Africa Live!

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Chris Grady

We are having a fantastic trip, as expected. Weather has been sunny, and beautiful. Thanks to Helga for arranging it! Made many new friends (Brian, Stuart, Eleanor, Chris, Dan, Marge, and Manie, our fearless Ranger).

As promised, I will be doing a more complete blog after my return. But in the meantime, here are a few pictures (NOTE: the elephant picture was not magnified in anyway. That Mother was very, very close tour vehicle!)- made Gretchen very nervous (but not me, of course).

Off to Victoria Falls tomorrow- then to 3 safaris’ in Botswana and Zimbabwe.

Enjoy— and stay tuned

Chris

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Africa Bound

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Chris Grady

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Leave tomorrow at 6:30AM! I am ready! My Nikon D4 with a rented 70×200 F2.8 and 2x teleconverter- and lightweight monopod. I guess that I can not blame my equipment if I get poor pictures.

Stay tuned….

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Nikon D4 Arrives!

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Chris Grady

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After a very long wait (it was pre-ordered on January 6!), my Nikon D4, BIG-BOY camera, arrived today. Just in time for me to use in two weeks when Gretchen and I leave for three weeks in southern Africa.

A special shout-out to Christopher at Perfect Light Camera in Post Falls, ID. Christopher, and his helpful assistant, Courtney, were instrumental in my getting this camera before my Africa departure. When my original source failed to ship, and failed even to let me know where I was on the wait-list, I contacted Christopher at Perfect Camera. He was always able to accurately inform me on where I was on the wait list for this popular, and scarce, camera- and once they received it, they made sure that I got it fast. Thanks you, Perfect Light. I highly recommend these folks for your photography needs.

I will not be blogging “live” from Africa. Spotty at best Internet connections. But, as I did with our Cuba trip, I will post a series of posts after we return June 1st. Stay tuned!

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Cuba- Wrap Up

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Chris Grady

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Thanks to all of you who shared in this fantastic journey with me. I enjoyed writing it- I hope you enjoyed following along.

Thanks to fellow tour member, Randy Cole, for helping me supply the names and locations that we visited [NOTE TO SELF: take a small notepad and write this stuff down as we are doing things!] In addition, a special thanks to Arthur Meyerson who made this trip possible for us. Finally, thanks to Reid Callanan and the Santa Fe Workshops, who produced and directed this fantastic experience. Finally, to Gretchen for proofing these posts- and occassionally making much needed editorial input!

On the flight home to Seattle, Gretchen and I were talking about how we would complete the Santa Fe Workshop-Cuba critique form that we knew we would be receiving in the mail. Honestly, we would change NOTHING. Every aspect of trip was first-class. All travel/visa details were handled without incident. Our hotel, Hotel Parque Central, was a modern first-class lodging with super amenities- and friendly, helpful staff. The Santa Fe staff, Dustin Sammann and Jennifer Spellman as well as Kip Brundage, Tony Bonanno (who has his own special Cuba project- click here) , and Arthur, just made things flow seamlessly. Our daily trips were well-planned… and fun! Finally, Santa Fe’s decision to include our local Cuban photographers, Jorge Gavilondoand Carlos Otero, was a stroke of genius. Both Jorge and Carlos assisted us in navigating the streets of Havana and proved to be invaluable in communicating with local Havana residents. We feel indebted to them for their “connections” that afforded us many opportunities to visit (and photograph!) artists, private homes and factories.

About the “monster that I have created”: Gretchen is taking up photography in a big way! First up- on March 7 she is off to take a course from Jennifer Spelman titled Basics of Digital Photographyat Santa Fe Workshops. Accompanying her will be our youngest daughter, Kimber who is taking time off from her job in Portland, OR. Our other daughter, Ryann, had a schedule conflict with these dates, so she will also be going to one of Jennifer’s classes later in the year. Gretchen will inherit my Nikon D7000 with a new 18 x 200 primary lens. I have stepped up to the full-frame club and ordered the new Nikon D4 and will continue to use my 28×300 lens. Yes, I did indeed create a MONSTER! Nevertheless, it is so much for Gretchen and I to enjoy our retirement years pursuing our mutual love of photography!.

Finally I have a request from each one of you. This Blog has over 200 subscribers- and I have heard from a small number of you. I am curious about how many people read all, or several, of these posts. Would each one of you who read at least one post, please click here to email me[DO IT NOW- it will take 5 seconds!] with a simple “thanks- viewed once, 3 times” or whatever. I am just interested in getting a count of how many read this Blog. [Facebook viewers: a quick comment would work- or contact me through Facebook]

Also, any comments are welcome: too much prose, too many pictures, less links and more pictures in actual blog post, whatever you feel. Gretchen and I are going to Africa for three weeks in May. Upon our return, I will be blogging- but NOT 21 daily posts, I promise (I will probably post once for each location we stop: Cape Town, Zulu Nyala Game Reserve, Victoria Falls, Hwange National Park: Somalisa Camp, Okavango Delta: Shinde Tented Camp, Linyanti Reserve: Selinda Tented Camp, and finally Johannesburg). Any ideas to make this Blog more relevant to its readers will be appreciated.

NOTE: To view all 10 posts, go hereand work backward (posts are displayed in descending order- most recent post is first).

FINE ART: For those who missed yesterday’s post, all 12 of us in Arthur’s group submitted our 8 best photos- they were combined into a 3.5 minute video that can be, at least for now, seen here. [The required QuickTime viewer is here.]

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Cuba: Day 7 (Tuesday, Feb 7)- Dawn Patrol, More Cohiba Cigar Factory and Hemingway’s House (Finca Vigia)

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Chris Grady

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Another interesting Dawn Patrol. We got up for every Dawn patrol- 7 in all. And we had dry weather every time. Nice job of Kip for arranging that! The Dawn Patrols were absolutely one of the highlights of the trip for me.

Tuesday was a free day. The Cole’s and us decided to get a driver and a translator and spend another day outside Havana. Then I got wind that part of Tony’s group had gotten access into the Cohiba factory (see yesterday’s post). We asked Tony if we also could come- and Tony made it happen! Randy Cole posted his pictures yesterday. I have added 18 more today. They are more of the same with varying views. If interested in more cigar photos, click here

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After finishing up at Cohiba, we came back to Hotel to pick up our translator for the afternoon. Our taxi driver, Jorge 2, did not speak any English- we felt it would not be wise to end up in outskirts of Havana without the ability to communicate. As it tuned out, this was a wise decision. We got into Jorge 2’s taxi and went about 1/2 mile. Then we heard a loud pop- I thought maybe a flat tire- not so, worse yet,  the taxi had a sudden suspension issue that made it inoperable. The thought occurred to us: what if this had happened when we were going 50 mph- or in a remote part of Havana’s countryside. We were very lucky! And our translator literally ran back to hotel and acquired a new taxi large enough to haul our group (by now Arthur Meyerson had also joined us). Then off  to visit Finca Vigia, better known as Ernest Hemingway’s home in San Francisco de Paula.

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Hemingway’s estate in recent years has fallen victim to vandals and we had heard that we could not enter home- only look through windows. As it turned out, while we could not enter the house, the windows were open so we could clearly see, and clearly take photos. We spent about a hour there (the group had to come and find me by the now drained pool where I had decided to catch a quick nap)

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Then we returned to lunch at Paladar Dona Eutimia, a very good small and intimate paladar in the Chorro de Zanja, small dead-end street off Plaza de Catedral.

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Tuesday evening, all three groups combined for a fun showing of everyone’s work (each participant had previously submitted their eight favorite shoots) at Phototeca, a short pedicab ride away. A 3.5 minute video of all 12 people from our group (Arthur Meyerson) can be, at least for now, seen here. It will take a minute or so to load into your computer. Or go here to download the .mov file onto your computer for future viewing. Links to the other groups, as well as the required QuickTime viewer, are also here. There are a lot of very talented photographers in this group- but I think that Gretchen and I held our own!

The evening concluded with a fabulous dinner at La Imprenta.

Day 8- Wednesday February 8- we departed hotel around 8:30AM- arrived Miami in early afternoon where every said the good-byes and split for all corners of the US.

TOMORROW: Be sure to read the final post In this series, WRAP-UP.

 

LINKS to today’s FINE ART(6), POSTCARD(15), COHIBA (18) and JUST FUN(12) galleries

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Cuba: Day 7 (Tuesday, Feb 7)- Special Report from Randy Cole: Cohiba Cigar Factory

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Chris Grady

 

First, there have been “issues” with either the links, or receiving email notifications the past 2 days. If you have missed either day, please click on correct title and link below:
Cuba: Day 5 (Sunday, Feb 5)- Dawn Patrol, Señor Miguel Alonso Home, Callejon de Hamel
Cuba: Day 6 (Monday, Feb 6)- Dawn Patrol, Raul Valladares Home, Abandoned Hershey Sugar Mill

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Our last day in Havana was spent visiting two especially fun places: the Cohiba cigar facility- and Hemingway’s home. I will blog more in detail tomorrow because today I have asked Randy Cole to share his photos, and commentary, regarding our first stop: Cohiba Cigar. Heeeeere’s Randy…

One place on most everyone’s list of places to go in Havana was a cigar factory — any cigar factory — as long as we could take pictures. But the word was that only a few offered tours and none allowed photography. Then, by some miracle, it turned out that Cuban photographer Eduardo’s father in law Leo manages the cigar club at the Club of Havana, and Leo would arrange a tour of a cigar factory.

Leo came through, in spades. It wouldn’t be just any cigar factory — we would tour (and photograph) the Cohiba factory, Fidel’s own brand, the Dom Perignon of Cuban cigars. In 1968, Fidel himself set up the Cohiba factory in a grand old mansion called El Laguito, to make cigars for Cuban officials and foreign dignitaries. It wasn’t until 1982 that Cohiba cigars could be purchased by others.

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Our own Cuban photographer, Jorge Gavilando, arranged for us to hire a ’55 Chevy station wagon for the trip, and the Coles and the Grady-Taylors, along with some guy named Arthur, piled into it and headed to the Club of Havana, trailing behind Eduardo and a larger group of Tony Bonanno’s folks. Leo treated us to some excellent coffee and a look into the humidor room filled with members’ cigar lockers and his stockroom of primo Cuban cigars.

At Cohiba a lovely lady named Berta led us through all the steps in making a cigar. There are 3 separate rooms where the tobacco leaves are sorted, graded and weighed. The outer wrapper leaves spend some time in a humidification room so that they will be nice and pliable. The largest room is where the filler leaves are gathered into a long bundle and rolled into a wrapper leaf to actually create a cigar. The rolled cigars are put into a mold for a while, trimmed, sorted for color, banded, and packed.

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I was particularly interested to find that Cohiba still employs a person to read the paper and other material to the workers while they work. That person is called a lector, and lectors are an old tradition in cigar factories in the Cuba, other Latin American and Caribbean countries, and even in Miami.

 

Step by Step:

1. Separate, spread out the tobacco leaves.

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2. Humidify room- outer leaves must be kept moist so that they will be pliable

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3. Sort into: filler, binder, and wrapper. The binder is a wrapper leaf that has too many defects to be on the outside.

Now, each cigar is totally hand-made by one person who combines the different types of leaves, trims leaves, rolls cigar presses, and finishes the tip

4.  Cigar rolled: 3 different types of leaves are selected, cut, and rolled into a cigar

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5. Cigar pressed for awhile (blue plastic trays hold cigars as they are being pressed)

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7. Finished cigars graded and packaged.

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TOMORROW: I will post a few of our Cohiba pictures and will conclude with our final day of activities with a taxi ride to Hemingway’s Havana area home.

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Cuba: Day 6 (Monday, Feb 6)- Dawn Patrol, Raul Valladares Home, Abandoned Hershey Sugar Mill

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Chris Grady

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The weather again cooperated for Dawn Patrol. The rain that had fallen during the night had given way to clear skies and warm temperatures.  The remnants of the rain slick streets gave us the opportunity to capture many beautiful reflections! On this morning, we headed out of our hotel to walk the dark, early morning streets somewhat away from the center of Old Havana.     

Today we had the opportunity to visit world-renowned metal-sculptor , Raul Valladares, in his countryside home/shop. We also met his delightful wife who was herself an accomplished potter (see tennis shoes) as well as a gifted baker of the most tasty of treats.  To our delight, she prepared fresh pastries for us in her professionally equipped home bakery.

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We left Raul’s home and made a 30-minute stop in Santa María del Rosario. This was a delightful country village…a real feeling of community here.  We visited the church, the school and toured the small shops in the village.

 

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Now off to the abandoned Hershey sugar factory. This was a huge facility before Castro nationalized it in 1959. The buildings of the factory have declined over the last 62 years; the main building was completely abandoned in 2002   and the other large building appears to house parts for the aging electric railway. We spent a couple hours here, walking the acres of land and imagining the hustle and bustle that was once part of this thriving community.

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We ended the day having lunch at Chicken Little (I was originally concerned about this name- and the restaurant’s logo—but the food was very good). While waiting for lunch, the sky emptied and the torrents of rain necessitated the cancellation of our trip to the beach at Playa del Este.   This proved to be the only rain induced change of plans for the entire week in Cuba.

LINKS to today’s FINE ART(17), POSTCARD(34), and JUST FUN(12) galleries.

Tomorrow: Guest Blogger Randy Cole- How to Make a Cuban Cigar, Tohiba Cigar Tour

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Cuba: Day 5 (Sunday, Feb 5)- Dawn Patrol, Señor Miguel Alonso Home, Callejon de Hamel

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Chris Grady

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It had rained overnight- so we had great street reflections for our 6:15 dawn patrol. After returning to our hotel for a hearty breakfast buffet, we jumped into a 1950’s Chevy wagon. The driver was named Jorge, as also was our guide. So we cleverly named our driver “Jorge 2.” Jorge 2 lived in the same building as our guide – and he was to be our chauffeur for the 2 days. His wagon comfortably (?) carried the 6 of us plus Arthur, Jorge, and Jorge 2.

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With Jorge 2 at the wheel, we travelled to another part of town where there was not so much poverty as Old Havana. Clearly, what was once a classy part of town was decaying. The residents of the once beautiful homes on the outskirts of Old Havana, although immaculate, have struggled to repair and keep up with the age-related decay of the simply magnificent mansions. The lack of upkeep and apparent decay is a result of no disposable income and lack of materials necessary to maintain these elegant homes. As we were to see numerous times, the Cubans have, out of necessity, become ingenious at clip_image008[4]

finding a way to get things to work. Señor Miguel Alonso and his wife were friends of Jorge and they graciously let our group into their home. It was very clean, but just “tired.” Truly at one time it had been magnificent. I included more pictures than usual in the Postcardtab that show various rooms of the house. I was amazed by the ‘50’s style kitchen- today in the USA, people pay a lot of money to designers to create the same look.

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We then went to Callejon de Hamel. Frankly, I am not sure what this place is. All I know that every ten feet we were hustled by someone to buy a CD of their music.

In the evening we gathered at a meeting room in an adjacent hotel where 15-20 local Cuban artists were displaying their photos. We ended up buying two from our guide, Jorge Gavilondo that were taken at places that we had seen while travelling the streets with him.

SIDE-NOTE: MEALS. As previously mentioned, we had a huge breakfast daily from our hotel’s buffet. At lunchtime, we simply ate lunches where we were. Nothing terribly exciting except for our last day lunch at Paladar Dona Eutimia, a very good small and intimate paladar in the Chorro de Zanja, small dead-end street off Plaza de Catedral. Of the seven dinners we ate, four were eaten within the Parque Central Hotel (2 at the roof top pool/bar and two in the lobby bar). We found that we were tired after our 6AM wakeup- and I had to clear both Gretchen’s and my daily photos off our camera’s onto the laptop’s hard drive- and we had only one laptop. We did eat outside the hotel three times: the first two with our friends, the Coles (an average meal at Prado y Neptuno, and a great meal at a restaurant around corner on the third floor called el Gijones). The last outside dinner was the last night with all three groups combined at La Imprenta.

LINKS to today’s FINE ART(6), POSTCARD(31), and JUST FUN(7) galleries.

Tomorrow: We visit world-famous metal sculpture artist Raul Valladares in his home- and an incredible photo –op at the huge abandoned Hershey sugar mill

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Cuba: Day 4 (Saturday, Feb 4)- Dawn Patrol, Rumba, Big Girl Camera

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Chris Grady

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BIG GIRL CAMERA: Saturday morning started off with the dreaded one-on-one picture critique with Arthur Meyerson. Each student selected his/her best 5 shots to date. Then these were reviewed by Arthur and student. Gretchen approached this with more than a little trepidation. She was concerned about her newbie role, and her point-and-shoot camera status. Not to worry. She had been taking some really nice pictures- obviously showed some natural composition talent. So it was suggested that she step up to a DLSR camera. I had brought a second camera, a old Nikon D5000, as a backup in case my camera broke (no Nikon repair stores in Havana!). She switched over to this camera, and after a short learning curve, took to serious amateur photography like a bee sticks to honey. But I am afraid that I may have created a MONSTER. Stay tuned to see how this story proceeds in next few days. The picture below is Gretchen’s. I did no coaching, or otherwise help her select her photos. Nor did I help her take them.  Click here for the girl’s reaction when seeing herself in camera.

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We got some nice shots on Dawn Patrol, had our one-on-one’s with Arthur, and departed via taxi (yes, our vintage station wagon transported all nine of us: driver, guide Jorge, Arthur, and six group members) in afternoon for the Patio de la Rumba. We paid our five C.U.C. admission (roughly $5) and joined a large (100+) group of locals who had gathered to listen to Cuban Rumba- and watch Cuban dancers. Some were good- some were not. But we did get a lot of local, in the outskirts of Havana, non-tourist, cultural activity.

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We finished off the day stopping at Havana’s famous ice Cream PARK. Yes, park, not parlor. Coppelia Ice is not a building, but rather a large park with several buildings. There are 2 main lines: one, very long – over 45 minutes when we were there- for locals paying in Cuban pesos. And one for tourists  like us paying in CUCs. In either case, ice cream was delicious.

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LINKS to today’s FINE ART(6), POSTCARD(14), and JUST FUN(13) galleries.

I will be not posting over the weekend- Day 5 will resume on Monday.

TEASER: We did get to tour a CIGAR FACTORY- and we were allowed to take pictures! Next week guest Blogger, my travelling partner-in-crime, Randy Cole, will display his series of photos on How to make a Cuban cigar: Step-by-Step. Good stuff. Check back!

NOTE: I needed to change the Day numbers on previous posts to match my photos. Name change only- all links should work as before.

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Cuba: Day 3 (Friday, Feb 3)- Dawn Patrol, Shopping, old Havana walk

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Chris Grady

 

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Another 6:15 Dawn Patrol- the group is beginning to shrink- but this is really a great time of day to take pictures. And weather is holding up fine. Today we ended up near an open vegetable/fruit market. At one point we heard a whistle blowing sharply, many times. And a couple guys were standing un middle of a deserted intersection with a bread cart. Turns out that people heard the whistle, and if they needed bread, lowered a plastic bag via rope from the second floor or higher room. The vendor then put bread in bag and the customer hauled the bag up. Remembering that there are of course no elevators in Havana housing, this all makes sense.

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Morning: We started out the morning by congregating in a hotel meeting room and watching a short video “The Color of Light” that highlighted Arthur Meyerson’s work. It was very enjoyable- and clearly demonstrated why he was the teacher- and we were the students.

Afternoon: Boxing: We all wanted to try our hand at taking some action photos with local Cuban boxers. We showed up at the appointed time only to find that school was still in session until 4PM. The boxers that we were going to see were Cuban high school boys. So we used the time we needed to kill to visit the famous tourist shopping area Artisan’s Market. As my friend Randy Cole said: “It should be called ‘The Market of Lousy Art and Handicrafts’. We didn’t look at the handicrafts because we couldn’t take them back, but the paintings sure were junk.” I have never seen so much tourist “crap”- trinkets, etc. that someone must buy- but I can not image why! Fortunately we also walked around adjacent are4as that were filled with activity. We returned to boxing sight at 5PM only to learn more about “Cuban time.” Finally at 5:45PM we left, our goal of seeing boxing unfulfilled. A few boxers had shown up, but they were in no hurry to start- and the sun, our light, was going down south (or should I say west). Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Santa Fe tried hard to make this work- but people either won’t commit, or won’t keep commitments!

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My original game plan was for me to take primarily “fine art” photos with my Nikon D7000 while Gretchen would concentrate on more “postcard” type shots with her point-and-shoot Nikon P7100. In theory this was a perfect plan- but by the end of the third day, I was being to realize that I may have a problem. Gretchen was becoming increasingly frustrated by the limitations of the zoom/wide-angle control in her point-and-shoot: very slow, took forever to frame a shot correctly, and then many times the shot was gone. Also the ability to shoot in low light situations, like Dawn Patrols, was severely limited. And, she was really beginning to enjoy the thrill of taking a great shot. Keep reading tomorrow to see what happens next!

LINKS to today’s FINE ART(9), POSTCARD(25), and JUST FUN(10) galleries.
 

Tomorrow: RUMBA!

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