July 2010

Spent almost the whole month of July with Emil, Jackie and Michaela. Catalogued a bunch of Emil's photo's. I stayed in the guest house below the house. As part of our agreement I helped cook a meal every two days to share the expenses and work.I cooked mostly Asian fusion food since that is what I am used to cooking at home. It was the first time I had cooked in a long time. So itwas nice to be in a kitchen and be able to cook. I used to cook all the time at home in Hawaii but since going abroad I cooked maybe once a month. Emil taught me his work flow and I learned how to tweak photo's using luminosity masks. They allow more control in editing photo's since you are tweaking parts of the photos that are feathered. It makes for a much more professional finish to a photo. Emil helped me find a Stock photo Agency online that he uses so I could start putting photo's out there to sell. I have a few photos on there now its called Alamy. I took some photo's while I was there. We went to the park one day, took photo's outside of a Praying Mantis, and went for a sunrise shoot at Durban harbor. Emil tried to teach me as much as he could in the time given. But he's been doing photography for 15+ years. I only just started taking photography seriously about 2 years ago. So I have a lot of catching up to do. Emil had a few jobs while I was there. I helped in a photography class at uMhlangha wherehe did a low light workshop. Another job I helped on was what we called the Industrial Job. An engineering company had hired Emil to do photo's of a piece of Machinery used for sugar cane. This was one of my favorite times since I saw from beginning to end from the biddingfor the job to the meetings for the job to the shooting and final product of the job. It was a great experience. During my time at Emil's I kept in contact with Alanna eventually I asked her out, we started dating in July. Didn't know how it would work out but why not try a long distance relationship. I also found an overland trip with in my budget going from Cape Town to Cairo. I talked with my parents and decided this would be an amazing once in a lifetime experience(hopefully not once in a life time. It was that good.). So I booked the 16 week adventure with African Trails. The only thing is that the trip doesn't start till the 18th of August so I had some time to kill. So I was looking to going to another country. I didn't have enough time to apply for a visa extension so I decided to jump over the border for a bit. It was between Madagascar and Namibia. Since both of these countries the overland wouldn't go through. So I checked out Flights/alternative transportation to Madagascar.It was going to cost ~$1000 fora round trip ticket. There isn't much boat traffic. Basically it would be a hastle with the time and money I have. So I said good by to the Von Maltitz family and headed to Namibia. It was a two day trip from Durban to Windhoek via Jo'burg. I stayed at the Cardboard box Backpackers. Emil had told me about Sossusvlei. So I looked into booking into a tour there. I booked it and went to Sossusvlei. It was amazing to see all the dunes and to climb some of them.

Pictures:

Top to bottom

Praying Mantis found in garden of Emil's house.

Everlasting flower in a Durban Park

Despite what you see this was taken at night and that is the moon. Taken during low light Class

Industrial Shoot

Petrified trees in Sossusvlei, Namibia