More HDR from New Hampshire

I am starting to fall in love with HDR, but I have a tendency to over-do things. I have now processed about 50 images, and 80% of those are way outrageous looking. Here are some examples of appropriate, unoffensive usage.
North Side Park, Hampton, NH. I grew up on this beach. It is still my favorite surf spot, spear-fishing spot, chill spot.

North Side Park
नोढ़ साइड पार्क
The last two photos are of a barn on Newfields Road. I have driven by this barn hundreds of times in my life, and it never gets old.

HDR Photos (Take 1) and Hampton, NH

These are my first attempts at high dynamic range photography. Enjoy, comment, suggest. Let leisure dominate.

The previous photos are of Fort Rock Farm. This Exeter landmark was recently "saved" (sorry for the pun) from a local church that wanted to place a massive church on the grounds. The greenway lobby has successfully fought off this development. Both sides of the story are better told at the conflicting groups' websites below. I love the grass, flowers, and contrails...I could do without the controversy.

http://www.savefortrockfarm.com/

http://www.nhpr.org/node/14120

The next 2 photos are of a place that serves as my soul base when I am in the US. It is my Grandmother's house (the most impressive woman I know and a person old friends still visit without me there) and also where my family assembles for BBQs, drinking, yelling, catfights, and most importantly...beach parties because North Side Park and the best surf break in NH is 400m away.

After years of traveling, moving, different jobs, WWII, 4 boys (including my father), and countless other hurdles; my Grandparents declared--very appropriately for the region--that they were "Done movin', done workin', and Dunfrettin." This mantra is a real part of my approach to life. It is very far away, but a huge source of hope optimism.

Can You Name 619 People?

Facebook is--on balance--is not so lame.

Craigslist facilitates serial sketchiness, rape, murder. As well as the proliferation of offensive (but economical) home design. Unabashed promotion of fat-person sex is not my biggest objection (they are entitled to pleasure outside of that which I assume is rampant at places like Popeye's, Red's Shoe Barn, and public transportation)

Twitter is just terrible. TIME Magazine suggests--quite literally--on Twitter's website that Twitter is "killer."

MySpace is something I will never participate in.

Facebook, unfortunately, is also interested in tolerance. At one point Facebook only allowed certain university students access. Now the ridiculous fat kid with a bowl-cut from junior high that used to threaten to "meet me at the grave YAHD" and beat my face is looking for my Facebook hand in friendship.

He would have been 620.

I started looking through my 619 friends. I decided that, not only do I not have room for #620, but 619 is non-representative of my human asset profile.

I began deleting. Who did I target?

Met you once in a foreign country...X
We had a drink one time...of course not
High School...almost complete, actually
Generic name...sorry
Camps...well, which one, eh?
College friend...you never gave me the $15 to finish that essay.
College friend in Hong Kong...I never gave you that 150HKD that Economics essay.
Generally, if I took more than 0.5S to retrieve your name and face from my memory bank...later.

I recommend it.

Les Meilleux Photos, Colombia and Venezuela 2009

Here are my favorite photos from Venezuela and Colombia, Early 2009. This is my first trip with the Olympus E-420, a camera I graduated to after years of point-and-shoot frustration. I welcome comments and suggestions for improvement. Enjoy.

Ciao, Colombia.

I picked up my last souvenirs yesterday from Bogota. A kitchy poncho, some soccer stuff, and a nasty head cold. Spent one more night in Zona Rosa with a group of Dutch guys and some Colombians who picked us up off the street and told us to follow them. I watched one of them get a bottle broken over his forehead and later try to explain to me that ¨This is why people love Colombia¨. I didn´t know what to say.

I´m going back to the States to consult with doctors and hopefully convince them to take the massive screw out of my leg. If all goes well my schedule could look like this-

Tax Day: Bogota-Boston
April 20th: Meeting with the surgeons
By 4/30: Getting the operation
May 1st: Walking without assistance
May 10th: This is my target date for getting on a plane to return to Morocco.

This is all very tentative and subject to my intense desire to have things move quickly.

I am not sad to leave Colombia because its on to bigger and better things. One of the things I find really exhausting about travelling is other travelers. Everyone has got the same stories, has been the same places, has the same complaints about Colombians, and convinces themselves that life on the backpacker trail is a test of mettle. I think my days of backpacking in a predictable destination like Colombia may be over. This is my 4th trip to Latin America, and each time I have spent 1-4 months. I expected Colombia to be a little more exciting and dangerous, more difficult to travel in, just crazier. In comparison to the rest of the region Colombia is super developed and a little vanilla.

No beef, though. If I have a chance to come back to Bogota I will not hesitate to do so.

From Ciudad Bolivar, With Love

Minuto de Maria, Ciudad Bolivar, Bogota, Colombia

A series of incredibly poor transport decisions left me stranded at 9PM, April 8th at the only local connection in South Bogota. The station is a ramshackle lean-to of metal and cement, and it screams bad neighborhood. It is definitely the kind of place I am willing to shell out a large amount of cash to a taxi driver to wisk me away from.

As I walked out towards the half-dirt road looking to grab the first taxi, a man grabbed me from behind and pulled me violently towards a cement wall in the shadows. Automatically in survival mode, I swung around to free myself from the grip. Before I even recognized the young man behind me as a military police officer, the urgent look in his face registered in my mind. He tells me to come with him, dont worry, just get back inside.

I follow him and after about 20 steps he turns around and begins to ask me what I am doing here. I tell him I am just pássing through, I am on my way to La Candelaria in Central Bogota. He shakes his head and informs me that no transport comes anywhere near here within an hour of sunset. I ask him why. He replies with shoulders shrugged, ¨cuz this is Ciudad Bolivar.¨

I had heard some things about this area. Generally South Bogota is not a good spot, and Ciudad Bolivar is apparently the worst of all therein. Beyond that I had made it into Minuto de Maria which, I now know, is famous in Colombia as contributing a hefty portion of the countrys murders. Quite simply put I had wandered listlessly into what the police told me is the second-worst neighborhood in Latin America, right behind some of the famous favelas of Rio. This is a place where FARC still lives, where paramilitaries have held control until recently, and where an injured white boy with a bag full of money and goodies is not just a target...but a lock.

I discuss my options with the concerned military police officer. Taxi? No driver will consider it at night. Can I go with the Police to a place with taxis? The police get shot at when they move at night. He commands me simply to stay back in a shadow as he goes and talks to his friend. Within minutes a portly man with car grease all over him extends hishand to me and smiles. He introduces himself as Miguel and orders me to follow him into his really sketchy shop.

Inside he tells me I will be staying the night at his place, a small hole above his repair shop 50 meters from the buses. He leaves the shop and says he will be back shortly. The look on my face at this moment must have betrayed all of the things I should have been feeling.

When Alejandro comes back he is smiling. He asks me very pointedly, what the fuck am I doing here? This is not a good call. I try to assure him I didnt plan it this way. He just shakes his head at all of my answers and replies ¨No¨. I stand there with my hands upturned like a little kid.

Alejandro breaks down what has happened in just the last month in Minuto de Maria. The fast-paced Spanish he speaks is difficult to understand, but words like narcotrafficante, se mata, FARC, armas, ejercito, etc.. register quickly.

We sit that night watching news in the shop and eating a rice dish that definitely tastes like is has been prepared in a war zone. He sets me up on the couch with a blanket and we shut off the lights. He tells me he will get me on a bus in the morning to central Bogota. I thank him and tell him I know it is dangerous but how bad can it be, I mean, if he lives there? At the moment I finish this question, a roaring truck engine passes outside and the blast of 5 gunshots rings out.

Following the truck sound is the sound of more trucks, or what could be military jeeps. We hear gunshots down the road, 10 maybe.

In the morning we find out 2 men had been killed. A police officer was wounded and the wall of the building across the street from Alejandro had two obvious bulletholes.