2017
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Mahajanga, Madagascar: Antsanitia Resort – View from the Sky
We’re doing much better at seeing the country to which we’ve been assigned early in our tour, rather than late, rushing, and ending up with a list of “places we wish we’d gone.”  Of Madagascar’s noteworthy destinations (really the list is endless, but let’s focus on the main towns), we have yet to make it to
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Let it Develop 365
The main reason I returned to film photography, after years of shooting digital, was the feeling of nostalgia – remembering the washed-out square prints from my Kodak Instamatic, with the colors that weren’t quite right, and the horizon that sort of faded into white. Â The mechanical cameras, dusty, smelling of attic and mold, that you
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Trip to Nosy Be
I knew we had chosen the right place when the owner/manager greeted us in shorts and bare feet. No snooty welcome drinks and wet towels here! Although when I think back, I think there were actually welcome drinks and wet towels. But with a different vibe… Nosy Be is a mixed bag in terms of
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Found Film: Horse Sense
Recently I bought a few lots of cheap plastic point-and-shoot cameras – the kind we all had in the 90s – where you slide open the front, the lens comes out with a buzz, integrated flash pops up… Â I’m planning to do a photography class with some local kids, and for around 20 bucks you
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Soaring over Kitesurfing Country
Up at the tippy-top of Madagascar sits the world’s second-largest natural bay,  The main city there, commonly known by its former name, Diego Suarez, is called Antsiranana since 1975, and the area served as the entry point for the Battle of Madagascar, in 1942. We recently visited the area, and stayed at a relatively new resort
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When Madagascar played host to NASA
If you drive down the highway about 32 km southwest of Antananarivo, you may be surprised to see a giant white satellite dish next to some abandoned buildings not far from the road. Â This is a relic of the American space program in the 1960s and 1970s. Â Here’s an excerpt about it from NASA’s book,
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DJI Mavic Pro: First Flight! (Antananarivo, Madagascar)
Finally, it has arrived! Back in mid-October, I heard that DJI, the company that manufactured the first drone I owned, was releasing a small, foldable drone with an integrated camera.  In other words, one that would allow me to carry something besides just a drone on my back when we go hiking in Madagascar!  I figured
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Madagascar: Solar Eclipse at the Pangalanes Canal
I got an email from somebody at some point, soon after we arrived in Madagascar: Â there was to be a full solar eclipse, and we were invited to stay at the “Bush Camp” on the Pangalanes Canal, wherever that was. I did some digging and found out that there is a series of lakes and
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The strangest animal you’ve (probably) never seen!
Meet the bizarre, but wonderful aye-aye. It’s an odd nocturnal lemur with a kind of creepily long middle finger and a bizarre, wild and wide-eyed expression. We were lucky enough to see a few of these in the wild and thought we’d share them with you. By the way, did you know lemurs are primates?
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Barefoot in the Malagasy Jungle: the Making of Onja’s Crowdfunding Video (part 3)
In the third and and final installment in this series I have written about a trip we took out to a remote village in Madagascar, to help film a crowdfunding video for a great cause, Onja. In this post I share (with the help of Anne’s photos) our impressions of life in the 700-person village
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Barefoot in the Malagasy Jungle: the Making of Onja’s Crowdfunding Video (part 2)
This is part two in a series. Â Part one can be viewed here. So as I noted yesterday, after our long trek into the countryside, the first order of business was to meet with the President of Andovolalina, the village we were staying in, to explain what we were up to and get his blessing.
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Barefoot in the Malagasy Jungle: the Making of Onja’s Crowdfunding Video (part 1)
It started back in July when I got an interesting item in my “Google Alerts” for Madagascar. Â A small NGO was looking for a filmmaker and a social media manager to support their project in eastern Madagascar. Â I quickly fired off an email doing my best to convince “Sam” that this project was tailor-made for
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The No. 2A Folding Pocket Brownie: still going strong after 105 years
IÂ have most of my collection of 100-plus cameras on a couple of shelves made from old Indian doors whose multiple layers of paint was peeling. Â By collector standards it’s not many, but it’s enough so that they grab your attention when you walk into the room. Â Eventually they ask, “Do any of them still work?”