I'm not sure how this image should be categorized in the hierarchy of POPTPOPs, but it's a picture of my camera taking video of Paul, one of the main people we connected with in Uganda. I guess it's technically a poCtVop, which I'm not sure even counts. BUT WHATEVER HERE IT IS.

I gave video a go this trip to Africa and for once I'm excited about it—for two reasons. The big one is that I'll be passing off the video and audio files (as well as the photos) to another team who will create something out of them. It has always been the crafting of the story that has intimidated me about video because I just don't think like that by default. But knowing what I shot and seeing how they piece it all together I think will be a stepping stone for me to start to make my brain start to accept the fact that people want video (blah blah blah! business!). Secondably, I'm excited about the video stuff because the light pretty much everywhere we've been has been insanely pretty. The above photo is an example of everything just being pretty naturally. It's Paul under a jackfruit tree back in their farm land. Simple as that.

Time to go work some more. More later!

This happened tonight. Sarah on the baggage scale in Entebbe airport. She was encouraged by the dude on the left, who insisted the scale was quite accurate. Sarah and Cat were both skeptical.

We had a quite jaunt to Uganda the last few days and I got to see old friends. Peter was around last time working with Patrick and I was pleased to see him still around. His first name (Kototo) means "Forever young" and it seems he's fulfilled his end of the bargain. This dude is 70 years old. He had some health issues a while back but was apparently pretty immediately back in action working on a billion new projects. I took way too many photos of him this time, so much so that it was a joke by the end of the trip.

Here he is from the last trip

We are in Uganda now and that gave me a chance to check in on some people I met last time here. I was expecting everyone to have changed radically and not to recognize anyone there, not to mention them remembering my previous visit. But to my surprise everyone looked basically like themselves and they knew who I was. Cool.

I was most impressed during my chat with Collin and Maureen about agricultural concepts and market demand and other junk I have no business speaking to. They've really learned a ton, not only about how the farm works, but the larger picture about what drives different crop demands and subsistence versus industrial farming.

Another weird garden shot for Winslow.

A lady asleep near Muhuru Bay, Kenya. If I could hashtag this blog post, I'd hashtag it with #sleeper and #publicsleeping.

An ascari at Lwala. I'm shaking in my gum boots.

Aluice Ouma Okello (DIG Gardener, Futbol hopeful), Lwala Community Alliance, Kamagambo, Kenya.

On our walk yesterday I saw these two dudes looking awesome. Awesome dude on the right's shirt reads:

NO WAR ANYMORE..........................FOREVER

ONE COUNTRY, MANY PEOPLES, ONE FAMILY

KENYA

THE SPIRIT OF NATIONALISM

WE LOVE PEACE

This is the garden here at Lwala, in case anyone was interested.

Today we remained a Lwala. We took a walk to visit a local home-garden but our way was blocked by a stream that had risen too much from the rains, which is pretty awesome in my mind; it reminds me of having to forge a river playing Oregon Trail. Anyway...we walked through wet, hole-filled roads and fields in parks more like a stream than a pasture. It was all overwhelmingly beautiful (and hard to really capture) and all very much full of livestock.

I saw this cow sleeping in a position that I'd wager is more comfortable than it may look.

Great Rift Valley, Kenya

Driving from Nairobi to the Rongo area I saw long rows of fences that were just a huge amount of cacti. It made me pretty happy.

Winslow, this is a garden challenge for you!

Robert, Kenya Program Director for Lwala Community Alliance

A most welcoming DIG worker, Cat met us in the wee hours to make us feel at home at the place we're staying while in the Nairobi area. She's also been the person organizing our activities on the ground in both Kenya and Uganda.

I know I'm overloading my blog today...it was a down day and internet access could be sketchy for a while so I'm over compensating now.

Fruit and vegetable stand near the Nairobi home base.

Security guard at the place we're staying in Nairobi.

Wall + flower + hedge, walking around Nairobi.

We arrived in Nairobi last night after somewhat of a ridiculous trip that involved juggling multiple itineraries, sprinting in concourses, screaming children, and bags left to fend for themselves in the States.

Our bags are to arrive tonight which steals gives us a day to recoup a little bit, so we took some time to get a couple of supplies and walk around a bit. The real work starts tomorrow morning around 5 when we've picked up our bags and head Lwala.

More to come as I have internet.

Nerdy blog post alert!

I'm headed to Kenya and Uganda for another trip for Development in Gardening and I'm excited as I am nervous (or at least ready to be there already). Last time I went, I brought an assortment of cameras without really knowing what to expect in terms of what we would be photographing. I shot, then, a lot of Rollei and Lomo with a little bit of digital here and there.

This trip we have a bit more of a plan of attack. The bulk of the "project" work will be shot digitally and I'm sneaking in a 4x5 for portraits and other stuff that stands out as being worth the effort to shoot it right.

I figured I'd do a quick post about all the geekery that I'm packing for this round.

In my ThinkTank Airport Security bag (the US one, not the International one...I'm a bit nervous about that for this trip..we'll see what happens) I have the following:

Toyo Field 45A

90mm lens

210mm lens

changing bag

3 x Grafmatic 4x5 film holders

300 sheets of HP5

Focusing loupe (thanks Rob!)

PocketWizards (you never know!)

a couple of flashes

Canon 5DII

5D backup body

24-70mm lens

35mm lens

100 macro lens

Fuji X100

Widelux F7

Light meter

various cards and chargers

and below,

old, irrelevant business cards (vestigial from last time I put cards in this bag)

sundry pluggy things

cable release

additional cords

And just for good measure, a gratuitous picture of myself with my clothes pack on.