Celebrating Aceh

These hotel workers were preparing a banner for a local festival in Aceh yesterday morning.

Durian!!!

We were expecting the truck to be empty so we could load our luggage and head back to the hotel after a long day of convening with scientists and conservation workers. Instead we got Durian. “Whats durian?” you ask. Well as I learned yesterday, Durian is a local fruit, resembling a pineapple, that has mysterious power to effect sheer joy from every Sumatran in its vicinity. Moments after the truck arrived people started emerging from the house, most of whom I had no idea were inside, to get a taste of this strange happy fruit. In no time the driveway was full of laughter, smiles and the type of unabashed joviality that you might see in a coca-cola commercial in the early 90’s. Some workers could be seen slyly stowing durian fruits away for later; others lined up for instant gratification, while we were left to wonder is Durian drugs? One scientist later giddily admitted that he was drunk off Durian, which only deepened our suspicion. We’ll have to do some good sound empirical testing on this one…

The Calm before the Tiger

A couple weeks into our trip, and I hardly know where to start. We just got back to Sumatra after a week long tiger conference in Thailand, and it looks like we’re finally ready to move on from hotel buffet’s, airport lounges and debates about the best ways to count tigers (scat, tracks, or camera traps?) and we’re ready to get out into the field and take some pictures. We’ve definitely witnessed some exciting (and definitely tragic) moments so far as we’ve chased the tiger’s tail. But since those photos aren’t mine to share, I’m gonna go ahead and post pictures from the many moments that take place between those which will end up on the pages of nat geo sometime in early 2011.
The busy days and constant movement has held back my blogging, but I’ve got plenty of pictures to share, so I’ll start from today and trace backward. These first pictures are from the airport in Bonda Aceh today.

Real Tigers

This is sort of old news to some of you, since I've know for a couple of weeks, but it looks like I'll be assisting Steve Winter on his project for national geographic documenting Tigers. We'll be headed to Summatra at the beginning of July to photograph the summatran tiger and the culture surrounding the tiger (i.e. its societal threats and allies). There's a list of other places we're slated to travel, which I won't go into just yet, but its pretty much all the places that tigers still live in the wild. Its worth mentioning that I have not been to any of these places, nor have I ever ridden an elephant into the jungle to track tigers, nor have I ever been so excited about something in my life. I'll try to keep you guys posted through this blog as much as possible, although I imagine there won't be many wifi signals floating around in the jungle, so we'll see. Here we go...

More from the Border

More pictures taken from the border of Glacier National Park and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Most of the park looks nothing like this. Much more verdant and postcard-worthy, but there was a large fire here (natural causes) a few years ago. Can you believe its snowing in Saint Mary, Montana? 

Dinosaurs are so underrated

Yeah. Sure. Back in pre-school and elementary dinosaurs were all the rage. But whats become of them since? Well I'm here to tell you that Dinosaurs are just as neat and just as awesome as we always thought they were when they first captured our imaginations as little people. Lest we forget once more, my dear friend Brendan and I are hitting the road for a grand Dino-Diner roadtrip to chronicle in word and image the modern day dino. The date of this trip is yet to be determined, but I can tell you that we will be exploring the great american west for traces of dino and dinomania, and we will eat at diners. Many of them. Stay tuned...

New West

Burnt Forest

I came across this burnt forest on my way into the park and got sucked in. I think its enchanted...I'm car camping down a dirt road beneath the peak in the top picture. The forest is right on the border between the park and the reservation. I'm thinking about incorporating pictures from the border of the park into my a broader project on the Blackfeet. Any thoughts? P.S. Does it make me a dark person that I find this burnt forest deeply beautiful? lol. 

No Place Like this

....not even Wyoming. 
...just plain gitty to be back in Montana. 

Don't let this happen to you

But wait...they were just hanging out at the pump on Monday night....

...but sure enough, on tuesday their car had been appropriated for a gorilla marketing scheme at an auto salvage yard. I've seen it happen all to often...

Love of Diners

Wyoming
Ohio
Colorado
I love diners. Thats it. But, country diners in particular. 

(Hyper) Wildlife

We are so into our "wildlife" out west, aren't we? 

Art Speaking for Itself

I was so intrigued by the art outside this man's house, that when he came out to chat with me, I didn't even ask him any questions about it. I sort of preferred to be pleasantly mystified about it, and to make up my own stories to explain it. If part of the American dream is to own a home, shouldn't we take up this guy's example and find more unique ways to express ourselves with them besides freshly cut lawns? 

The Trifecta!

Beer, Lei, Bocci. This from my roomate/friend Cheryl's Bday party. 

Tango!

These two again, embodying summer, tango dancing in a gazebo. 

Summer in the Mountains: Carbondale, CO

Spent a few days doing some landscape work up in Carbondale, CO. Even car camping in the parking lot across from the library made me nostalgic for summer in the mountains. So psyched I got to hang out with Justin and Cassandra the 2 lovely folks lying on the lawn above. Justin pretty much embodies perpetual summer--in his attitude certainly, but also because he's spent the past couple of "winters" down in the southern hemisphere, while spending his summers up here. 

Field Trip: Rocky Mountain Ghost Town

Went to this amazing ex-mining town up in the mountains with J and Ben. Country diner, driving down random dirt roads with no agenda, and wandering around ramshackle buildings strumming on the guitar--a great day!

To VisCom or not to VisCom

I planned to visit Ohio University for about 3 or 4 days to see if I liked it. I ended up staying there for 7, because I figured out that I like it a lot, thanks mainly to the fine specimens of humanity that I met there, some of whom are shown above. Hanging out with these folks reminded me of my college friends so much, that it felt oddly nostalgic. We took a field trip to rural Ohio, ate at the local diner and built not just a sand castle, but a sand civilization. We even had windy theoretical conversations for hours on end, albeit about photography instead of philosophy.

That said, I decided to defer, not b/c I couldn’t imagine myself there, but because I feel compelled to continue work on this native American youth project. I'm now on the Cheyanne River and Pine Ridge reservations in South Dakota to shoot an assignment for the Lakota Language Consortium. After that, up to Montana for the summer and fall. I don't think I'll be posting from my ongoing project, but I’ll make sure to keep the imagery flowing in some capacity. Thanks to anyone who is still paying attention to this slow lurch of a blog :)

New to the Fam

Over the past month I’ve shared too many cool experiences with great people not to be posting photos. And since I’m in adventure mode again with a working camera, I figure it’d be a good time to start updating this blog again. So, I’m going to do some backtracking to catch up, starting with this picture of one of three new genetically similar members of my extended family (yes, that means triplets). 

J & Su

These are two of my lovely friends in Boulder, Jason and Su. Just FYI, Jason has a great new music blog, where he posts reviews and commentary (and downloads) of some recent indie releases. Besides having great taste in music, J has a real gift for describing what he hears. Check out his blog, and definitely take a listen to Micachu and the Shapes, the subject of his latest post.