Kids in Africa, Uganda

I just love this picture. I cant describe exactly why. Ofcourse my son is in the picture so that is one reason but I keep coming back to the picture because of the colors, the raw brick with the mortar, the old wooden door and the curtain in the door. This picture was also taken with the Canon 350D and the Tamron 18 - 200 mm lens and in JPG.

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Taj Mahal, Agra

Took these pictures 2 years back in Agra. The camera was my Canon 350 with my Tamron 18 - 200 mm Zoomlens. Unfortunately I was not wise enough to have captured the pictures in RAW format thus this is reprocessed JPG files. Adobe Lightroom was used to clean the pictures up and resize to the blogs actual picturesize. While not perfect I do consider the result ok. There is however no comparasin with the pictures I now take with the Canon 5D MKII and the lenses I now use.

Taj Mahal is the most impressive building I have ever seen. Just coming through the gate and then walk up to the building was a real treat. I could have stayed there the whole day. We however arrived close to sunset which is an amazing time to see the place. The continous changes in color reflections on the building during the sunset is something I will never forget. 

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Dragonfly up close

Was out testing macro photography today. I was lucky as this dragonfly was actually sitting still and both the pictures are taken without a tripod.  The lens used is my 24 - 104 mm Canon EF L. I used manual focus.
The dragonfly was sitting on my chili plant just outside my door. I see them all the time but never really paid attention but seems I need to look even closer around here.

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Kids negotiating with the women for the sale of fish from the White Nile just outside Bor town, Jonglei State. The kids using a traditional tree-trunk canoe for the trips out on the river.

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Brick walls and Razorwire

The view from my guesthouse in Bor at night. South Sudan is preparing for a Referendum and there might be instability and clashes. The fence is though also good to keep the lions and jeopards out. We found paw prints a few weeks back...

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Some people take the bus to work, we take the plane

The PAC-750XL is the plane that most Humanitarian agencies fly in to get to the remote locations in Jonglei State. It is the rainy season in South Sudan at the moment and this becomes the lifeline for most humanitarian workers as the state has no roads except during the dry season. Well there is 50km of roads which theoretically is supposed to be all season roads... The dry season most of the time is only 4 months long. As most runways are grass clearings we rarely see any other planes than the above PAC 750 or the Cessna Caravan. Rainy season in Jonglei does not mean it rains every day nor full days however even a rain of 2 hours can make some of the airstrips unusable for a week. Thus these planes are a welcome sight when they do arrive and can land. Jonglei State is about the size of Denmark

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Murle Woman with traditional beads

Young Murle woman in Lekuongole, dressed with the traditional bead decorations they use.

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White Nile flowing in Jonglei State

Flying along the White Nile on the way to Bor from Juba is quite interesting. While the passable part of the Nile can be quite narrow, the river actually span quite some area. Bor is just about at the start of the Sudd thus there are islands, some permanent others that dissapear with the yearly rain. In addition there is many "lakes" forming in the inaccessible areas while the river expands and contracts. Its quite interesting to note that of all the water coming from Lake Victoria 90% will dissapear into the Sudd in North Jonglei.

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White Nile flowing through Juba

For once the landing in Juba was coming in over the White Nile. Normally the landings are in the other direction making it difficult to get good pictures of the river.

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Turquoise sunset

Sunset in Bor tonight. This is a pseudo-HDR with 5 photos processed to get the correct turquoise color that was in the clouds. 

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