Tag Archives: Kenya

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.

KSM-20120226-Kenya-07

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

China, Picture Galleries, Snapshots from a Happy Life

On the dark side

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A very few of many sunsets

 

Beijing Capital International Airport
Toyama Castle in Japan
Rainbow at sunset in Quartzsite, Arizona.

 

My first foray into both going off of auto and night photography, came from a desire to capture the Takae Lantern Festival in Nara Japan in 2007. These were taken with my trusty old Canon A510, using ISO 400 and a walking stick mono-pod.

 

Stairway to a small shrine.
Fields of lanterns.
Festival go-ers in yukata (summer kimono).
Street vendors.
Elaborate lantern assembly.

Since then I’ve moved up, a bit, in both camera and skill, but I continue to use a walking stick/monopod and do not use a tripod. It just doesn’t work for me to carry one around. I am still quite challenged by dark pictures, in part because I don’t use a tripod and in part because I use a “bridge” camera, Nikon P610, which has a relatively small sensor so it wants longer shutter speeds and it gets grainy pretty fast at higher ISO settings.

I keep trying because I think night pictures often give you a better feel for the atmosphere of a place than day shots. People are off work and going about their business.

A few night street scenes in China and Japan:

Street vendor in Weifang China
Street and pedestrian traffic in Tai’an China
Beihai Lu in Weifang China.
Street scene in Takayama Japan.
Street scene in Takayama Japan.

 

I am often disappointed by the moon. My eye sees it bigger than my camera lens does:

The darkness of the night and motion of the boats in these pictures of cormorant fishing in Gifu, Japan, meant that all the pictures were blurry. I tried a “painterly” effect to make it seem like art instead of just a blurry picture.

Gifu-Cormorant_fishing-1

I’m not a morning person so I only have sunrise pictures from far away places (where I have jet lag). Here are a few from Kenya.

Cee’s Fun Photo Challenge: Sunset to Sunrise.