Diwali: An Interactive Fireworks Experience

Last month, I got to experience Diwali during a family trip to Hyderabad, India.  During this festival of lights, lamps are lit and firecrackers ignited to celebrate the triumph of good over evil.  Every household stockpiles all kinds of fireworks for this celebration and no one seems to bother reading the safety precautions...

And…There Goes 10 Years of My Life (Part 7 of 7)

...continued from previous post

The next morning, I decided I needed to make it back to my water supply at the cabin as soon as possible. I was below the most questionable terrain so I was able to move quickly. Miraculously, I found a trickle emerging from a snowfield that was not contaminated with ash. While I am normally very cautious about water sources in the wilderness, I was out of options. And from talking to a volcanologist in Bariloche, I knew that lab tests had failed to detect heavy metals or other toxins in the ash. While that was no guarantee, it offered some degree of reassurance.

Be Right Back I Promise (Part 6 of 7)

After spending two days on Volcan Casablanca, I returned to Bariloche to spend New Year’s Eve with friends. I didn’t have the landscape photo I wanted, but I still had a week left to work on it. There was another dormant volcano, Cerro Mirador, that seemed worth checking out. Access to this mountain looked fairly straightforward from Google Earth, but this time I decided not to go it alone.

Tell Me, For What Reason Do You Need A Map? (Part 5 of 7)

My time in Jacobacci had gone so well that I wondered if I should stay longer. But the story was about ash and I needed to show where it was all coming from. I needed to photograph the volcano.

Granny With A Gun (Part 4 of 7)

A year earlier, I had driven out to a ranch outside of Jacobacci called Estancia Yuquiche. I knew from Google Earth that the ranch had some interesting canyons and wetlands so I just showed up and asked if I could wander around. After an incredibly awkward introduction, the owner agreed to host me at her ranch house. That’s how I met Carmen Crespo, the 67-year old grandmother of Valentin and Camila. The week I spent there was one of the most memorable of my life.

Life Goes On (Part 3 of 7)

I only spent a week in Jacobacci but my days quickly began to follow a pattern. Without meaning to, my daily schedule turned into the following:

10am – wake up, sort gear (notice the lack of sunrise images….I am not a morning person)
11am-1pm – wander the streets looking for images
1pm-2pm – massive lunch
2pm-4pm – nap, sort gear
4pm-6pm – sort more gear
6pm-9pm – wander the streets looking for images
9pm-10pm – playtime with Camila
10pm-12am – long dinner usually with friends, neighbors, extended family
12am-2am – sort gear, stare blankly at wall

Playtime With Camila (Part 2 of 7)

When I arrived in Argentina I headed straight for a small town called Jacobacci out in the rural steppe of the Rio Negro province. I had a wonderful time there the previous year and I was excited about seeing my friends again, but I was also starting to wonder what exactly I was going to photograph. It was a relief to not have an assignment or a deadline to worry about, but still I found myself getting anxious about the project.

Ashes to Ashes... (Part 1 of 7)

On June 4th 2011 the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic complex erupted in Chilean Patagonia sending millions of cubic meters of ash and rock into the air. Most of this material, called volcanic tephra, landed in Argentina due to the prevailing winds in the region. The areas most affected by this eruption are the same places I visited just 6 months earlier as part of my project to photograph the wetlands of Patagonia.

Above: A "remolino" (dust devil) out in the dry Patagonian steppe. The ash has the consistency of baby powder so it is easily remobilized by the lightest breeze.

Photo ID

I realize things are getting a little stale around here. I've been working on a really interesting project and I promise to get some fresh content up soon. While I am organizing my field notes into blog material, I thought I would share a fun anecdote from a few months back.

 I was traveling to Washington D.C. from the west coast and I managed to lose my driver's license along the way. I didn't have enough time to replace it before my return flight so I decided to try an unconventional form of photo ID - a copy of the October 2011 issue of National Geographic Magazine. In 2010, I received a Young Explorer Grant from a branch of the National Geographic called the Expeditions Council. My project was to document wetland diversity in northern Patagonia. The magazine ran a picture of me on their explorer page so I showed up to the airport security checkpoint with a copy of National Geographic and a handful of assorted cards from my wallet.

 The TSA agent laughed and had a hard time recognizing me from the photo, but eventually waved me through. Apparently, that was the first time anyone had tried to pull that stunt on him.