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Location: Kalona, Iowa, United States

Husband and Wife wedding and lifestyle photographers based in Iowa.

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    27 March 2008

    Images of Haiti :: Collection #4

    Here's the final round of pictures from our trip to Haiti, for now.  If you want to see more, you'll just have to come over sometime! :)  

    This 13 mile stretch of road takes almost an hour to cover.  




    This fish actually tasted much better than it looked. This was someone else's dinner, I was eating goat for this meal. (for the record, goat tastes really good!)  Now the banana at the top of this picture is another story.  Nasty.

    **Edited at the risk of physical injury to my person by certain readers :)  Whether this is a banana or a plantain, it was nasty.   They call it "banan" so there you have it, take your pick.  And Kristin is right, most of the time it was delicious, but this was not one of those times. **








    Jodi snuck this picture during church.

    And here's Jodi and I on the beach, taken by my brother Greg or his wife, I'm not sure which one had which camera.



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    25 March 2008

    Locks, Doors, and the Portuguese Man O' War

    Hey ya'll.  It's good to be home again!  I love traveling, Jodi sort of does, but it's always wonderful to come back to the kids and back to normal life. As for our photos, we did all our editing in the evenings but we still came home with 900 images! It was fun to step outside of our wedding/portrait routine and look for new textures and moments that we don't normally photograph. I did a lot of thinking and musing about life and poverty and injustice while I was in Haiti, and if you're interested I guess I could share my thoughts on here.  I'll be updating with more photos the next couple of days, so you might get tired of our trip pictures.

    Here's some details of Haiti that I came across as we traveled.  They have some of the most amazing textures, that's for sure.



























    Here's the main highway running through Pas Bwa Dom where we lived. I'm not sure why we think we need SUV's in the US.


    The infamous Man O' War.

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    21 March 2008

    Images of Haiti :: Collection #2

    It's Good Friday!!  We have the day off, as far as working goes, and are taking the day to do some travel and beach time.  My brother and I have been building a kitchen cabinet for one of the houses around here, and it's been working pretty well, so far.  Also, we decided to act like we knew what we were doing and walk the 1.5 miles from our house to the shop where we are working.  We ended up making it about a mile before we got picked up by a guy on a moped. :)  It's pretty funny to see 3 or 4 people piled up on a moped as it speeds down these crazy roads!

    It's not a lobster, it's a massive crayfish.... and it tastes delicious!











    This is sunrise with a young man carrying paddles to his boat to go fishing for the day.











    You don't leave the house without a spare tire that's ready to go.





    •••

    Well, we're back from the beach.  We started a friendly game of soccer with some kids, and I ended up kicking my brother in the ankle, and backing into a palm tree at a high rate of speed. Both were very painful. Then, Jodi and I were taking a stroll down the beach, only to come across what looked like a piece of trash, a purple bubbly thing.  We didn't touch it but found a bigger one down the beach a little ways, so out of curiosity, we picked it up with a coconut shell, and carried it towards our campsite.  A Haitian man came running after us yelling, and I thought we may have taken something of his, so we grabbed Leon to interpret for us.  Turns out, we were holding a Portuguese Man O' War, a super poisonous jellyfish.  He dug a hole in the sand and pleaded us to get rid of it.  We snapped a picture and did what he asked.  Thank God we weren't stupid and tried to touch it.

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    18 March 2008

    Images of Haiti :: Collection #1

    I don't really know what to say about all of the images I'll be showing you in the coming days, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, unless a few words will help tell the story. They are in no particular order but each image has a story behind it. ( Nerd info:  I never opened Photoshop... a little tweak of the RAW and that's it. I shot 770 images today.)

     Be blessed....












    The oldest man in the village of Pas Bwa Dom in front of his house.





    I am roughly 184cm tall according to the wall of the schoolyard.




    These guys didn't want me to take their picture, so I had to shoot from the hip. :)  


    This is why the mission works so hard all year round drilling wells.









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    17 March 2008

    An Update:

    Hello from Haiti!

    We're just now getting out to Pas Bwa Dom where we're staying for the week with Leon and Joy, Jodi's aunt and uncle. Thank you to everyone who has been praying for us the last couple of days.  We had 2 pieces of important luggage lost somewhere between Chicago and Haiti.  We (Leon and I) went to the airport for all 3 incoming flights on Sunday, and our stuff was nowhere to be found, not to mention the airlines could not even track or locate it.  So we prayed again and on Monday morning, we went back to the airport for the first incoming flight to give it one last chance before driving the 6 hours to our home for the week.  Leon and I walked into baggage claim just as my two boxes came around the carousel!!  We didn't even have to slow down, we just grabbed them and walked out!  It was amazing!

    So now, we're back on schedule, albeit a day behind the original plans.  We are firm believers that there is a plan for everything, and sometimes that plan doesn't match up with what we would have chosen.  But it always works for the best somehow.

    Anyway, we haven't officially started shooting yet, although I've filled a few GB with pictures already. :)  I'll get some pictures on here a little later in the week.  Stay tuned!!

    God bless..
    rg

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    14 March 2008

    Haiti: Here we come


    It's almost time to start packing the bags (we always wait till the last minute to pack... too much going on before we leave for a trip) and I figured I'd leave you for the week with some information on Haiti that I rounded up this morning according to 2005 compared to the US.  Some interesting stuff...

    a)  Gross National Income per capita:  $450  (US: $43740)
    b)  Life expectancy at birth:  52 yrs  (US:  78yrs)
    c)  Percent of population using adequate sanitation facilities:  30% (US:  100%)
    d) Orphans age 0-17:  490,000  (US:  n/a)
    e)  Skilled attendant present during childbirth:  24%     (US: 99%)
    f)  Percent of population below $1 per day:  54%  (US:  n/a)
    g) % of Photographers en route to take pictures...  what?!

    •••

    In other news, last night, I hit a 3 pointer with 5 seconds left to advance our 3rd seed church basketball team to the second round of the tournament. We were down by one, and I was looking to pass inside for the high percentage jumper, but the ball came back to me for an open 3, and I took it.  It was ugly, but it went in. Later that night, we beat the #2 seed to advance to the semi-finals.  Now I will miss the game tonight and the championship on Monday, so.. GO TEAM!! Eh, it's not as big of a deal as it sounds, trust me. :)

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