Bangladesh Travelog

A vignette of my travels through the  southern deltas of Bangladesh while on assignment there.


I saw most of it on the very back of a motorcycle; the very back: it was my driver, my translator, and finally myself on a rather small 120cc bike.  My butt spent most of the time on the rear handle bar as we drove on about 2 miles of tarmac, 3 miles of brick cobble and another 7 miles of uneven dirt roads. I wouldn't trade it for anything. The sound track was created in Bloom for the iPhone.
You can also check out the HD version here.

Lessons from my past circa 2004

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[column]If I had hesitated for one more second, I would have missed this guy.

I was in China Town in LA, for the first time.  I needed to get a few good shots for class, so I drove down to LA and walked around in a neighborhood that was like nothing I had ever seen before.  I had driven through the area, even had dinner there one night.  But walking from the 5 to Union Station, and north a block or so is totally different.  It was so comforting to be an invisible minority for one moment, ridiculous I know, I loved it and I charged off of it.

I kept it really simple, one body, one zoom lens, 4-5 rolls of film and I had a flash, but I never used it.  I had shot with that body every day for the last 12 months, the film for the last 6.  I shot a manual exposure based off of BDE, and I didn't think for but a moment.  I stopped, smiled asked if I could take his picture.  He looked at me and gently smiled.  He stopped, took off his hat, and took a humble but dignified gaze into my camera.  I pulled off two frames and new I had it.  I shook his hand, I walked away.

I have so much unlearning to do.  I have so much to re-learn.

On a side note, this was shot on one of my favorite films- Provia 100f.  Nothing looks like it, nothing.[/column][/col-sect]

Orange Blossom Trail Revisited

A few other images from my last trip down to OBT.  I went through my photos this week and thought about my time down there.  I realized that I felt confident in my place there (scared, but confident) until my friends and family started expressing their concern for my safety and well-being.  That's when I started to take my foot off of the throttle.  The same thing happened to me in Kosovo.

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That's not their fault. It's our friends job to be checks. I think that if it was really that important to me, I would have not balked at the suggestion that wandering around in a dangerous neighborhood with two DSLRs hanging around my neck, was a bad idea. I wonder if I was looking for a way out. I also wonder what is happening with this guy.

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Confession

[col-sect][column]His name is "Gorilla".

I took this picture at the beginning of a project focusing on the issues in a pocket of unincorporated Orange County, Florida that sits in the middle of Orlando.  It was also the last time that I have photographed there.  It's not an easy neck place to feel comfortable.  There is no safe place for someone like me, someone who obviously doesn't belong there.  It's an easy place to get overwhelmed in.  I've been in tough places, but I feel a heavier weight when I get off the 408 at OBT and head north, than I do wondering through Miracle Mile in LA, or talking to women who have experience living horrors in the Congo.

I think that's why I can't get it off of my mind, and I think that's why I have not been back with a camera since that weekend in July 07.[/column]

[column]I've blamed it on a lot of stuff: 

• I don't have the right camera (too big, too many)


• I don't have the time (work/family)


• I still don't have the right camera (too expensive and too complicated)


• I still don't have time (work travel/family travel)

But what it really comes down to is that I have a Jabberwocky to kill: a big fear beast that I have let live in my garden and eat my crops for roughly 6 years.

I'm telling you all of this because I am tired of having places to run to.  I'm tired of putting off this problem for another time.

Never confuse motion with action (Ernest Hemingway)[/column][/col-sect]

Happy Super Bowl 43