Almost done in Ethiopia.....

This is just a very short posting while I sit around Addis Ababa airport, while on my way home from Lalibela in Ethiopia. The trip has been incredible though and I have to say that standing in a rock hewn church at 5am with my guide (who is also a deakon of the church) was an inspiring moment. Not a single other tourist to be seen, just me, and a bunch of priests and of course, the Lalibla cross.  It was too dark to photograph, but I did make a lot of audio recordings of the chants for the ceremonies. This was just the first day of the trip.

I think Ethiopian people are very nice indeed and I made a lot of friends whilst here.

I've shot around 30 rolls of Kodak Portra with my Contax 645, and I have to say, that the hit rate "feels" a lot higher than my previous trips, all because I had a guide who got me access to areas that normal toursts don't get to see.

Highlight of the trip was getting my shoes (bought in Chile for $15 USD) stolen from outside a church.

I am now the proud owner of a pair of green and yellow trainers (very African) to show off when I get home.

Inspiration for today

I get my inspiration from many areas of my life and from other arts, not just photography. In fact, I was asked last week on my Eigg workshop if I look at other photographers work much and the blunt answer is no. I don't really get much inspiration from other photographers these days. I don't know if this is because I'm just too focussed on my own style of photography or not, all I know is that I seem to get inspiration from other avenues. Ok, I think that's not true, I do believe it's because I'm pretty much focussed on doing my own thing with my own photography, but that is perhaps something worth covering on a different post up the road somewhere. Anyway, back to being inspired..... Take this video of Keith Jarrett for instance. His playing is possessed. His left hand has a mind of its own, completely disconnected from his right hand. I won't pretend to think that all of you out there are Jazz listeners, but even just from a technical view point, this is in another league and for me, good art, whether it's music, photography, painting, has to be surprising, engaging or just plainly in another world from our every day existence:

Ethiopia and things

Sorry my postings have been very quiet of late. I've had a lot of workshops and things on off late, so it's been a bit hectic. I thought I'd let you all know that I'm off to Ethiopia sometime in the next few weeks. I won't be able to post anything on the blog because there is no internet access there, but what I do intend to do is write up a journal about my daily activities and the 'memorable' photographs I hope to capture each day. This is with the intention of coming home and creating a pseudo-diary of events on my blog, with the processed film pictures to go with the writing. I think since I'm a film shooter, this is going to be a really nice way of letting you see what happened each day etc.... I think it matters little that the entries will not be in real time.

So anyway, I was on Eigg last week with a group of eight people. We had a great time and I have a really nice mixture of different nationalities: Swiss, Swedish, Polish, Portuguese, English and of course one Scottish person too ;-) I hope to post a contact sheet or two from the groups efforts later on this week once I have had some time to rest. We ended the workshop on a nice note by putting together one big long slideshow with everyone's best images in it and married it to the music of Martyn Bennet and some of his recordings from the Glen Lyon CD. Very atmospheric it was too!