Category: Random Thoughts, Observations and Weird Stuff
-
Photographing Victoria Falls
So you go to one of the most spectacular views in the world and you figure the photography is going to be child’s play – just hold the camera up in the right general direction and shoot. Not so in Victoria Falls. This is not for the lack of spots and sights. It’s just impossible…
-
Scenes from the Kavango
The thing you notice about the Kavango region is the endlessly long, straight roads. You expect it in Nebraska or Kansas, but somehow here the roads seem surprising. The main road running east-west through this region bordering Namibia’s northern border with Angola is well-maintained and passes village after village of thatched huts, reed fences, yellow…
-
Documentary: Youngest Woman to Box in the Olympics
Meet 17 year-old Claressa “T-Rex” Shields, the youngest woman – and one of the first – to ever box in the Olympics. Filmmakers Zakary Canepari, Drea Cooper, Sue Jaye Johnson and Bianca Darville have been collaborating to document Shields’s journey to the Olympic games, including London as we speak. They have listed their project on Kickstarter and…
-
“One Day on Earth” Music Video
The “One Day on Earth” project, which collected video from all over the world on 11.11.11 (and also, by the way, on 10.10.10), has stitched all their footage together into a full-length film, which is to be screened at many venues worldwide on April 22 – Earth Day. One of the benefits of contributing is…
-
Namibian fairy circles – mystery solved?
There’s an odd phenomenon in southern Africa – especially in Namibia – that the locals call “fairy circles”, whereby vegetation refuses to grow inside a circle of anywhere from 3 to 10 meters in diameter. Even stranger, the circles are dynamic – apparently they grow and “die”, to be filled in by grasses. While they…
-
From the folks at “One Day on Earth”
A few months ago, I wrote about the “One Day on Earth” project, when people all over the world were invited to submit video recorded on 11.11.11 to OneDayOnEarth.org. Their plan was to stitch together donated footage from the vast majority of our planet’s countries into a feature film. Well, it seems their work is…
-
Watch “Life in a Day” on YouTube
Last year I wrote about how Ridley Scott and Kevin MacDonald were seeking YOUR contributions to use in a film about life on Earth’s most documented day – July 24, 2010. I was disappointed to miss the film’s release on July 24, 2011 because I headed off to my new home in Africa the day…
-
Windhoek’s Informal Settlements
According to some statistics, 60 percent of Namibia’s urban dwellers, 25 percent of all Namibians live in so-called “informal settlements.” They come to Windhoek in search of jobs, opportunities and a better life. And in spite of the fact that Windhoek enjoys a reputation as a city which has taken better care of its newest…
-
Namibian Blues. Or German.
When 18 white dudes from southern Africa with German names get together for a blues show, you know it’s gonna be authentic. Or was that ironic. Anyway, enjoyed a rare blues show in Windhoek a couple weeks ago when local “Mojo Blues Band” teamed up with the 11-piece brass “Wikiaphoniker Orchestra.” Although at times there…
-
Document One Day On Earth
There’s a wonderful project called One Day on Earth where they are asking for help in documenting just that. If you happened to catch some video on 11.11.11 (sorry for the late notice!) you can sign up at the site and contribute your content for consideration in a feature film. The same was done on 10.10.10…
-
Zuccotti Park with a Touch of Irony
Love this video I found on The Atlantic’s website, in which documentary filmmaker Casey Neistat sets footage of the raid on Zucotti Park in the wee hours of November 15, to Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York. Sometimes the right music can make all the difference.
-
Immersive Video – the Next Big Thing?
3-D video is so 2009. Now that virtually anyone with a couple of cameras (or a YouTube account) is capable of producing relatively decent 3-D videos, people are already starting to look for the Next Big Thing. I think it’s going to be 360 degree immersive. Like 3-D, some form of the technology has been…
-
Why Afghanistan Matters
For what it’s worth, I spent the last five years of my military career (now retired) working for Afghanistan in the communication realm. Over the course of my ten trips there between 2006 and 2011, I felt constantly annoyed, yet challenged, by the relatively superficial portrayal of the country being served to the rest of…
-
Photo: Bug Eats Millipede
I snapped this interesting photo the other day as I was experimenting with some screw-in macro lenses I had gotten in the mail. Here in Namibia, there are millions of millipedes coiled up under rocks, soil, everyplace you dig. So in the course of gardening there are bound to be a few casualties. So this…
-
Coming soon: a “War Correspondent Sim”
They’ve got video games for folks who like just about everything: golf, team sports, fishing, hunting, horseys, shooting bad guys, flinging birds from giant slingshots… Now there’s a game for folks who like editing videos. Instead of actually editing videos, you can play a video game where you edit pretend videos. Seriously, the game Warco…
-
Visualizing Kiva’s Microfinancing
What happens when you depict a microloan as a tiny speck of light on a world map, going from one country to another? And then you multiply that by 620,000 lenders and 615,000 borrowers who were microfinanced via the innovative organization Kiva (kiva.org)? Check out this creation by Kiva on Vimeo which depicts five+ years…
-
African Water Scorpion?
Today we came across the largest “digging scorpion” I’ve seen so far – about 3.5 inches or so from “nose” to tail. They burrow down in our garden, and this one apparently decided to burrow down into our pool. Apparently 1.5 meters of chlorinated water is no big deal for a scorpion, as he was…
-
Spring has Sprung in Windhoek
Spring is definitely in the air in Namibia. At least that’s what my daughter tells me – she informed me that September 1 was “spring day”. Apparently in South Africa and Namibia, it’s not the 21st that heralds the coming of spring, but the 1st of September. And given the weather these days, it’s not…
-
Spot the Dassies
Can you spot the “dassies” in the photo below? The “dassie” or rock hyrax, lives everywhere here in Windhoek. Driving down my street after work, I’ll see them sitting in groups of 2 or 3 at every sewer opening along the road. They disappear with a splash when I get closer – but apparently feel…
-
Moon over Windhoek
This morning when I woke up, the moon appeared full and orange in the sky just above the horizon. Here are a couple of shots of it.
-
Seen in Windhoek
The security industry is booming in Windhoek, Namibia. Also, in our neighborhood, it’s a rare home that does not have a dog on the premises (although there is also the occasional waddling overweight dachshund who is clearly not there for security). Some folks, however, take a different approach to security. Fortunately, WE have a mongoose…
-
TAZM Pictures is moving to Africa!
The countdown is on. Three weeks until I’m cruising down the runway, bound for Namibia for a couple of years. What I’m hoping to experience: Okaukuejo [in Etosha National Park] has become world-famous. it is conveniently situated on the edge of the rest camp, separated only by a stone wall and overlooked by a paved…
-
Tracks in the Dust: Songs from Afghanistan
It’s said that combat duty consists of long periods of boredom interspersed by brief moments of terror. In Kabul, Afghanistan, it tends to be long, tedious work hours, interspersed with sleep. In this environment, maintaining one’s sanity often leads to skimping a bit on sleep in order to have some “personal time” – whether it’s…