Category Archives: Places

Heartbreaking

As in many parts of the world, when you drive around urban areas of Madagascar, people will tap on your window asking for money.  Frequently these are little people.  There are many theories about how to respond – sometimes the … Continue reading

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Introducing Analog / Film Cameras to a New Generation

You don’t have to be as old as me to remember using analog/film cameras.  But there’s an entire generation entering university (depending on where you grew up) that has grown up with photography as a purely digital phenomenon – often … Continue reading

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Children of the Street: Ankorondrano

A group of about a dozen kids gathers on a small patch of green with a few benches and trees.  Basically a large roundabout.  Imagine an oblong Dupont Circle, except Starbucks is 3,000 miles away.  The sound of traffic is … Continue reading

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Children of the Street: Ambohijatovo

In this third installment on a project Anne and I are involved in, we assist “Zanaky Ny Lalana”(Children of the Street) at yet another location.  This week we went to Ambohijatovo, one of the ten locations where Malagasy volunteers for “Teach for … Continue reading

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Love Your Neighbor

Truth be told, we didn’t ask to come to Madagascar just for the lemurs – although they’re a pretty nice bonus.  A big reason we came here because we want to try and make a difference, somewhere, in someone’s lives; … Continue reading

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Children of the Street: Ampefiloha

Last week I posted about a new project Anne and I are involved in – assisting the NGO “Teach for Madagascar” via a group of street photographers called “Zanaky Ny Lalana” (Children of the Street).  This week we went to another … Continue reading

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Children of the Street: Anjezika

“Zanaky Ny Lalana” is a group of street photographers that was brought together about a half year ago with the goal of highlighting the challenges faced by some of Madagascar’s most vulnerable inhabitants.  I don’t exactly have much in the way of … Continue reading

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Travels in Madagascar: in and around Ampefy

Ampefy is a little town about 100km west of Antananarivo, in a landscape dominated by volcanic landforms – many of the surrounding hills have the telltale conical shape of dormant volcanoes.  There are a few hotels in town, but we … Continue reading

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Scenes from a Moving Car: Antananarivo Commute

When I first got to Antananarivo I would stare out the window during the commute to work, and started taking pictures with my iPhone through the window of the shuttle. The water in the rice paddies has dried up significantly … Continue reading

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Getting Lost in Antananarivo, Just a Mile from Home

Less than a mile from our home is a lake that functions as a water catchment area during the rainy season, but also offers a running trail, a place for young lovers to escape, a livelihood for a small informal … Continue reading

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Madagascar’s Saha Forest Camp: An Eco-sperience! Part 2.

As the title suggests, this is a continuation of my previous post, wherein I describe Saha Forest Camp and its surroundings…in case an orientation is needed! We’re not serious hikers. But our local guide had done a good job so … Continue reading

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Madagascar’s Saha Forest Camp: an Eco-sperience! Part 1.

A couple of hours north of Antananarivo, at the end of a rutted, slick red clay road that meanders for about 10 kilometers eastward from the town of Anjozorobe, where the winding rice paddies finally end in a jumble of … Continue reading

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Madagascar’s Mantadia National Park: the Lemurs

Normally when we go on a trip somewhere, we end up with 6-10 really good photos worth sharing, which give an overall impression of the experience.  But I have been stalling on this post because the number of close-up lemur … Continue reading

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First Photowalk in Tana

We’ve had a few weeks to settle into the groove here in Antananarivo (pronounce “tananarive” but more frequently shortened to “tana”) and so we figured it was high time we got out and about with our cameras.  There is so … Continue reading

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Madagascar: Paying Attention to the Little Things

Walking through the jungle in Madagascar in search of lemurs, it’s easy to overlook the little things…and trample them underfoot.  Bugs, tiny plants, lizards.  There are upwards of 100,000 species of insects in Madagascar.  We didn’t see the long-necked giraffe … Continue reading

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(Re)introducing Madagascar: Golden Hour in a Roadside Village

So it was our first “real” weekend (i.e. the first during which we were not stumbling around in a jet-lagged haze) and we decided to head out of town.  We decided to return to a destination we had visited on our … Continue reading

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24 Hours in Paris

When moving to a new home, as we’ve done every 2-4 years for the last 25, we’ve always traveled with pets.  When we were traveling with a 100-lb dog requiring (due to his size) a separate booking on a cargo … Continue reading

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…and we’re off – to Madagascar!

When we were posted in Namibia, we took a trip to Madagascar.  The thought was, “when will we ever have this opportunity again?” because plane tickets from the U.S. are wicked expensive.  How ironic that a few short years later … Continue reading

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Photo Assignment: Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial

Given that a trillion photos were snapped in 2015, the odds of snapping an “original” photo at a tourist attraction or monument/memorial in Washington are ridiculously low, but it’s fun to try and see what you can accomplish. The Vietnam … Continue reading

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Washington’s Cherry Blossoms

The last couple of weeks, the National Capital Region has been all abuzz about the annual return of the cherry blossoms.  I blogged about it the last time I was in the area for a few months, back in 2011, … Continue reading

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Testing the Minolta SR-T-101

Awhile back, I posted about the Petri 7S,  one of two cameras my mother-in-law had passed along to me.  This post is on the other camera, a Minolta SR-T-101.  This Minolta is an SLR that first appeared on the market … Continue reading

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Rediscovering America: Shenandoah

In a long(er) blog post in October, I wrote about the benefits of a career that takes you all over the world, and highlighted the fact that being away often helps us better appreciate the natural beauty of our own … Continue reading

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Autumn

We haven’t really seen any real “autumn” to speak of for a number of years, so it has been refreshing to re-experience those surprisingly brisk mornings, doing those runs where the cold air tears at your lungs a little, and … Continue reading

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Remembering Sierra Leone

Today Sierra Leone was officially declared “Ebola-free”, having successfully gone 42 days (two incubation periods) without a new case of Ebola.  In neighboring Guinea, where the disease outbreak began, health workers continue to struggle for its eradication, working to save … Continue reading

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Rediscovering America: Oregon

The last four years have been given us amazing travel opportunities.  The world is full of interesting things to see; wonderful people to meet and get to know; and of course this all translates to great video and photo opportunities. Not … Continue reading

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