Category: Recollections
Stories about events that happened well before the time I wrote the story. Mainly recollections of earlier travels before I started posting on Facebook.
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BLACK & WHITE PHOTO CHALLENGE – DAY 1
Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala – 1987Scanned from Kodak Tri-X negative film Guatemala is one of the world’s most colourful countries due to the textiles woven and worn by the local people. It may seem a bit peculiar that I start a black and white photo series in Guatemala. I have no idea why I loaded a camera with black and white film when I travelled there in 1987. Lake Atitlán is often regarded as one of the world’s most beautiful lakes. It is ringed by the three volcanoes: Volcán Atitlán, Volcán San…
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GUATEMALA IN B&W
FIVE-DAY BLACK & WHITE PHOTO CHALLENGE – DAY 1 Santiago Atitlán, Guatemala – 1987 Scanned from Kodak Tri-X negative film Guatemala is one of the world’s most colourful countries due to the textiles woven and worn by the local people. It may therefore seem a bit peculiar that I start a black and white photo series in Guatemala and I have no idea why I loaded a camera with black and white film when I travelled there in 1987. Lake Atitlán is often regarded as one of the world’s most beautiful…
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MY BARBER LARRY
In the four years I lived in Madison in the late 1980s, I only let one man cut my hair, Larry the barber. I have never been fussed about my hair and hated going to fancy hairdressers who would offer you a Chardonnay. I just wanted to come out with hair shorter than it was when I came in. And Larry and the College Barber Shop on Madison’s State Street was the perfect solution for me. Larry and I would talk and talk. He always remembered how much I paid for…
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TURNING THE CAMERA AROUND
As I approach the end of my Syrian retrospective, it’s time to turn the camera around. With all of the previous photos I’ve stuck my camera in the faces of Syrians and urged them to look this way or that. Now the tables have turned and I become the photographed while they become the photographers. I always travelled with at least three cameras – initially two Nikon F3s and a Polaroid. I used one of the F3s as a backup or I would put in print film for personal photos. On…
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TORTUGUERO
Recollections from travels in Costa Rica – 1981-1986. Many images are scanned from duplicates (hence the poor quality) as the original Kodachromes remained in Costa Rica In the far north-east corner of Costa Rica, lies Tortuguero National Park – a park bursting with biological diversity and an important nesting area of four species of sea turgles. The park is bordered by the Caribbean on the east and consists of a maze of interconnected canals. A naturalist’s paradise. There are no roads leading into Tortuguero. You arrive either on boat by travelling…
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THE AUSSIE IMMIGRANT
It was pouring down rain in Adelaide 19 years ago today. I don’t have a good memory for the weather, but I remember that day clearly. On 4 April 1995 Adelaide welcomed its newest migrant. Prior to April 1995, Padma and I had been living in Cali, Colombia but things got a bit rough as my boss had been kidnapped and we had seen one too many dead bodies along the road. It was time for a move and Australia beckoned us. Padma was keen to be closer to her family…
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BRAULIO CARRILLO
Recollections from travels in Costa Rica – 1981-1986 Just north of San José, looms Braulio Carrillo National Park, a rugged park of almost 500 square kilometres. Braulio has an elevation variation of almost 3000 metres so you’ve got seven life zones from cloud forest to lowland tropical forest. Yet despite its proximity to San José most of the park was rarely visited in the 1980s simply because it was impenetrable. A highway completed in the late 1980s changed that and now Braulio is probably the most visited park, although most people…
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THE EXPLORATION OF LA AMISTAD
In 1982, the Costa Rican government created the La Amistad Biosphere Reserve which covers a massive area in southern Costa Rica along the Talamanca mountain range. At the time, the biosphere was relatively unknown to scientists – very few had ventured into the depths of the Talamanca. The Costa Rican National Park Service hired wildlands consultant, Jim Barborak, to assist his national counterparts in conducting a biological, anthropological and geological inventory of the biosphere. There weren’t any photographs from the depths of the park, so I joined the research teams as…
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A NIGHT WITH THE BEDOUIN
In May of 1992, I joined my ICARDA colleagues, including my mate Ben Wedman on a journey to visit a Bedouin group in the eastern Steppe of Syria. The Bedouin are known for their hospitality to strangers and our visit was no exception. In this photo Ben joins our Bedouin hosts for breakfast and has his mouth stuffed with bread and yoghurt or cheese made from goat milk. Ben speaks fluent Arabic and had a very special rapport with the Syrians who admired and instantly liked the foreigner who could speak…
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