Tag Archives: Africa

Africa, Picture Galleries, Snapshots from a Happy Life

Building Kwa Muema

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Kwa Muema means “Good Place”, but I can’t remember if it is Swahili or Kikamba. It was the name of the secondary school under construction in these pictures.

One of my various projects these past few months has been to learn more about post-processing. Cee’s challenge this week gives me a chance to try out some vintage black and white techniques in LightRoom. I thought they suited the classic nature of the subject: these pictures could have been taken almost any time in the last hundred years.

These are pictures taken on my first trip to Africa. We went as part of a “mission trip” (not a good description, but I may never be able to fully process the trip and find words for what it actually was). We were planning to help with construction of a new classroom for the secondary school. But, for the most part, our help wasn’t really wanted (it took paying jobs away, but there was also some political weirdness).

For Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge: Construction Related

Africa, Pull up a seat

Pull up a seat Photo Challenge-week 2

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Welcome to week 2 of Pull up a Seat. Take a load off and share a favorite perch by linking your post to this one, either with a comment or pingback. For more detailed directions go to Pull Up a Seat page.

Thank you to everyone who is participating. It is really fun to see all the different ideas conjured up by the theme.

Here are my photos for this week. These were taken several years ago in the Kitui area of Kenya, most in the village of Mulundi.

Men sitting:

My son visting with a new friend on a day so hot the dogs barely twitched.
Three generations.

Women sitting (notice the difference?)

Seamstress in Kitui market town.
Shelling peas and shooing chickens.
Making mandazi.
Making mandazi.

Finally a rest: Working hard all week makes Sundays extra special. The worship services are a real celebration with a lot of singing and dancing. These catholic ladies are wearing choir clothes, so they probably earned a rest. I saw them perform at a village function and they are really wonderful. I smile just remembering.

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Over to you. Add a link to your post in the comment section.

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Africa, China, Ireland, Picture Galleries, Snapshots from a Happy Life

They’re everywhere: Fences from here and there

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In Japan

Unusual bamboo fence where the bamboo was split and unrolled. They must have steamed it flat.
Fences around lantern in Toyama.

In Ireland:

In Africa:

Rift Valley Viewpoint
Rift Valley Viewpoint
Monkeys on the fence at Lake Nakuru
Fence at Kichwa Tembo Airstrip

In China:

Weifang park
Mount Tai
Eye of the Tortoise at Mount Tai.
Prayer ribbons on a temple fence at Mount Tai.
Decorative fence at Shibao temple on the Yangtze.
White Emperor City on the Yangtze.

 

In Montana:

Wind fence.
East Glacier Lodge.

In Missouri:

I was surprised at how many fence pictures I have. After going through my archives looking specifically for fences I realized that I have a tendency t use them as framing elements in photos.

Lens Artists Photo Challenge-Fences

Africa, Picture Galleries, Snapshots from a Happy Life

Free range mothers

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Happy mother’s day!

Once my son told me that his co-teachers expressed concern that I was left on my own while he worked (I assume this was at least in part due to their recognizing how poor my Chinese language skills are). At the time the term “free range children” was in vogue, so I told him to say that he believed in free range mothers. I wonder how that would translate.

Just for fun here are some truly wild mamas.

You can view any image larger size by clicking on it.

Africa, China, Picture Galleries, Snapshots from a Happy Life

Human Faces

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I realized in trying to respond to the challenge this week: Face, that I don’t usually take pictures of people’s faces. I tend to take a whole person in context. After going through scads of pictures, I decided to take new pictures of my furry friends. I posted Furry Faces this morning. But, especially after seeing some of the many great posts that other people did, I was haunted by some of the pictures I went through and almost used. So I provide for you here a gallery with some human faces.

 

Africa, China, Ireland, Snapshots from a Happy Life

Candid Kids

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Here are a few candid pictures of kids from my archives for Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge. All of these pictures were taken in color. I experimented with the black and white presets in Adobe Lightroom. At first I wondered why they had so many, but each picture looked best with a different setting. This is the first time I have experimented with the black and white settings in Lightroom.

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