Jephnol

Nikon D2Hs
200 ISO
300mm
3 second exposure
(No reciprocity failure. Isn't digital different.)
Yes this decoration is in my office, thank you. It's a memorial to landscapers who now look at the grass from the roots on up.

Photos of a villager 30+ years ago and now. In the recent photo he's holding a print I made from a scan of C—'s photos. Many of the people who saw photos didn't recognize themselves; there aren't any mirrors in the village so they really don't know what they look like. When everyone learned they could see themselves immediately on the display of D—'s digital camera they were riveted.

The village blacksmith making the tool D— brought to me.

The growth on his face has been unexamined. It's been developing for two years now and C— and S— encouraged him to have it looked at in Katmandu. I understand he's willing to go, which is good. I hope he's okay.

D— stopped over in Paris on her trip home and visited with M—, his wife A—, their children B— and R—, and our friend G—.

M— and A— gave her this Malian art as well as other gifts. They're lovely people. I wish I could have visited as well.

D— has photos from her visit and I will post one as soon as she downloads them to her machine.

Em Bahadur loves his new radio! He plays it all of the time I'm told.

Also, great news: Em Bahadur's condition has improved and he can get around enough to sit outside of his hut on good days. That's fantastic! Half of his body is still paralyzed, but he isn't constrained to his bed anymore. This news along with his joy from receiving the radio makes me very happy indeed.

While D— was in the village she met a craftsman who made traditional tools. She commisioned him to make an implement for me (I have to ask D— again what it's called). It took him two days to make by hand and the gentleman tried to give the work to D— but she insisted on paying him. I'll post a photo of him posing with his handiwork as soon as I sift through the 1200 plus photos she took!

D— found a traditional holster in Katmandu to go along with it. How cool is this? I photographed it (quick and dirty) placed on a Tibetan carpet she picked up.

It's 15.5 inches long (to give a sense of scale).

D— is home from Nepal bearing gifts wrapped in a Nepali newspaper. She's well and close to rested. As time permits I'll publish bits of her stories here on Jephnol.

For the moment, here are a few random scans of the wrapping paper:

D— and J— came over for dinner last night. It was a wonderful evening.

Now, J— may have had a half glass of wine too much. A one point she excused herself to use the facilities and as she left I offered the warning, "Don't fall into the tub, there's a Snapping Turtle in it." Findik's crashing there for a while. J— came back a bit later and announced she and Fin are the best of friends and that she had touched his nose (using the onomatopoeia "bloop" to describe the contact as she gestured with her hand how she had touched him).

Look at the photo above and note how proud Findik has been in his house. Now look below and see how sad and humiliated he is to have a warning sign hanging above him all of the time. Shame J—, shame.

Findik is two years old. He's twelve inches long and he enjoys swimming against a current, floating food sticks, Unit M's nose, high bathroom traffic in the morning, having his neck scratched, hearing his name said repeatedly in a cartoon voice and hibernating.

D— and Co. are back from the village and once again have access to email in Katmandu. She wrote to say the trip was eventful. The photos I scanned from C—'s collection were shown around and were quite a hit! I'm told they took photos of villagers holding the photos of themselves from almost 40 years ago! I can't wait to see them.

Congratulations to the World Champion Pittsburgh Steelers, winners of Superbowl XLIII. What a game!

As I mentioned living in Estate Nazareth in the last post I figured this photo had to go up. It's the view from the front porch where I was living.

Red Hook Harbor is on the left. Blue Beard's Beach is the beach on the lower left and Vessup is on the right. St. John is directly across the way (the first island you see) and Tortola is in the mist behind St. John. There's a bar down on Blue Beards called Latitude 18—never been there though.

The photo was taken with a throw-away camera and is acknowleged as being a throw-away snap, but I'm holding on to it for its sentimental value.

A non sequitur here but this story just came to mind. Over in Red Hook there was a place called the Big Kahuna. K— and I went down for an evening and tried to guess who was a undercover cop and who was a drug dealer spurred on by the rumor circulating at the time that there was a undercover operation at the BK gunning for druggies. No way of knowing if my guesses were right, but we had a good time.

Road Town with T— and a few friends. Photo of T— and myself having drinks before we shot over to St. John for a swim and then back to Red Hook in St. Thomas. At the time I was living in Estate Nazareth. Those were good times.

G— (of Taj Mahal fame) wrote and asked if I could come up with website header art for an inventor's group he's involved in—The Inventors Network of the Capital Area.

The original comp had a Lincoln Memorial photo we needed licensed. G— wrote the photog and it turns out the guy is the official White House photographer for the current administration; he wrote back that he's a little busy! G— does some photography himself and he had a photo of the LM that worked out just fine. The final header is featured above.