I thought I would update you all on why you won’t see any international reportage coming from me for the next handful of months. 

My wife and I are expecting!

That’s right, we are expecting our first baby to arrive at the end of September! With this awesome news, I’m going to be keeping my photojournalism efforts on the domestic side till at leased the end of this year and will focusing on speaking, gearing up for our potential move in 2010, and of course, enjoying our baby. 

Lake Ediza, Ansel Adams Wilderness, California

This weeks image retrospective comes come domestically. After spending a month in DR Congo, my wife and I needed to get some peace and quite time and went backpacking in one of my favorite regions in the California Sierra Nevada. I think this image represents the antithesis of DR Congo. Although DRC and the Great Lakes region are extremely beautiful and I have many images that display it, this image has a unique stillness to it; a stillness that I’ve experienced in few places outside the Eastern Sierra Nevada. Contrasted with the disorder, unrest, and chaos of the Great Lakes, I came to realize sitting under the warm sun next to the azure mountain lake, that peace is silence. 

This Sunday’s New York Times will feature a photo of my dad that I shot when we were together in Jordan. We had such a good trip and it makes it that much better to have it shown in the NY Times travel section.

Click here to see the NY Times ‘Why We Travel’ slide show.

Obviously, if I’m going to do some sort of product review on this blog, it’s going to be somehow camera or industry related. Well, as far as I’m concerned, the Kindle is.

Part of the industry and being a photojournalist requires extensive amounts of reading. It’s not enough to simply know how to work a camera, compose a shot, properly expose, or even travel to the location. Putting ideas in front of editors requires knowing every thing you can about a region and or topic/issue. It requires understanding patterns and trends and the connectivity of events globally as well as the region at hand.

For me, I spend most of my free time reading everything from the latest books to periodicals, blogs, magazines, and newspapers; all in an attempt to read the most diverse news sources to have a better understanding of something and be able to see what connects A and B and essentially be able to predict relevant, important and topics that are pertinent to the current news cycle.

As far as I am concerned, the Kindle provides a cost-effective portal for all of these. With most books costing around $10 and magazine subscriptions less than half the print version, I know the device will pay for itself in no time.

Furthermore, when traveling, weight is always an concern, especially when on assignment and especially when you know your going to a highly bureaucratic nation and will be doing a lot of sitting. Having a whole library of books with me at all times is such a great thing.

I highly recommend the Kindle!

Masisi, North Kivu, DR Congo

Venturing out into rebel this controlled region, where thousands upon thousands have been displaced and thousands more have been killed, the last thing I expected to find in this war-torn land was a thriving cheese-making facility. High in the mountains, past a dozen checkpoints with AK wielding, glassy-eyed, para-military, I came upon a monastery, hand-crafting the most unlikely product; artisanal cheese. I’ve eaten DR Congo cheese before and have always heard the locals go on an on about it, but this experience was quite different. This thriving monastery tucked into the mountain-side with rolling green hills made me think I was in Switzerland - the only difference was the military installations and just miles below. 

Why it stuck out - Juxtaposition is always something photographers look for. Although this is not a great example of juxtaposition photographically, it is mentally for me. Knowing the difficulty to get to this region, the war that continues to plague the region, rebel activity all around, violence, rape and pain; if this this slow hand-crafted artisanal process in the middle of war doesn’t juxtapose, I don’t know what does. I just don’t have an image the explains all of that singularly - that is what separates a good image from a great image. 

Sac le Coeur, Paris, France

This weeks Image Retrospective comes from Paris, France. This last spring, as I was on my way to Syria, I was able to spend a week in Paris with my wife. The week that I needed to go, coincided with her spring break from Hopkins - it was perfect timing. Even as we were getting burned out on the East Coast winter and ready for some sun, so were the Parisians, and we hit the entire week with their first warm spring-like temperatures. It was tough to do the typical Paris indoor stuff and we spent most of our time in parks, walking and just catching up. 

Why it jumped out: I choose this image over looking Paris with Sac le Coeur behind me simply because of it’s simplicity. This is a good rule of thirds example and I think it shows Paris in a less touristy way; again another solid approach to good travel genre photography - don’t show the tourist spot. The last thing the world needs is another photo of the Sac le Coeur church (the Taj Mahal of Pairs). The New York Times has a weekly section entitled ”Why We Travel”. I think this is a good example of what I’m talking about. Part of good photography is showing people what they don’t expect to see; and it’s no different in travel genre photography. Don’t show your family a photo of the Eiffel Tower, they know what that looks like. Show them a unique photo of just a part of the leg of the tower with tourists taking pictures of it or something. By doing this, you really get a more accurate feeling of what a place is all about. This is what editors like to see. That unique take on something familiar. 

Why this photo doesn’t work: I was hoping to get a photo of everyone taking a photo of the church or some other pattern. If the crowd were looking my way or all holding umbrellas or something, it would have been a solid publishable Paris photo. Maybe next time.  

Extremely random selection, I thought I would still post a few images from the Independence Day holiday weekend. We spent it with our neighbors and family.

Sudanese refugee camp, Touloum, Chad

While on assignment in Chad I spent a lot of time in the Sudanese refugee camps that dot the volatile boarder region. It’s pretty tough to get out to this region, even for tough-to-get-to region standards. It’s not just a matter of transportation or costs, it’s a matter of permission and access. Anyone can get to N’djamena (the Capital), but to getting to East Chad requires getting on the U.N. mandate that allows you access into the U.N. level 4 security zone and on to WFP flights.

Once you are in the East, then it’s a matter of transportation. A series of small flights over the desert, brings you to these make- shift towns where all the major international NGO’s have their sub-offices.

Because of security issues, you have to travel in an armed convoy to get to the camps. The photo that stuck out to me this week is a photo of NGO workers from various agencies facing towards Mecca to pray before heading back in the convoy.

Why it stuck out - It photo doesn’t really have much of a publishable context, but for me it’s one of those photos that brings me back to the moment. I remember wrapping up shooting for the day around 3 o’clock and had about 3 hours to kill before the vehicles arrived for the convoy. I spent most of those hours laying under an acacia tree trying to stay out of the horrible heat and catch up on some much needed sleep.

There wasn’t a car in sight all day, then all of a sudden at 5:00 they all showed up coming from various directions of the desert. We all greeted and then everyone proceeded to pray. After, we drove back to our camp under protection from a splinter SLA rebel group.