's a Did and Did Not list I made during the flight home.  I threw in a few photos that are not my favorites or best (too tired from jet lag to go through 7000+ photos or do much editing), just a few to show what the trip with The Giving Lens was like.


























Did: Get a beautiful orphan girl to smile by showing her a picture of herself.

Did: See Kilimanjaro

Did Not: Take a picture of Kilimanjaro (What?!  I know, I know, I kept waiting for a better view or the right light then clouds, got nothin’.)
Did: Go more than 2 days without a shower.

Did: Introduce myself in Swahili to a class full of kids.
Did Not: Trade my shoes for a Malachite bowl (I tried to but the man insisted on more than my shoes).

Did: Tip our driver with my shoes (The smile on his face was worth more than a Malachite bowl).

Did: See 4 types of wild cats (lions, cheetahs, leopards & serval).
Did Not: See a rhino.

Did: Get entangled in thorns when I went into the bushes to pee.

Did: Sleep in a Maasai boma hut under a boabab tree (2 nights).
Did Not: See a dung beetle rolling a ball of dung.

Did Not: Use the internet for 10 days.

Did: Get bit by a tsetse fly and bed bugs.

Did: Meet a couple with HIV and hungry kids.

Did: Get photography tips from great photographers.

Did Not: Insist or even asked the driver to stop when we saw giraffes in awesome evening light. 
Did: Photograph many beautiful people in Tanzania.

Did Not: Climb Kilimanjaro.

Did: Ride across the Serengeti standing up in the opened top 4 x 4 with the wind and dust blowing in my face trying to soak it all in.



Did Not: Jump out of the open top of a burning safari vehicle (but for a moment it appeared fairly probable that I would). 

Did: Meet people with very few resources who are doing what they can to solve problems and help people in their communities.

Did: Eat goat meat and spleen and drink goat’s blood soup with Maasai men.

Did Not: Drink fresh goat’s blood with the Maasai.

Did: Dance and jump with the Maasai men.

Did: See a lion stalk and charge a gazelle (unsuccessfully).

Did: Sleep under a mosquito net. 

Did Not: Get bit by a mosquito (that I know of).  

Did: Get stung by an African bee (had the stinger in my cheek for almost two days & didn’t realize it until my cheek started swelling).

Did: Drive past Olduvai gorge contemplating being in the area where my species evolved.

Did: Stand on the edge of the Great Rift Valley.



Did: Chop wood with a machete with the Maasai women. (Didn’t carry it back like the women did).  


Did Not: Check In on Facebook from Ngorongoro.

Did Not: Buy a silver bicep bracelet (see David Wilcox’s song “Johnny’s Camero”).

Did: Sit in the Serengeti dirt with Colby Brown taking pictures of the sunset. 

Did Not: Teach Tanzania kids a graphical proof of the Pythagorean theorem (I had a chance but I thought of it too late, from the notes on the chalkboard they were studying geometry and trigonometry).    

Did: Make new friends.

Did Not: See a pangolin (Google it).

Did: Give up my window seat on the plane over the Mediterranean Sea and was happy to do so (more on that later).

Did: Eat rice with junk on it (see Neil Peart’s “The Masked Rider”).

Did Not: Take any Cipro!

Friday, July 5, 2013

Arches at Night


I recently went to Arches National Park to practice time lapse and star trail photograph.  The star trails turned out okay.  There was a full moon so there were not as many stars visible as there would be on a moonless night but the moon lit up the red rocks which I like.  

The time lapse did not turn out as good.  It starts out good but as the sun set the sky turns black.  You can see the full moon rise but it appear pretty small with the wide angle lens.  Obviously I need to figure out how to post videos with better quality.  But I am not pretending to know much about making videos, just have an interest to learn.  


I was hoping there would be a little light left in the sky to silhouette the rocks like the photo below (not the sky's fault, it was how I had the camera setup).  


I've got a lot more to learn about time lapse photography.  Glad I live where I can get to a place like Arches any weekend I like.