Some travel out-takes from an assignment to Cameroon in December of 2009. A beautiful country. All of Africa in one place. The music they played was intense- will try posting some video of that soon.
While in Nairobi we took a visit to the local Giraffe center. It’s a fun little place where you can get up-close & personal with giraffes. It’s definitely the closest I’ve ever come. One licked my face (see the video at bottom) and another came within inches of successfully head-butting me into the street as I was photographing him. Evidently they prefer food to pictures. Fascinating creatures! Heading into to The Sudan tomorrow….
Amazing Giraffe Facts
Giraffe saliva really is antiseptic. They eat acacia trees, which are covered in thorns, so their faces get cut a lot, so they’ve evolved antiseptic saliva to deal with it a little. Also some of the trees they eat have a symbiotic relationship with ants where the tree produces sugar for the ants and when the giraffe tries to eat the leaves, the ants run into the giraffe’s mouth and nose and sting it. One of the reasons giraffes have such long tongues is to lick the ants out of their noses.
During December I visited Cameroon where I took a week off to document the work of a local grassroots NGO called Life Water Development. LifeWater is headed by a man named Peter Njodzeka who is quite honestly one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met. I won’t attempt to tell his story now- I want to save it for the video- but just believe me when I say that Peter is passionate about helping his own community, starting with providing clean water to schools in some very remote locations. Peter’s work is supported by another great organization named Thirst Relief- you should definitely check them out here. More pictures from Cameroon coming soon….
In other news- I’ve been asked to encourage my visitors to check out a humanitarian photography competition sponsored by Photocrati. It is for Non-professionals and has been described to me as “a rare opportunity to get both funding and a platform for becoming known in the photography world. It provides $5000 grants to non-professional photographers working on important humanitarian and environmental projects. The grant is intended to identify great up-and-coming photography talent and give them a high profile platform for carrying out a worthwhile project”.
Sounds like a great way to get your name and work out there. Go here to learn all about it .
Also, I’m heading to Hatii on Tuesday. I’ll be looking for glimmers of hope. Stay tuned for more on that…
Some travel shots from Timbuktu that didn’t make the portfolio cut. It was such an amazing location, I just have to post more pictures.
A big thanks to my colleague Paul Sherar for doing the HDR work on this image.
The mountainous region of Jebel Marra, locally referred to as a “liberated area”, is the traditional homeland of the rebel insurgency which kick-started the war in Darfur. Almost entirely surrounded by enemy militias, the people here, known as the Fur tribe, are completely dependent on outside aid for survival.
