Globetrotter Photoblog

Lake Victoria from my front lawn

2011-11-04T23:41:00.002+03:00

The view from my frontlawn overseeing Lake Victoria. Just preparing to enjoy some coffee.

The Republic of South Sudan soon a reality

2011-07-08T22:04:00.000+03:00

It's a strange feeling around Bor today. I was moving around town today wanting to take pictures of the place the last day while it is still within Sudan. Normally Fridays are very busy but today it was calm in a strange way. In 1 hours and 58 minutes The Repbublic of South Sudan is born. The last two days people have been happy, cheering and there is so much anticipation about what is about to happen. As I write this there are some random gunshots of light and heavier caliber. Shooting out the old Country. While driving around I did not take any pictures except the one above. I am in the town where the war that has lead to the new Country being born started. I have never been in a place where a country is about to be born. Its a strange feeling but a very happy one.People have struggled , fought and many have died. Elections have been done and it was clear. The people want separation and it is about to happen. Something very big is about to happen. So big that I think few can actually imagine the historical importance and impact it will have on the people involved. I am glad to be here to see and feel it happening. The birth of The Republic of South Sudan.

Original vs Bracketing for HDR

2011-05-19T22:48:00.000+03:00

Above is the original as the Canon 5D Mark II took the picture and presented it as ready. Below is the bracketted version +-1 step taken through the HDR process in Photomatix Pro 4.0. I tried as much as possible to keep the original feel of the picture but as you can see there is more dynamic range within the picture. If you download both and then preview back and forth you will be able to see all the detailed differences.

Rainy season is back in Jonglei

2011-05-07T17:30:00.000+03:00

The heavy clouds closing in just after sun had set on the horizon with some nice reflections over our compound.

Coffee-shop in Pajut

2011-02-04T18:14:00.000+03:00

I was on a road assessment last week and the final place to reach was Pajut. After 4 days on the road getting stuck here and there in the mud we found the passable roads we needed. So we stopped for a nice cup of coffee before heading back to Bor.

2011-02-02T22:22:00.000+03:00

In between the clouds in the PAC750 heading to Bor from Juba. This during the rainy season. the Pilots trying to dodge the turbulent areas flying around the clouds that covered the area ahead.

Sunet Sonaisali Island, Fiji

2011-02-01T22:48:00.003+03:00

Sunset at Sonaisali Island Fiji. Sometimes the best colors come out after the sun is already gone down with the reflections being through the clouds to the ocean. The effects of the clouds cutting slices in the sunrays was very interesting. This picture is a 9 picture stepped Pseudo HDR. - 4 to + 4 EV. Taking the pictures in RAW helps making sure it is possible to maximize the use of the data available in the RAW file. It would be possible to bring out the stones to be visible more but I feel the picture would then not reflect what I saw.

Beach on Mana Isand, Fiji

2011-02-01T22:03:00.000+03:00

Photo on the north beach on Mana Island. Gone through the pseudo HDR process to get the full dynamic of the clouds.

Jonlei - Cattle - Roads and Floods

2011-01-31T21:02:00.000+03:00

While Jonglei is now in the dry-season since almost 2 months half the state has not been accessible even up to now. The above picture shows the reality in many places. The soil is dry with cracks all over but then flooded areas are seen. In this particular spot a river was passing. However a road was built in the previous dryseason without any culverts to lead the water away. Effectively causing major flooding for villages along a 50 km stretch. Most have now dried up but pools like these with the soild present means no vehicles can pass. We managed to cross twice but after that the road was again too soft in the mud. The picture shows a typical day in jonglei with cattle being moved to the wetlands 150 km away. People, cattle, goats and cars trying to pass in the mud.

Sunrise over pacific

2011-01-29T11:37:00.000+03:00

Picture taken 10,000 Meters up after the sun has risen and is partially hiding in the clouds.

Islands in Fiji

2011-01-28T23:24:00.000+03:00

Photo taken from Mana Island.

Mana Island Fiji

2011-01-28T17:18:00.002+03:00

Spent the first day of 2011 on Mana Island , Fiji with my daughter. Crystal clear water and nice sunny place.

Sonaisali Island sunset

2011-01-27T22:03:00.000+03:00

The picture is taken looking away from the sunset. There was a big rain on the way over the island and the clouds are lit up by the sun behind the camera. Again a pseudo HDR photo. The colors due to the clouds covering part of the sun where very deep.

Victoria Harbour , Hongkong by night

2011-01-27T21:42:00.000+03:00

Photo is taken through the panorama window I had at InterContinental, Hongkong. The colors were just amazing.

Sunrise over South Pacific 10,000 meters up in the sky

2011-01-27T21:23:00.000+03:00

I am back from a one month holiday, needed to leave Africa for a while. Flew to Fiji in South Pacific and had not even reached when I could start taking pictures. This on is run through a pseudo HDR process to get the full range of the colors in the sunrise.

Canal Boat in Bor

2010-12-12T17:40:00.000+03:00

It is "pushers" like the above that is used for moving the barges from Kosti to among other places Bor. They are the ones maintaining the supply line of material from the north as well as used for the current repatriation of South sudanese from the north.

Cute!

2010-12-06T20:28:00.001+03:00

My son on the beach in Entebbe.

Tin sheds and Tarpaulin shelters

2010-12-06T02:38:00.001+03:00

Bor is a town expanding rapidly at present. There are brick houses being built, even two to three story buildings. The roads are being overhauled completely and we expect to see tarmac for the first time in history of the Jonglei State. Just behind the road expansion I pass this area every day. The returnee wave has started for the referendum, some will settle in Bor, some will move to the rural areas. Meanwhile I keep seeing people living in their mix of Tin sheds, Tarpaulin shelters mixed in with their traditional Tokuls. A small vegetable garden next to the dike that has been built. The dike filled with water hyacints.

Looking at the buildings its quite interesting. The tokul is round have thatched roof and is quite coll due to the construction. Then because of Tin roofs the next mud house is square. The tin house is square as it suits the tin better overall. Finally there is a shelter with tarpaulins. The Tarpaulin shelter will later become mudded also.
Out of all of them it is still though the Tokul that is the most comfortable simply because it is cooler.

Tokuls burned, Kaikuny October 2010

2010-12-05T21:36:00.001+03:00

One of the Tokuls burned in Kaikuny village October 2010. A people with very few possessions ending up with even fewer.

Kids in Africa, Uganda

2010-10-27T05:00:00.003+03:00

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.

Taj Mahal, Agra

2010-10-26T23:56:00.001+03:00

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.

Dragonfly up close

2010-10-23T23:58:00.000+03:00

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.

2010-10-18T06:00:00.001+03:00

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.

Brick walls and Razorwire

2010-10-17T21:22:00.000+03:00

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...

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

2010-10-17T15:37:00.002+03:00

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

Murle Woman with traditional beads

2010-10-17T01:08:00.000+03:00

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

White Nile flowing in Jonglei State

2010-10-10T06:00:00.001+03:00

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.

White Nile flowing through Juba

2010-10-10T02:00:00.001+03:00

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.

Turquoise sunset

2010-10-09T20:11:00.000+03:00

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

The bittersweet tears of a mother.

2010-09-30T21:16:00.001+03:00

Today we went on a mission to Lekuongole. The main mission objective was to deliver 3 mothers and 2 children back to Lekuongole. 3 years ago they had all been kidnapped among the seemingly endless cattleraids that take place in Jonglei state. For 3 years the women had been living a different life in the hands of the Nuer community in Akobo. The women had been integrated within the new community and had accepted their fate, atleast as seen from the Akobo side. Through the different missions and visits by a number of people the women had been spotted. The Murle has small scars in the shape of dots in a pattern around the face as is the tradition of the Murle tribe. In the end the 3 women together with 2 children ran away to the SPLA and/or County commissioners office.They where sheltered and given food and other necessities while preparation was made to airlift them home. At the time the airlift took place there was too much insecurity in Lekuongole and other areas so the women had to stay in Bor for another month. Again living in a shelter while being cared for.
Today was the day when they finally could go home and we all flew the one hour flight to Lekuongole. All being anxious as to how it will be on the other side. Once there, we exited the helicopter while people surrounded the helicopter.

We moved away a bit and then the women came out and was greeted by their friends and families. One of the women was immediately hugged strongly by a boy who was around 10 years old. They walked towards the village center still hugging. After a few more steps the woman fell down on the ground and the son hugged her even more. He was trying to sit in her lap as he had done 3 years ago before she disappeared. 3 Long years, especially for a child that age. The boy was now much taller than before and could barely fit but he tried his best to sit in her lap and cuddle up as if he was trying to become one with his mother. Just the way he could remember he did the day she disappeared.

They hugged each other for a long time. A mother, finally re-united with her son and family. The mother was shedding bittersweet tears though, happy to be with her family but also realizing that while escaping she had left 2 more of her kids behind. Thus 2 more kids that will be longing for her hugs for a long time especially in the timeframe of children. The sad reality of the abductions that take place during the cattleraids in Jonglei state, South Sudan.

Floods all over Bor

2010-09-27T03:05:00.002+03:00

This is the road 1 km from our office. As can be seen the black cotton soil is saturated with water and with no drainage anywhere the road wont dry up for another 2 months or so. Assuming no more rain , that is...

Bor town is flooded

2010-09-26T23:40:00.001+03:00

It is the rainy seadon in Bor, Jonglei, South Sudan and we have had some heavy down pours the last 2 weeks. Up until then Bor town had been for the most part spared from massive rains. Not so anymore. Now the water in most of town is just a few centimeters below the roads. any more heavy rain and we wont be able to move anywhere in town. Mind you we are cut of from the rest of the state already. Jonglei is the size of Denmark and most of it is now submerged.

Who needs a truck to move a house when a donkey can do the work

2010-09-26T16:18:00.000+03:00

The construction of the main road from the airstrip to town has begun in Bor. Some of the shops where on the road reserve and is now either demolished or is being moved completely.

Traditional house in South Sweden

2010-08-22T18:56:00.001+03:00

Picture taken half way between Dalby and Genarp in South Sweden. To get the right tones this one has gone through the HDR process.

Dubai by night

2010-08-16T23:44:00.000+03:00

I got the Canon 5D Mark II in Dubai and could not wait to try it out so this is among the first pictures I took at night. I just rested the Camera on the on the railing and shot this photo in full auto mode.

Sunrise in Juba

2010-08-15T23:44:00.001+03:00

Took this picture with the Canon 5D Mark II in the morning 2 weeks ago. I have not done any editing at all except sharpening the picture in DPP

Putting up a mast

2010-08-15T03:36:00.001+03:00

Colleagues putting up a mast at our new office site. The photo is taken with my Canon 5D Mark II with a 15-35mm Lens. I really enjoy the full frame sensor and the wide angle lens.

Opening ceremony of a house in South Sudan

2010-08-14T22:50:00.001+03:00

Photo I took at the ceremony to open the new SSRRC building in Bor, Jonglei state, South Sudan. I really liked the color combination which reminds me of pistaccio and choclate chip icecream. The house really have the strong colors shown.

Billboards and workflow

2010-06-22T00:17:00.000+03:00

Billboards in Bor taken on Sunday. I have in DPP made one picture EV-2 and one EV+2 in TIFF and then run them through Photomatix HDR tone mapping. Then scaled them down using Photoshop. Then added the tagging in Zoner Photostudio, including the Geotagging. Then uploaded to smugmug and copied the link that is finally posted into Blogger.. Its a bit of a workflow.....

One cloudy day

2010-06-20T19:03:00.003+03:00

It started out nicely today with a lot of sunshine then the clouds came and 30 minutes after this picture it was pouring down. Rainy season is in Jonglei properly now. It was though a good opportunity for some HDR photography.
Do note that this picture is uploaded on SmugMug photohosting. I am just testing it out to see the responsetimes compared to my normal hosting at one.com so far it seems much faster though.

I added in a small slideshow on this blog on the bottom which seems to load quite fast, also from SmugMug.
It took them almost 2 hours to get us back online.

Changing EXIF data and Geotagging with least effort?!

2010-06-20T13:00:00.001+03:00

Yesterday I downloaded Zoner Photo Studio 12 Professional as it seemed to be a product that had some features I have not found so far in any other software I am using.

I have before tried to put up pictures on Google earth, Panoramio, PicasaWeb, Flickr, my own picture gallery and so forth but always had an issue with Tagging.

1. I dont want to spend time tagging everything while typing a lot of information. I want to batch tag a lot of photos with the basic tags I need.

2. I want a simple way to point and click on a map to geotag a picture.

3. I also liked the idea of being able to easily re-organize pictures into folders based on year, month and date. Normally when I go out and shoot pictures it is one location one day for a particular activity so the date seems to be the best starting point for storing my pictures. My Canon 350DS just give me the 261CANON folders with 100 pictures in each. It however also make sure the EXIF data is there so why not use it.

4. I also want to make sure each pictures is marked with the Copyright information in the Exif data easily.

In the batch EXIF mode Zoner will open a new window and you can simply mark and click and the tag is added and then save it to all pictures.

Zoner allow me to batch tag a whole directory, even Geotag a whole directory if needed. Ofcourse pictures are taken at more or less unique GPS points but with 600 pictures in my web gallery that would be an impossible task to do. At present I am just targetting trying to show them in the right village. For some specifically interesting photo's I will Geotag them on the actual spot.

I have not seen these features in any of the softwares I use normally. Picasa, Adobe Photoshop CS2, Digital Photo Professional.

One thing I have discovered the Zoner software can not do properly is HDR pictures. Atleast not if you are taking pictures without tripod, remote release and so forth as the software assumes your 3 - 5 pictures are perfectly aligned before importing. Thus Photomatix and Photoshop is still the best choice for me in that department.

It should be noted that tonight the SmugMug uploding page went offline with the following error message. Atleast! it does not impact the viewing of the pictures on this blog! eventhough theyare on the site. Can only hope they are uploading a new version of the site with some new features then ?!

Murle Village in Jonglei State

2010-06-20T12:19:00.001+03:00

A picture taken from the Mi-8 I was in the other week while going to Pibor. Trying to get a steady shot in a vibrating helicopter like the Mi-8 is not easy. Atleast we are able to open the window while in the air so we have a chance at clear shots.

I am now starting to Geotag as well as put more EXIF data into the pictures. So you can actually fin out exactly where this photo was taken.

Purple Village Chief

2010-06-06T23:50:00.000+03:00

UNHAS Caravan in Akobo South Sudan just before the rain

2010-06-06T23:12:00.001+03:00

Was in Akobo a few days back and this is the plane we flew on. We had to rush back and take off as the rains arrived.

Old lady smoking pipe

2010-06-06T00:06:00.002+03:00

I was on mission again today just outside Anyidi, Jonglei State this is not an HDR picture but had to post it anyway

Tokul and tree before the rain

2010-06-01T22:48:00.000+03:00

Nile Riverside facing oilcompany bargelanding

2010-05-27T04:53:00.002+03:00

Nile Riverside

2010-05-27T00:50:00.002+03:00

Sunset in Bor

2010-05-27T00:49:00.000+03:00

How long time does it take to grow a tree?

2010-05-25T22:58:00.000+03:00

Shorter time than it takes a car to rust to bits. This truck cabin is located in our compound just outside my office. The tree is about 20 meters high overall.

Who said sausages dont grow on tree's

2010-05-24T00:34:00.001+03:00

Bricks Galore

2010-05-23T23:34:00.000+03:00

Took this picture of a stack of bricks while the dark clouds was coming in. The interesting thing is that I would not have expected the grass to be so green as it was under the dark clouds but there is so much fresh grass there is a lot of variation in the green shades all over the village.

Hack the Canon EOS 350D

2010-05-23T19:10:00.000+03:00

On the Swedish blogsite HDR Fotografen I found the solution to the hacking of my Canon 350D. I looked at the chdk site first but to me the explanation was not clear as to how to get the hacks to work. But as the files must correspond to the exact model and firmware of the camera I used the files from http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/350D and followed the instructions in Swedish from
http://stilbild.nu/fotograf/2009/09/hur-du-hackar-din-canon-eos-400d/ and now finally I can do bracketting which goes up to +- 6.7 Ev. not that i need that much but +- 3 would better than the +-2 I was limited to.
Will shoot some more pictures tomorrow to test out.
It was also fun to use ISO 3200.

Testing HDR

2010-05-23T12:26:00.000+03:00

Here is one of the first HDR (High Dynamic Range) trials I have done. Not a very good picture in general but got to start somewhere playing with the tools. Went out in our compound and shot AEB Bracketted pictures 0 +2 -2 with my Canon EOS 350D and then loaded the JPG's into Photomatix and Tone mapped it.

Original (well as the Camera would bring have taken the shot as optimal)