Summertimes

I have been an inactive blogger for sometime.  I think in February I thought life couldn’t get busier than it was but that changed in March, when I had an assignment (at least one) due every day for the entire month.  By April things started to slow down, and since May it’s mostly been a waiting game.

However, while things in April started to slow, I had also begun my chase for summer work.  Initially I began with high hopes, at one point in mid-April it seemed like there were at least three reasonably likely prospects with different newspapers.  Those petered off and by mid-May I began fearing I’d have to find work outside photography for the summer.

So I travelled to Ottawa, there I found work as a student house painter.  On the day I was supposed to start working though I received an email offering me a job with Metroland’s group of newspapers in Toronto.

While I start tomorrow I realized I hadn’t posted a blog update in months.  First I was too busy, then I was too lazy and on summer vacation and finally my computer was in for repair.  So now I’ll catch up.

My last blog posted was at the end of February, so I’ll start in February in Ottawa.

OTTAWA, Ont. (10/2/13) – Ottawa Senators defense, Erik Karlsson and his wife Therese, watch as model walk down the runway during Ottawa Fashion Week on February 10. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

In mid-February I photographed the Ottawa Fashion Week for FAJO Magazine.  It was an interesting affair and my first time shooting anything in the fashion world.  While most of the weekend was spent at the end of the runway, I was able to get some interesting moments and get a tour backstage.

OTTAWA, Ont. (10/2/13) – Models wearing designs by Anjoreen Couture walk down the runway on Feburary 10 the final night of Ottawa Fashion Week. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

My trip backstage was brief, I was only allowed ten minutes but it was fascinating to see what happens behind the scenes at a fashion week event.

OTTAWA, Ont. (9/2/13) – Models wearing designs by Jana Hanzel and Emilia Torabi have their make up checked before walking down the runway on February 9 the second night of Ottawa Fashion Week. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

Most of my other February exploits are detailed in a previous post here.

As March dawned the second years began finishing up their final projects in preparation for their end of program internships.  The first years meanwhile were trying to keep from drowning in tedious assignments.  The program is four semesters long and semester two and three are notorious for their intensity.

On the second weekend in March I returned to Ottawa to photograph the Canadian Interuniversity Sport Final 8 men’s basketball championships.  It’s Canada’s version of NCAA final in March.

OTTAWA, Ont. (9/3/13) – University of Ottawa Gee Gee’s forward Vikas Gill and Acadia University Axemen guard Tyler Scott rush for an open ball during the bronze medal game of the Canadian Interuniversity Sport men’s basketball championship at Scotiabank Place in Ottawa, Ontario on March 10. The Axemen lost the bronze medal to the Gee Gee’s 92-85 in overtime. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

The games were hosted at Scotiabank place in Ottawa, and they were very well attended.  As a student at Carleton I photographed this tournament twice before for the charlatan, Carleton’s student newspaper, you can check out some of those pics here for a look at some of my older stuff.  I was flooded with nostalgia, especially because several friends from Ottawa were also there photographing the event it felt a bit like a working reunion.

OTTAWA, Ont. (10/3/13) – University of Ottawa Gee Gee’s player’s jump up to celebrate as the buzzer goes off during the end of the bronze medal game at Scotiabank Place in Ottawa, on March 10. The Gee Gee’s took third place overall at the national men’s basketball tournament. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

For a while it looked like it was going to be an Ottawa vs. Ottawa final, but The University Ottawa Gee Gees didn’t quite make it.  The Carleton Ravens won again making it a record number championship wins in CIS history.

OTTAWA, Ont. (10/3/13) – Carleton University Ravens star forward Tyson Hinz watches to see if a layup circling the rim will go in during the Canadian Interuniversity Sport men’s basketball championship in Ottawa, Ontario on March 10. The Raven’s defeated the Lakehead Thunderwolves 92-42 winning the championship for a record 9th time. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

Next weekend I drove a carload of Loyalist students past Ottawa to Montreal for the annual anti-police brutality protest.  The protest was begun 17 years ago in response to suspicious deaths at the hands of Montreal police officers.  However, in the years since, the march has attracted a more dubious reputation as an opportunity to confront the police directly on the streets.

After last year’s student protests in Montreal new legislation had been passed.  In addition to the more controversial Loi 78, Montreal passed municipal laws requiring rally organizers to submit march routes in advance for approval from the police.  If not then the protest could be declared illegal and that gave the police sweeping powers of arrest.  Which is exactly what happened, as soon as marchers began assembling the police declared the protest illegal and began dispersing it and making arrests.

MONTREAL, Que. (15/3/13) – A protestor is arrested by Montreal Police during the 17th annual march against police brutality in Montreal on March 15. About 300 people were arrested during the march, which was declared illegal by the police. Most of those arrested were issued municipal fines for participating in an illegal protest. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

Loyalist students, completely by accident, went en masse to Montreal.  There were about 23 of us in total.  We stayed at hotels and spent a few hours chasing columns of police who were chasing the scattered protestors around the downtown core.

I ended up in a CTV News clip during one of the several on street interactions with the police.   You can view it here, I’m on the left of the screen taking pictures when the police charge, it’s at the 48-second mark in the clip.

Just before 7pm, two hours after the protest started, the scattered protestors and police now converged at the intersection of Rue Sainte Catherine and Rue Saint-Andre.  The police formed a kettle and closed ranks.

MONTREAL, Que. (15/3/13) – A resident in a motorized wheelchair passes by a line of riot police during the 17th annual march against police brutality in Montreal on March 15. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

Partly by chance and partly because of experiences learned from the G20 I jumped back, narrowly avoiding a gloved hand that was pulling people in.  As we found out later 15 Loyalist students were caught up in the kettle.

Some were released on the street, after Montreal police filmed them, and took down their info.  They were told they’d be mailed a $640 ticket and to return home, that if they were found out on the streets again that night they’d be arrested, spend the night in jail and face possible criminal charges.  Those not released on the street were loaded onto a repurposed city bus and taken to various precincts where they were processed and released.  By 10:30pm we had confirmation that everyone was out and everyone was safe.  By the numbers Loyalist students, there to photograph the demonstration, accounted for 8% of total arrests that night.

MONTREAL, Que. (15/3/13) – A resident takes a photo of riot police on his cellphone during the 17th annual march against police brutality in Montreal on March 15. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

Everyone in my car, myself included, avoided the kettle and arrest and the next day we were all cheerfully headed back to Belleville, where Loyalist College is located.  Along the way as we were passing Napanee, which is near Belleville, we spotted a huge plume of smoke rising from a field off the highway.  We pulled off the highway and found the source of the fire, a barn in a farmer’s field and began taking pictures.  The timing was convenient as we had a spot news assignment, any news that is not scheduled, due in class in two weeks time.

GREATER NAPANEE Ont. (15/3/13) – Firefighters from Greater Napanee attend to a barn fire on March 16. The barn was no longer in use and had stood on the property since the 1940′s, no one was hurt. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

Later that week came the second round of advisory board meetings of the year.  Advisory board is a once a semester picture review with photographers and editors from newspapers and newswires across Canada.  I sat down with four different people and showed them the same sets of pictures, I heard four different critiques ranging from, “Yeah! This is great!” to, “None of your pictures are memorable.”

The most useful piece of advice I received was to stop pursuing things I thought others wanted to see and instead go with my gut more.  So I decided to try and do that, although I was a little uncertain what that meant, I thought I had been going with my gut before.

BELLEVILLE Ont. (18/3/13) – Justin Chin (centre) a first-year photojournalism student at Loyalist College rubs his face while chatting with classmates during a break at advisory board day on March 18 in Belleville. Advisory board is an opportunity for students to present their work and portfolios to news photographers and editors from across Canada. (photo Adam Dietrich)

Around this time we had a whole host of different projects to work on, from videos to picture documentaries, and once a week a lighting assignments.  One of the more interesting lighting assignments was the environmental portrait.  Which is a fancy way of saying a portrait in a relevant environment… So a firefighter in a fire hall, or a doctor in a hospital.  Ours was specific, we had to find either a CEO or business owner, a blue collar worker or a luthier (someone who repairs stringed instruments, specifically lute based designs).  I was in Ottawa one weekend, so I started phoning luthiers in the city and David (below) agreed to pose for a photo.

OTTAWA Ont. (23/3/13) – David Doyle, a violin maker, restorer and luthier catches his breath after a busy afternoon before being photographed with his work on March 23 in Ottawa, Ontario. Doyle was a concert violinist before he started repairing the instruments. He says a passion for the instrument is what drew him to repair and restoration after performing was no longer profitable. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

A week later I found myself once again in Ottawa.  It was now the end of March, school was truly slowing down and I was trying to find a way to keep busy.  So I returned to photographing the drag queen Savannah Couture.  Savannah had agreed to let me photograph her before during and after performances a few times and the project had been universally well received amongst the advisors I met with.

Savannah started drag professionally only a month earlier, but with the help of her brother, who also happened to be a well-known queen in Ottawa, she was able to secure a regular weekend performance at Edge, a well-known gay bar in Ottawa.

OTTAWA Ont. (29/3/13) – Savannah Couture performs at Edge Nightclub in Ottawa Ontario on March 29. Her solo set included songs by Taylor Swift, Savannah’s outfit and hair were inspired by Swift. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

A drag performance is essentially three parts, the first is the dress, which needs to compliment the queens own style and the song choice.  The second is the performance, which is generally a lip sync set to music, song choice determines clothes, hair make-up and the dance itself, and most queens won’t repeat songs, every weekend it’s something new.  The final part is audience interaction, like at a burlesque show in part drag is a celebration of sexuality, and so queens interact with and tease audience members usually as part of the show.

OTTAWA Ont. (29/3/13) – Savannah Couture (right) kisses a spectator on the cheek during a performance at Edge Nightclub in Ottawa Ontario on march 29. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

On this night there were three individual queens who performed and a fourth, Savannah’s brother and drag mother, who MC’d the evening.  The night ended with all four of them dressing like the girls from the Lady Marmelade music video and performing the song as a quartet.

OTTAWA Ont. (29/3/13) – Savannah Couture performs as part of a drag quartet during a performance of the song Lady Marmalade on March 29 in Ottawa Ontario. The performance also included Savannah’s drag mother, Icesis Couture the two are brothers in real life, and work together in Ottawa’s drag scene. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

I had produced far better performance pictures that night than I ever had but I also recognized the familiar symptoms of artistic burn-out starting to set in.  All of my pictures looked like crap, or that’s how I felt at the time.  Scrolling through contact sheet after contact sheet they all looked uninspired.  I began to understand what the advisor had meant about photographing things as I felt others wanted to see them.  As the end of semester began to wind down I started focusing more on the multimedia projects I had to do, and writing.

In the final week of classes I received a call from the Oakville Beaver, they had been one of the many places I’d applied for a summer internship with.  I had been selected for a working interview of sorts along with two others.  So I scheduled a day to come down to the 905 and work for the Beaver for the day.  In addition to a job interview I was asked to photograph two assignments as a freelancer, one for the Oakville Beaver and one for the Burlington Post, they both work out of the same office.

The first event was a children’s French ‘rock’ concert with Gregg LeRock, I remembered going to a similar show with a guy named Etienne who had songs like, “Etre is to be not, not, to be…” and other such clever things.  The kids seemed to genuinely like it though which was the point after all.

BURLINGTON, Ont. (24/4/13) – Musician Gregg LeRock gets some help from an audience member during a performance at Compass Point Church in Burlington on April 24. The Juno nominated performer teaches French to younger children through original rock songs and performances. (Photo: Adam Dietrich/Burlington Post)

Next I had to hop on the 403 and race to Oakville for a presentation at a local public school about a new energy use and education initiative that was being launched in the region.

OAKVILLE, Ont. (24/4/13) – Julie Millington from Oakville Hydro speaks to students at Joshua Creek Public School on April 24. The presentation was about a new program called energy drill which seeks to educate elementary kids about ways they can reduce energy consumption in their daily lives, the presentation was timed to coincide with earth week activities. (Photo: Adam Dietrich/Oakville Beaver)

A week later I was told I didn’t get the job.  Later that afternoon I applied for another job at Inside Toronto another paper owned by the same company.  After an interview there and a few more weeks of waiting I was offered a paid-summer internship there.

Starting Monday I expect to be busy for at least the next calendar year.  This internship has me working full-time until I start school, then I enter into the most important and competitive parts of the Loyalist program and hopefully that leads to an internship and summer job next summer.  All of that is to say I spent the last week watching cheap made-for-tv documentaries on Netflix and playing computer games, biking, reading and generally having a pretty ideal summer break.

Fortunately I have a friend who has agreed to rent me an air mattress in a corner of his bachelor’s apartment near High Park and the Junction.  So for two months I’ll be living the dream… of sorts.

So with a new job in hand, motivation, functioning computer and period of artistic burn-out conquered, hopefully I’ll be inclined to blog more regularly.  I think the summer’s going to be a good one.

Adam Dietrich

In the thick of it

This Loyalist PhotoJ program is pretty intensive…

As of right now I have a few projects ongoing and essentially an assignment due every school day in March.  I should clarify this is not me complaining, but rather just me remarking on a fact.  Frankly I’m relishing the pace and pressure, although this week (break week) has been a much needed respite.  It’s allowed me catch up on homework and sleep, resume blogging and reinstall Civilization IV (because it is better than V).

But I digress…

The week before break week I finally got around to shooting the local OHL team, the Belleville Bulls I timed it so I got to see them play the Ottawa 67’s, the OHL team from the city I lived in for the last several years.  I wanted to see the Guelph Storm, but they’re in a different division and don’t play Belleville very much.

The game was good although incredibly high scoring with the Bulls winning 8-5.  It was also pretty dirty, a few fights and some nasty penalty-deserving plays in the third period.  I’ve never photographed hockey at this level before, really the only practice I had was with the Carleton University Ravens and they’re just not as fast or aggressive as their OHL counterparts.  It also gave me the chance to practice in game filing, meaning I shot the first period then found a spot, pulled out my laptop and edited and captioned my pics from the first period before the start of the second.

BELLEVILLE Ont. (20/02/13) – Ottawa 67′s left winger Connor Brown takes a shot on goal during a game against the Belleville Bulls in Belleville Ontario on February 20. (Photo by Adam Dietrich)

I spent a lot of time trying to anticipate plays rather than follow the action, goalies make for great places to anticipate.

BELLEVILLE Ont. (20/02/13) – Ottawa 67′s goalie Jacob Blair falls to the ice after blocking a shot on goal during a game against the Belleville Bulls in Belleville Ontario on February 20. (Photo by Adam Dietrich)

This photo is missing a few elements to make a good pic for a newspaper, but as just a picture I like it.

BELLEVILLE Ont. (20/02/13) – Belleville Bulls goalie Charlie Graham lets in a shot during a game against the Ottawa 67′s in Belleville Ontario on February 20. (Photo by Adam Dietrich)

At the risk of inundating this blog post with hockey pictures I will cut it off there and continue.

The weekend before I was once again in my adoptive hometown of Ottawa.  This time I went to Edge Nightclub, up above Sparks and Bank St. with some friends for a special outdoor drag show.  The club is Ottawa’s only gay nightclub, I’m told there are many gays bars and places with a bar/club but Edge is the just nightclub place.  It’s also home to one of Ottawa most successful drag queens Icesis Couture.

It was a frigid affair, hosted on Edge’s rooftop patio, you could hear the music two blocks over on Metcalfe St, and the club had put out heaters on the patio, but I would argue there were not enough.

The performance was pretty awesome, although I was told Icesis’ hair was tamer than it normally is…

OTTAWA Ont. (16/2/13) – Icesis Couture, one of Ottawa’s most successful drag-queens, performs at Edge Nightclub in Ottawa on February 16. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

The day before going to Ottawa Justin Trudeau came to Loyalist College as part of a promotional tour.  The college had secretly arranged an emotional presentation for Trudeau, which you can view here, you can also see me in action at the start of the video while he’s walking down the hall. The reason I’m not going to talk about it is I missed the golden moment, I had to leave the presentation early because I had to get to a class, and though for this I would have skipped class I couldn’t really.  The week before car trouble had me stranded in Ottawa for a week and I skipped a bunch of classes, following that I felt I couldn’t skip anymore.  Plus my teacher’s reaction when I said might be late went like this:

“Hi, so I might be late I’m shooting Trudeau.”

“Yeah… so is everyone else.”

“…”

“Get your pics quickly and come to class”

“Ok.”

So I left when I thought the thing was almost over, still cutting it close, and while I was in class Trudeau gets presented with a photo and tears up.  Again check the link.

BELLEVILLE, Ont (14/2/13) – MP and Liberal leadership candidate Justin Trudeau is scrummed by students from Loyalist College’s Photojournalism program during a tour of the college in Belleville Ontario on February 14. Trudeau has been touring post-secondary institutions as part of his campaign. (Photo by Adam Dietrich)

During the weekend before while staying at my friend’s place I was able to complete my spot news assignment.  I was at his place on Flora St. when I saw on Twitter that a car had flipped on its roof a block away at Bronson.  I raced out and snapped some pics of the fire crews righting it and towing it away.  I also got a chance to talk to the driver, who was unscathed amazingly.  He said he swerved to avoid a car and clipped the edge of the snow bank and then the car flipped.

OTTAWA, Ont. (10/2/13) – Emergency crews attended to a single car accident at Bronson St. and Flora St. on February 10. The car was removed by a tow-truck, the driver, who was the single occupant was not injured. (Photo by Adam Dietrich)

Stepping back further into January, I skipped school on 28^th of January.  I don’t normally do that but I was in Ottawa that weekend and I found out there was an Idle No More Day of action on the Monday.  I was also buying a car that weekend.  So Monday morning I photographed the protest, which was much, much smaller than the one two weeks earlier, then bussed out to South Keys to pick up my fancy not-new ’96 Mazda 626, oh yeah.  It runs pretty nicely and I got to test it out driving back to Belleville that night, the snow in the day turned to sleet and freezing rain that night and a 2.5 hour drive became four.

OTTAWA, Ont. (1/28/13) – Idle No More protestors make their way down Wellington St. to Parliament Hill in Ottawa Ontario on January 28. The protest was part of a national day of action and saw dramatically diminished numbers compared to the same event which happened two weeks prior. The march originated on Victoria Island in the Ottawa river where Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence had been protesting by consuming only tea and fish broth for a month. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

Also that weekend I assisted a friend on an engagement shoot on the Saturday, we were in Alymer Quebec and I noticed tons of ice fishing huts.  The next day I came back with my gear to shoot what Loyalist calls ‘feature photos’ basically just a fun photo of things happening.  In this case because we had so much leeway I borrowed Loyalists 300mm f/2.8 which is a big obnoxious white lens weighing 2.5kg (5.6 lbs), I also own a 2x teleconverter which doubles the focal length of your lens, so I wandered around with the 600mm and discreetly photographed ice fishers.  Our news photography teacher loved the ridiculous telephoto and wanted to know if I’d ever stacked converters, I haven’t yet…

OTTAWA, Ont. (27/01/13) – A man ice fishes in the Ottawa River near Alymer, Que. on Jan. 27, 2013. The river was frozen enough to allow snowmobiles and cars to drive over it following an especially cold weeks which saw temperatures of minus 40 making Ottawa the coldest Capital on Earth. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

That weekend though I was mostly in Ottawa for Raven’s basketball, I was trying to get four assignments done in one weekend and I succeeded, sports feature, sports action, sequence photo and portfolio.  Talk about efficiency, three classes, four assignments in two games.

The second game I was specifically looking for features, so I spent little time shooting the game and more time shooting everything else.

OTTAWA, Ont. (1/25/13) – Joe Scanlon, a blogger with the Carleton University Athletics, takes notes as the Ravens sink another three-point during a home game on January 25 in Ottawa. The Ravens are once again the number one seeded team in the league going into the Canadian Interuniversity Sport Final 8 championship. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

That was the second weekend in Ottawa shooting Ravens basketball, the previous weekend I decided to come up for something to do and ended up doing that.  I also managed to double up on another assignment, for news photography we had to shoot a collector for what is known as an ‘environmental portrait,’ basically a person known for something photographed in the context of that something.  In this case the something a collection.  My friend’s roommate collects ‘physical media’ meaning DVD’s, Books and Comics, and has one big shelf dedicated to each collection, alphabetized, I ended up using the pics for our portfolio class and our lighting class in addition to news photography.

OTTAWA, Ont. (19/01/13) – Daniel Link a self-proclaimed ‘collector of physical media’ poses amongst his collection in his Ottawa, Ontario home on January 19. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

After shooting the portraits I went to Carleton to shake the cobwebs out of my head.  It had been a year since I photographed any sports, not including surfing.  And frankly I was surprised how quickly I fell back on the saddle.  I spent a lot of time watching Dave Smart the coach whose animated coaching style made basketball games during my four years at Carleton that much more entertaining.

OTTAWA, Ont (19/1/13) – Carleton Raven’s head coach Dave Smart reacts to a play by guard Carleton Gavin Resch during a game in Ottawa, Ontario on January 19. Despite Smart’s dramatic reaction to his teams defensive plays Carleton defeated the Queen’s University Golden Gaels 104 – 63. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

That brings me all the way to the week following my last blog post, when Idle No More was still headed off at full steam.  There had been a day of action the previous week with thousands of people in the streets and a historic meeting between Indigenous peoples, the Crown and the State.  That was followed up with the promise of a day of action and that the next Wednesday blockades would happen all across Canada.

There is a Mohawk reserve, Tyendinaga, near Belleville, it’s where I get my gas (avg $1.20/L) and it is also the location of a CP/CN rail line intersection.  I found the whole situation immensely interesting.  As photographers and journalists we spent the day trying to figure out where and when this would happen.  When we found out where the blockade was we had to walk through back woods trails to get to the intersection.  A few falls, bruises and cold, wet feet later we found the blockade, although they were absolutely not happy that we were on their land taking pictures.

This is where I found the situation more interesting, technically the rail lines are federal property, but they run through a reserve.  In this case the rail line carries Via passengers from Toronto to Montreal and is a pretty important one, but I understand why the police mostly stood back and watched.  As it was the protestors hung around for a few hours and made their point, which was that they have the power to do this, then left and things continued on.

TYENDINAGA, Ont. (1/16/13) – A Mohawk from Tyendinaga Ontario crosses a Canadian National Rail track, above him the Mohawk warrior flag and the flag of the Iroquois Confederacy fly over a Canadian Pacific track, both tracks were blockaded for several hours on January 16 by Idle No More Protestors as part of a day of action. This reserve in Eastern Ontario is one of the few places in Canada where both CN and CP rail lines intersect it impacted freight transit and delayed Via Rail passenger Trains on the Toronto-Montreal corridor for several hours. (Photo: Adam Dietrich)

As I mentioned March will be a busy month and April will be a lot of wrpping up.  For my part though it was nice to have a few days at least to check out mentally and play Civ, but I think those days are past time to get back to work.

Adam

Viva Bellevegas!

Goodbye Guelph – Hello Belleville, home of Loyalist College and it’s renowned photojournalism program.  My new base of operations, so to speak.

I’m going to work chronologically backwards to my last post and start with some pictures I shot this past Friday in Ottawa during the Idle No More protests surrounding the meetings between First Nations chiefs and the heads of Canada’s government and state.  The protest brought what seemed like thousands of First Nation’s people into the streets of Ottawa, as well as cities around the country, to protest the government, Bill-C45 and many other grievances.

Ottawa, Ontario – A demonstrator stands in front of the main entrance to the Prime Minister’s Office, singing while holding the flag of British Columbia. The protest, part of the ‘Idle No More’ movement, marched down Wellington street then peacefully surrounded the PMO before ending at Parliament hill.

I loved the picture above, until I found out another Loyalist student in second year took the EXACT same shot.  So I’ll have to get more creative next time.

Ottawa, Ontario – A demonstrator adjusts his mask during an ‘Idle No More’ protest on January 11. The protest coincided with a working meeting between some First Nation’s chief’s and a ceremonial meeting with the Governor General.

This next picture I’m uncertain about, I think it looks cool, but a lot of it is just optical fanciness.  The lens has a minimum f stop of 1.4.  In laymen’s terms the lens has the ability to make an area the width of a coin appear sharp as a tack while blurring everything else almost past recognition.  In this case I did this to draw attention to the demonstrators hair.  Because we were in a crowd it was hard to make the hair prominent whilst making the crowd part of the background, so I used the lens wide open.  It worked, but like I said I’m uncertain.

Ottawa, Ontario – Demonstrators gather to listen to speeches in front of Parliament on January 11. The protest coincided with a working meeting between some First Nation’s chief’s and a ceremonial meeting with the Governor General.

The weekend before my friend and I travelled to Theresa Spence’s camp, she’s the Attawapiskat chief who has been fasting, consuming only tea and fish broth for the last month.  The island itself is located in the Ottawa River between Gatineau and Ottawa.  The symbology is perfect because the island is pretty much literally in the shadow of parliament.

Ottawa, Ontario – An indigenous youth looks on as Karl Keeshig, a civil servant with Aboriginal Affairs and a supporter of Idle No More, speaks to supporters outside the tent of Chief Theresa Spence on January 6, 2012.

So we took photos from around the camp and some of the happenings while we were there.

Ottawa, Ontario – Fred McGregor from Kitigan-zibi Anisinaeg First Nation near Maniwaki Quebec passes a bowl of tobacco during a ceremony at Chief Theresa Spence’s camp on Victoria Island in Ottawa on January 6, 2012. The tobacco was collected in a bowl and burned as a prayer.

I wasn’t able to get a picture of her though.  The supporters in the camp were very welcoming, but we were told we could not take pictures near the sacred fire.  Spence was on the other side of this fire flanked by tarps and wind blinds.  There was no way to get a picture without being immediately removed by some angry supporter, and it would have been grossly disrespectful.

While Idle No More has largely been my focus since I got to Belleville, in the month before coming to school I had been fascinated by the growing teacher’s unrest.  In Guelph in early December Elementary teachers staged a one-day walkout as part of a series of province-wide one-day strikes to protest new legislation, which would eliminate their right to strike and other collective bargaining rights.

Guelph, Ontario – Lisa MacPherson, a kindergarten teacher at Sir Isaack Brock Elementary school, shares a laugh with colleagues on the picket line. MacPherson is one of the many Guelph elementary teachers who picketed the constituency office of MPP Liz Sandals, during a one day strike on December 14.

In the days leading up to the strike I emailed several news outlets to say I would be there, looking to see if there was any interest.  I received an email from the Canadian Press while I was at the event asking if I could call when I had photos.  After working at top speed, I rushed home, the nearest source of Internet, and started editing.  The photos were filed by noon and by 2pm I was elbow deep in dish water at the café I was working at.  The universe raises up and casts down.

Guelph, Ontario – Elementary school teachers from Guelph picketed the constituency office of MPP Liz Sandals during a one day strike on Friday December 14.

My pictures ran briefly on the Guelph Mercury’s website, as well as in print and online with the Toronto Star and online with CTV.  It was my second time selling pictures to a wire and reminded me why this is where I want to work some day.  It’s so exciting to send in your pics, then wait and watch where they appear and in some cases where they don’t.

Guelph, Ontario – Picketers pass by the constituency office of MPP LIz Sandals during a one day strike on December 14. The strike is part of a series of rolling strikes around the province to protest changes in legislation which the teachers say will limit their bargaining rights.

Prior to December though, I wasn’t doing a whole lot.  Some personal stuff and some commercial stuff.  But I was mostly saving money for school and taking it easy.  I did finally process the remaining rolls of film I had from Costa Rica.  There is still one more stage though, I need to actually print pictures from the negatives.  I finally got a hold of the remaining printing equipment I needed, thanks to the generosity of my aunt’s dad.  However, when I moved to Belleville I brought the equipment, but forgot the negatives.

This photo is a a digital picture of my negative. I literally handheld the neg in front of a light and photographed it with my digital camera held in the other hand. This is a church in Nicaragua, photographed during my short visit there at the beginning of June 2012. corrected it in photoshop.

Needless to say if a crude scanning method looks like this I REALLY want to print them soon.

‘Scanned’ using the same method as the previous photo, this is actually in Ottawa, during a visit after I got back in August 2012.

SO from this point forward my posts will focus on my progress through Loyalist College’s photojournalism program.  That should mean I’m shooting a lot more and have more to post.  What’s exciting for me is it gives me the chance to return to some of my old haunts in Ottawa, like this weekend for example.  Hopefully I’ll be able to shoot some sports at Carleton.

Until the next post.

Adam Dietrich

P.S. To the staff at With the Grain, thank you for making this fall way better than it might have been.  A definably crappy job was made much, much better because of you guys, dishwashing was never so good, so thanks… a lot.

Back at work

So it’s been well over a month since my last post.  Whoops?

Frankly since this blog is mostly about me I’ve been waiting until I had some interesting pictures to share.  My main focus over the last month has been finding work.  It’s been a pretty decent month, albeit low key.

First off though I want to show some pictures from Nosara.  Since being back I’m now slowly working my way through the unprocessed film I have.  While there I used two rolls of Fujichrome 100F.  It’s a beautiful daylight slide film and it worked pretty well in combination with my antique Baldex.

The film was processed by a place in Ottawa, Labworks, where I’ve been going for years.  They have a great deal too on 120 prints; one processed roll plus a set of 5×5 prints for about $12.  Since I don’t have a medium format film scanner I scanned the prints and at 2400dpi it managed resolutions at 6000px x 6000px.  Which is higher resolution than my 5D mkII.  Not bad for a 65 year old camera…

A selfie using the timer on the Baldex, this was taken at Playa Nosara, near the river mouth.

Slide film doesn’t have a lot of latitude.  You either get the exposure or you don’t, which made shooting with it much more difficult because I had no lightmeter… so I guessed most of the exposures, using some basic photography principles like ‘sunny f/16,’ and some basic math.  However, the following two were a little overexposed and pulling down the exposure using modern editing techniques did some cool things to the colour.

Guiones beach at sunset, a scan of a print made from a 120 Provia slide.

This one from when Yamina (girlfriend) came to visit me the second time in May.

Yamina stepping off some rocks at Playa San Juanillo, about 20km north of Nosara.

So I’ve been trying to keep busy and keep some of the momentum gained from school and Nosara as I continue through the fall.  I am slated to start at Loyalist College’s Photojournalism program in January 2013 but that’s a few months away.

School went back two weeks ago and though I wasn’t there, my good friend was, and I’ve been receiving reports on the program and what to expect.  Including some of the assignments.  Each week there is a photo assignment where you have to do something specific.  In abstentia I’m going to try to do as many as I can.

The first one was to take a picture of an interesting person, who is not a friend, family member or member of the Loyalist community.  It took a day or two to set up the interview, but I ended up doing a photo of the dude who repaired my cellphone a few weeks ago.  He has a unique operation run out of his apartment.  So I showed up and photographed/interviewed him while he worked on a clients iPhone.

Roun Gew, aged 30, came to Canada from the Sudan in 1990. For the last 10 years he has repaired computers in Guelph, Ontario and for the last year he has repaired cellphones which he said now brings in the bulk of his income. He learned how to repair phones by watching Youtube videos. In this picture he is dismantling an iPhone 3Gs which had been water damaged. The blue line attached to his wrist keeps him grounded and prohibits electronic shock during repairs.

Photography has not been my main pursuit recently though, finding a job has been.  I succeeded in finding a job as a full-time dishwasher at a restaurant/café around the corner from my house called With the Grain.  I also got a job as a nightclub photographer for Guelph nightlife promoters Freshmedia.  Tonight is my first night with them and it will be at the Vinyl (always the Trasheteria in my heart) and Friday and Saturday will be at the Loft.

However, whilst job searching in August I had a pretty fun time running around Ontario.  I went to My dad’s cottage in Huntsville, stayed with my girlfriends family in Ottawa, saw some old friends and spent a day wandering Toronto before landing back in Guelph.

In Toronto I took a lot of pictures of the CN Tower…  I haven’t actually tried to photograph the CN Tower since I got into photography, so it seemed like a good idea.  But I was trying to find something unique and I think I did beyond just a tourist shot.

Edge walkers leaning over the edge of the CN Tower’s observation deck. I really wanna do this some time.

Toronto has a lot of Pigeons and there were a lot in the park near Kensington where Yamina and I ate lunch, I spent more time than I should have trying to photograph the nearby scavengers…

A flying rat! Dunno why I felt this needed inclusion, I guess I thought it was a nice look at an ugly animal.

To get there we took the GO Train from Guelph to Toronto, which meant an early morning, by the time we arrived in Toronto I needed coffee.  So we stopped at this place on Queen St West.  It looked like grunge and dirt was the theme of the place….

In a bathroom at a coffeeshop/bar on Queen St. west. I think they were intentionally going for the, ‘grungy as hell,’ look.

Over the Labour Day weekend I had the opportunity to go to my dad’s cottage on Cowan Lake near Huntsville.  There are great sunsets and glass-like water.  I spent most of the weekend sitting on a dock drinking beer.

Cowan Lake near Huntsville, Ontario. The morning calm, not a wave on the water.

Also hung out with this wonderful lady.

Yamina, again, this time as the intrepid explorer.

See what I mean?  Great sunsets…

Cowan Lake at my dad’s cottage near Huntsville, Ontario at sunset.

So that about sets the tone for the next few months here.  I’m trying to work as many hours as I can in anticipation of school, and keep from falling behind.  This week we need to make three pictures, all themed around motion: one using a panning motion, one freezing motion and one blurring motion.  So this Sunday I think I will pop over to the University of Guelph for some sports.

I’ve also been looking for assistant work in Guelph and have had some minor luck.  I photographed a wedding with Trina Koster Photography on August 11, pictures are here and I assisted Ross David-Pilon from studio 404 during a commercial shoot with the Brampton Arts Council as an onsite editor.  I’ll tease my new wedding post with one picture below.

The happy couple.

Autumn must really be coming and for the first time since January it actually feels cold…

Paz siempre,

Adam Dietrich

Back In Canada

I am back from Costa Rica.  I left Canada on the 16^th of January for Costa Rica and I returned on the 25^th of July.  I flew through Houston into Toronto and cleared security sometime just before midnight.

Back in the Royal City, as it’s called. It’s not a huge sprawling metropolis, but compared with Nosara, it might as well be.

One of the biggest changes coming back, is that I am no longer living in Ottawa.  Frankly I have no reason too.  I went there for university and I finished that shortly before leaving.   I will be going back to school in January at Loyalist College for Photojournalism, but until then I will be in Guelph.  Hopefully I will be able to find some work in photography while I’m here otherwise… waiting tables?

Needless to say emails are going out today and tomorrow, to let people know, I’m here and I can do photography.

However, this post is going to recap my final days in Costa Rica.

I was at the Caribbean!

Does a picture of a Caribbean beach get more stereotypical?

I mentioned the hostel I was staying in my last post, as a somewhat unique place, and not for good reasons necessarily.  One of the drawbacks was that the beach in front of the hostel was rocky and kind of sucked.  However, I had been told that about a 20 minute walk away was a nice sand beach, and there was so I spent a few hours there.

A sand crab; these guys were all over but really skiddish, as soon as you stood up they would hide back in their holes.

There was also a small island off the coast that reminded me Jurassic Park…

I’m pretty certain that’s Ilsa Sorna. I also had the opportunity to talk to some Tico’s who had seen Jurassic Park, they didn’t like that San Jose was portrayed as a small beachside town, when it’s a) huge, b) several hours from the nearest beach and c) surrounded by mountains…

More interesting than another white sand beach (I know I was spoiled) were the jungle paths.  The jungle basically pushed right up to the beach and there were some cool paths to some deserted places I went along.

One of those paths led up to a cliff with a sheer drop 50m into the ocean.  It was a dramatic place to sit and read for a while, although one that required caution while climbing around.

Nice spot to sit and read for a little while.

On the 24^th I packed up my stuff and set out into the rain. It had been pouring that morning but had slowed to a light drizzle around 10am when I left.  I boarded a bus to San Jose and 5 hours later I was back in the big city.

I made my way 20 blocks across town with my backpack and found myself back at Galileo Hostel, the place where this had all began, so to speak.  I stayed there for two nights when I first arrived and had nothing but nice memories of the place.  Sure enough the experience was about the same this time around.

Self-portrait in the same place where I wrote my first blog entry in Costa Rica some six-months ago.

I spent the evening at the hostel bar, chatting with other people staying there.  It was a little strange.  As the night wore on, I was tired and wanted to sleep, but at the same time sleeping meant I would wake up, and waking up meant it would be over.  I didn’t want it to be over.

The next morning while waiting to depart for the airport I took some pictures of a map they had spread out on a table at the hostel.

Just a few small points on a map…

I decided to do an overhead shot and then I put the map photo into Photoshop and used the paint tool to circle all the places I was, and the roads I traveled to get there.

Magenta is where I went, circles are places I stayed.

Considering I was just there to be in Nosara I think I got some pretty decent travelling around in as well.

Three hours later I was in the air to Houston, Texas.

My final glimpse of San Jose and one of the last moments on Costa Rica soil just before take off.

Here is a short video I took out the airplane window of our take off, and my final glimpses of Costa Rica.  I think the best part is the commentary from the four-year old sitting next to me.

I’m gonna miss Costa Rica.  In my list of places to visit in my life, frankly Costa Rica wasn’t on it.  I only went because the Voice of Nosara offered me an amazing opportunity.  As I look back over previous travels though there seems to be a pattern of ending up in places I never intended to visit, which I then grow to love.

I hope I’ll be able to return someday soon.  Financially speaking I should be able to, it’s almost cheaper to fly to San Jose from Toronto than it is to fly to Vancouver.  And now West Jet is flying regularly to Liberia, Guanacaste.

Until then it’s time to hit the ground running.  Photojournalism is an intensely competitive industry and I’m going into Loyalist with experience and a competitive advantage, the next two years are going to be fun.

Paz Siempre,

Adam Dietrich

P.S. To the regular blog followers who I haven’t met, glad you’ve enjoyed reading, hopefully I will be able to keep this interesting as time goes forward.

P.P.S To those at Voice of Nosara and the people of Nosara in general, thank you very much for everything over the six-months.  Thank you very much.

Retirement

It’s done.  Gio is working for Voice of Nosara and I am on the Caribbean coast one the other side of the country.

Gio and I went out to shoot sunset on the 19th, my second last in Nosara. That’s Gio putting the tripod to good use. The photos from the last sunset were taken on a roll of Provia I had been saving and will have to be developed when I get home.

My last few days were an odd mix of nostalgia, excitement, limited sleep and booze.  I tried to pass on everything I’d learned in six-months to my replacement Gio and at the same time we spent each night drinking and getting to know each other.  It’s funny, though we’d never met we know many of the same people back home.  To give you and idea of how small the photojournalism community in Canada is.

Gio on January 17th at Playa Guiones after his first full day in Nosara.

My trip here was epic, and started when Gio drove me from the Voice of Nosara office, where I’ve lived for the last six-months to a friends house a few kilometers down the road where I was spending the last night.  I had a bag with me and he had his gear bag so I had to sit on the luggage rack and face backwards.  I watched Playa Guiones and all the places I’ve come to know so well fade into the night as we sped away.  It seemed like the most appropriate metaphor.

My last assignment was to photograph an art class at a pre-school for a story on the creative teaching methods they have. I figured the best way to show the uniqueness of what each kid was painting was from this angle.

Saturday morning was early.  I didn’t get to sleep until about 12:30 and I had to be up at 4:30 to meet the bus in time, shortly after 5am.  Tired and nursing a small hangover I set out for Nicoya, then San Jose.  When I arrived in San Jose I realized the last time I had been there had been in late February to meet my girlfriend Yamina at the airport when she arrived for her first visit.  It was only five months ago but it feels like a lifetime ago.

An abandoned barge at Playa Negra, near Puerto Viejo de Talamanca. It’s called Playa Negra because of the black sand that makes up the beach.

I transferred bus stations, the Caribbean bus station was about eight blocks away, had some lunch and boarded the final bus to Puerto Viejo de Talamanca in Costa Rica’s eastern-most province.  I arrived shortly after 7pm and took a taxi to Rockin’ J’s hostel, which is sort of like a warehouse of drunk tourists.  I plan to take it easy and enjoy the chill vibe during the day though.  I’m on a very tight budget now.

The entrance features a mosaic serpent. These gaudy mosaic works were all over and sort of reminded me of Barcelona.

In addition to the standard dorm or private options, this place lets you rent a tent or pitch your own.

The tent section of the backpackers warehouse called Rockin’ J’s (yes it’s the dumbest name ever).

They also let you rent hammocks or hang your own.  Aside from camping with your own tent or hammock renting a hammock is the next cheapest option, so I jumped on it.

The hammock section, mine is the seventh in on the right (blue) I also got a lock box big enough for all my stuff for $7 a night.

The different warehouses border a central courtyard which is nice and relaxed

The central field with the hammock warehouse i’m staying in on the right. The beach is about 20m to the left.

Did I mention the gaudy mosaics?

More gaudy mosaics, this time the entrance to the main hostel from the ‘garden,’ which is really just an empty field with some more mosaics.

The next photo was taken just inside this entrance.

Inside the warehouse, some dining tables, and… More Mosaics.

Before I went east everyone told me the Caribbean was a very different place from the west-coast.  I’ve been here less than 24 hours and already know they’re right.

A local fishing in the Caribbean. One thing that jumps out here is the the Creole slang worked into the local Spanish and the black people. I think Nosara had two, maybe three. Here though slaves who fled Jamaica found a new home and make up, what I estimate to be, about half the local population.

When I said, ‘warehouse for drunk tourists,’ I meant all of it.  I woke up around 9am and walked to my locker where two girls were drinking a litre of wine, their conversation was mostly about how they’d been drunk all day the day before too.  I left  for an hour to buy groceries and when I came back they were gone, but the empty bottle (which had been full) was still there.  Then I went to the beach.

Passed out or just a mid-morning nap? The beach outside the hostel, not quite as nice as Playa Guiones. Also the tide here seems to be a little more constant, I’m thinking that’s because of the shelter created by the Caribbean? But I’m not sure.

I miss Nosara already, the people, the place and the beauty.  I haven’t travelled a whole lot around Costa Rica, but every place I have been to palls in comparison.  Still I am excited to be coming home, though not excited to be coming home broke and in debt.  However, with five months in Guelph before I need to go back to school hopefully I can save up some coin and make a dent in the debt.

Ultimately it was totally worth it though.  And I know I’ve left the paper in good hands with Gio there, if you want to keep up with his travels in Nosara check out his blog.

On Tuesday I will catch a bus back to San Jose I hope to stay in the same hostel I stayed in during my first two nights in Costa Rica back in January.  Then on Wednesday I’ll taxi or bus to the airport and leave for Canada.

Until then I’m going to take it easy on the east-coast, where reggae pours out of every bar, black guys with dreadlocks cruise through town on beach bikes and every other place sells Caribbean style fried chicken.  Not a bad place for my retirement from Voice of Nosara.

Me typing this blog post, it’s been a while since I was blogging from a new interesting location, I think the last time I did this picture was when I first arrived in Nosara. The Caribbean is about 15m behind me.

Paz  siempre,

Adam Dietrich

Beginning of the End

It’s the final stretch for me in Nosara now.  A week from now I plan to be in the Caribbean town of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, in the eastern province of Límon.  Until then I’m finishing up a few final stories and assignments and rounding out the things I wanted to do here.

So, last weekend I finally got to Samara, some 25km from Playa Guiones where I live, I left Friday night and returned Sunday.  Without a functioning quad I had to take the bus though, which requires going about 30km out of the way and transferring buses.

Nicoya’s west-coast playground.

I stayed at a place called Las Mariposas.  Their dorms, at $15 a night, were expensive for Central America but affordable for Samara.  The place was nice and the people were good.

Overall I prefer Nosara, the big thing is the beach.  Samara’s is crowded and the sun doesn’t set over the ocean.  From Guiones to Ostional, 6km north, there is a turtle refuge for the Olive Ridley sea turtles who lay their eggs there.  So there is very little beachside development, save for a handful of lots who have concessions from the government.

Samara beach in low season, way more crowded and developed compared to Guiones.

I also saw the biggest land crab I’ve seen yet.  It crawled into the hostel grounds and ended up trapped in a case of empty beer bottles.  We tried to help it free but it freaked out, fell down and ran off.

The crab that wandered into the hostel.

He was big enough to arract the attention of people walking by.

This must have been a big crab. These people were walking ouside the hostel and stopped to take pictures.

Sunday morning I was up at 5:45am to meet one of the editors.  When I told her I was going to Samara, she asked if I could come on a finca tour Sunday morning to take pictures for an article she’s working on for next print issue.  Samara is close enough to Nosara that we cover events there too.

A finca is a plantation basically, as well as a colonial status symbol brought over by the Spanish, they exist all across Latin America.  In this case this one is overgrown, with some small-scale logging.  The owners, who bought it a few years ago, want to use the jungle space they have as an eco tour business.

So we were given a short version of the tour and walked for two hours, mostly through a river because they haven’t cut many trails.  We saw lots of cool stuff, but there was only one pictures I really liked.

A Golden silk orb-weaver spider in the morning sun. When they feel disturbed, for example by a photographer, they curl up defensively.

Rewinding a little bit, earlier that week on July 4^th I helped shoot another wedding.  I’m not really going to post pics here though.  Instead i’ve made some site changes, the navigation bar at the top now links to my twitter account, my new facebook page, and two new blogs I set up and linked here, portfolios and weddings.

Check them out they’re part of my effort to expand my online presence and commercial photography business.  However, I will include one picture from my most recent wedding, it’s not in the album on my weddings page though.  It’s what I would call wedding B-roll, but I really like this photo.

One of the groomsmen listening to instructions from the main photographer. When we found the groom he and his friends were chilling in the pool with some beers. Not a bad wedding pre-party.

Paz siempre,

Adam Dietrich

Un Junio Tranquilo

It is July, that means I’m now in my final month here in Nosara.  It’s prompted a few interesting reflections, some I will share now, others I will have to think about a bit more.  One thing I know is I will miss this place, maybe not right away, but at some point down the road I know I will.  Below is part of the reason why, I haven’t used high dynamic range editing in more than a year, but Monday’s sunset prompted one.  This is me on top of a ridge separating playas Guiones and Pelada.

There’s a narrow ridge that separates Playa Guiones from Playa Pelada, it’s a little vertigo inducing, about 50m high with sheer drops. This is also the first HDR picture I’ve down in a while. It’s actually comprised of three stacked pictures, which expose lights, darks and mid-tones in high contrast scenes. it’s usually frowned upon in photojournalism because it requires stacking three different pictures from three different times but this was just for fun.

What’s more my replacement is picked, a guy named Giordano Ciampini, he’s leaving Canada on July 5^th and wisely getting some pre-internship travel in.  For the last little while he’s been based out of Toronto as a freelancer, he also graduated from the same program at Loyalist I’m going into, and last year he was in Egypt during the revolution under his own steam.  He has a tumblr here with some cool stuff for those interested.

Before I go though I have a list with some unfinished things and unexplored places.  Off the top of my head, the town of Samara, 35km away and playa Rosada, a pink sand beach only really accessible during low-tide.  More importantly as I look back over the last six-months I realize I got what I needed from this experience.

My Spanish, though still rough, has improved dramatically, I’m still limited in my own vocabulary but I seem to understand around 80% of what is said at a regular speaking pace.  My portfolio is now more than half comprised of photos from Nosara.  I’ve gone from being a terrible writer to a passable one, and pitched stories that landed on cover.  In a few cases I produced features which required, video, photos and text.  While there is still time to do more, I’m happy with the way things have gone.

Conveniently too I have been hired as an assistant for two weddings here.  I say convenient because I have been looking towards what I’ll do from August to January in Guelph, and frankly I’m hoping to do some weddings.  However, my wedding portfolio was sorely lacking, so the two here have given me an opportunity to step up that part of my game.

I like wedding photography, for different reasons than journalism.  Weddings are generally happy days, people are usually looking their best and want you to take their pictures, creativity is a must, if you’re not trying something new each time you’re not really trying, I feel.

Nosara is a great place for a wedding too, on the beach with the setting sun.  Here’s a few samples from last Wednesday, the next one is tomorrow night.  I’ll be putting up a new blog for wedding stuff soon, and a Facebook page, which will have more samples.

The classic prep shot, framed through a mirror.

Fun with reflections in tidal pools.

Getting in close, they asked for a picture that featured that red dot in a visible way, this seemed like the best option.

The wedding planner had these sky lanterns, a Thai tradition, that were lit and let off into the sky.

The next day the newspaper got a call from someone asking about floating lights over Guiones, also one of my friends caught one when it landed near his house, he wasn’t sure what it was so he kept it.

In terms of assignments, it has been a slow month and none of them have really been great for pictures.  I’ve also done a lot more writing this month and I’ve been playing around with video more.

I’ve been hoping to do a video on what it’s like to drive in Nosara – beautiful views, jungle, choking dust, mud, 2ft deep pot-holes, the pacific etc. I figured the easiest way was to drive from north of town to the beaches, through different neighborhoods on a quad with my camera straped to my chest for a POV video.

Problem is the quad keeps breaking so I haven’t had a chance…  But a few weeks ago on a quiet day I decided to test my, ‘camera-mounting system,’ which is a belt and a carabiner and go for a test-drive.  I wondered if the sped up video would work and if the POV would work or if it would be too shaky.  I feel like it worked, although some minor adjustments need to be made and once the quad is functioning again I can do the actual drive.

And for those of you who have five5 minutes and want to see the slower and thus more scenic tour.

I also played around with stop motion animation for a feature on coffee.  Basically I boiled water and set up a cup, a cloth coffee filter, which is how the Tico’s brew their coffee, and my camera on a tripod.  I used the cable release, and put the running lock on, once the 5D hit its buffer it shot roughly 1.5 frames per second at a consistent rate for as long as I neeeded, then I started brewing coffee.  After I used iMoive (I need to graduate to Final Cut) stacked the pics (120 in total) and set the view time for .2 seconds each.  It could probably also be made into a .gif…

I’ll also include a few pictures from my trip to the coffee farms.  Earlier in June I went into the mountains in Nicoya to visit two coffee farms with a writer, it was a really fun day of sightseeing for me.  Unfortunately coffee season is not now, so both the farms were empty and dormant, the coffee plants won’t flower until around November-December.  In both cases we were toured around an empty farm, it was still interesting but a lot harder to make pictures of the farms…  The full feature is coming out later this week in print and sometime shortly after online I think.

Wilberth Rom‡an, the Manager of the coffee co-op Coopepilangosta, stands in front of the co-op gate with a juvenile coffee plant on June 8. The co-op is located in Hojancha in the canton of Nicoya and produces both organic and non-organic fair-trade coffee. The gate behind him reads, ‘Benefit Matambu’ and is an homage to the indigenous Matambu whose land the co-op is on.

A view of the mountains near Los Angeles de Nandayure in southern Nicoya on June 8. Beyond the last mountain is the Gulf of Nicoya. The topography here is very different from Nosara and the climate is cooler and damper.

Daniel Chaves, the administrator at Coopecerroazul in Los Angeles de Nandayure talks with Voice of Nosara reporter Wilberth Villalobos Castrillo during a tour of the farm on June 8. The Silo’s are used to store coffee which has been dried but not yet roasted or packaged. Because June is not during harvest time the silo’s are empty, and cleaned.

This past Friday I was hired to shoot a graduation ceremony at Blue Spirit.  The Blue Spirit centre is a Yoga training fortress, situated on a mountain overlooking Playa Guiones, protected by guards, razor-wire and walls.  The Yoga monks inside are quite nice though, it’s an interesting community they have there.  While I was in their studio I was able to see over the tree-line to Playa Guiones from a height I haven’t before, it was pretty cool.

The view of Playa Guiones from Blue Spirit’s yoga studio. The tip at the end is where the ridge from the first photo is. The beach break is a few kilometres long.

I was hired to shoot a group photo of all 70 students, I’ve never shot a group photo that big before, but they had a ladder.  They also wanted a portrait of each student with their teachers and certificates during the ceremony.  I used a portrait lens and a flash to fill them in and with my remote trigger and a tripod, it was like a factory line.

After the ceremony though, the students had a presentation that they’d prepared.  It involved a lot of kow towing, rhythmic dancing and flowing white dresses.  I wasn’t hired to shoot this part, but I did, cause it was kind of cool.  I wanted to be more unobtrusive though, so I tried to use a slower shutter and very narrow focus to do it with the limited natural light.  I think it kind worked.

The Blue Spirit people were very friendly, and the facility is absolutely beautiful.  Plus they let me eat at their buffet… I was stuffed I had 4 plates I think, there was a random mix or American, European and Tico food so for example, rice, beans, French bread with guacamole and peanut butter.

So coming up is another wedding tomorrow, I’m planning on heading to Samara for the weekend, and hopefully next week there will be an Arribada in Ostional, it might require a late night and early morning but I want to shoot one sooooo bad.

For now though this is it.

Peace,

Adam Dietrich

La Segunda Vez: Nicaragua

Ok, I wanna start this post with a picture, pulled from near the end of this very wordy post, of a red-eyed tree frog.  Why?  It’s cute.

The red-eyed tree frog is native to the rain forests of Central America, it’s not poisonous nor endangered though it is considered threatened. They come out at night to hunt and in this case wandered into the hostel reception area.

What a week it’s been.  When I posted last it was the eve of my tri-monthly departure from Nosara, colloquially referred to as a ‘visa-run.’  Basically every three months Costa Rica demands those here on tourist visas leave for 72 hours, I assume to ponder whether you want to return or not…

I left Nosara on June 1^st for Nicoya, the capital of the canton, similar to a municipality, which Nosara is in.  I briefly stopped at the bank, if you call an hour to get a cheque cashed ‘brief,’ and then was on my way to Liberia, capital of the province of Guanacaste where Nosara and Nicoya are located.  It was my stopping point for the night.

My hotel in Liberia, also where the bus to Nicaragua met me. No, not an Instagram photo, rather a Blackberry rip off called ‘Pixtrix.’ What’s more hipster than Instagram? Not-Instagram, that does the same thing.

The last time I went to Nicaragua to renew my visa I had trouble re-entering Costa Rica.  The Tico’s required proof of onward travel in the next three months or they refused to grant a visa.  Trapped in limbo between Nicaragua and Costa Rica I had no choice but to buy and international bus ticket from one of the reps wandering around, likely for this exact situation, I purchased a direct bus from San Jose to Managua good for one year.

I had this ticket lying around so I figured I would use it, but meeting the bus en route in Liberia is easier then going all the way to San Jose.  Leaving from the country’s capital would require six hours busing to San Jose, an overnight then it would be five more hours before the bus passed through Liberia, or I could travel the four hours from Nosara to Liberia, stay over night and meet the bus there, saving at least seven hours of my life.

My bus to Nicaragua parked at the border. I love the rainbow, although it’s missing a unicorn.

Crossing the border was a bigger pain in the ass on an international bus than using local buses and walking across, as everyone’s visa has to be processed then everyone’s bag had to be searched by a border guard who put no effort into it.  After two hours of slowly stepping over an invisible dotted line in the sand we were on our way.

However, I didn’t want to go to Managua, I wanted to return to the pueblo of Poste Rojo and the little treehouse hostel near it.  The route from the border to the capital of Nicaragua doesn’t bring me to Poste Rojo, it splits and one road goes to Granada, the other Managua.  The bus stopped and I jumped out and it drove off.  I found myself in a little town called Nandaime on the side of the Pan-American Highway.  I waited at the side of a dusty road, soliciting stares from the people waiting for a bus with me.

After about ten minutes a local bus, occasionally called a chicken bus because in Honduras campesinos are known to transport chickens in them, arrived.  It was in reality a brightly painted recycled school bus from North America, mine was a Bluebird, with the logo painted acid green and the bus painted black.

The bus was headed to Granada, on the shores of Lake Nicaragua, I asked it to drop me at Poste Rojo and began the exhausting 200 metre climb to reception, it’s almost completely vertical.  An hour later I was watching the sun dip over the jungle while tree frogs and howler monkey’s made noise, sipping a beer, reading whilst swinging in a hammock.  I did that all next day too, lazy Sunday.

Monday I realized I was leaving Tuesday so I figured I would head into town, I hadn’t yet been to Granada.  It’s the capital of the province of Granada in Nicaragua’s southeast; it’s on the shores of Lake Nicaragua, the biggest lake in Central America.  The lake was of strategic importance for the Spanish colonizers because of a small navigable river that connects Lake Nicaragua to the Caribbean.  It made for an excellent inland bay to load up treasure ships safely with stolen gold from the Maya and Aztec in the north and the Inca in the south.

Main st. Granada. Although a little tired looking now, Granada was once a jewel in Spanish Central America. It was modelled after the city of Granada in southern Spain, as a result Granada, Nicaragua is an odd combination of Spanish architecture with Ottoman influences, and materials and tweaks from local influence. It’s a busy, busy place too.

~~~ here comes a political-historical deviation ~~~~

As a result of this historical strategic importance Granada is full of beautiful architecture.  Most big cities in Central America are somewhat devoid of ornate colonial architecture because it wasn’t a source of administrative importance or power for the Spanish unlike Lima, Buenos Aries or Caracas, which are littered with ornate architecture.  However, Granada’s relative importance warranted it a greater level of fancy buildings then I have seen elsewhere so far.

The irony of course is that the city is in terrible disrepair after decades of internecine war fueled by foreign powers.  The Somoza dictatorship and the successful Sandinista (FSLN) revolution was a proxy war for the cold war powers.  The FSLN is Marxist in its ideology although post-Somoza Nicaragua has found it’s own mix of socialism and religion.  One election poster I saw a lot read, “Nicaragua: Christianity, Socialism, Solidarity,” strange combination indeed.

The Cathedral of Granada looks out over a neighbourhood with Sandinista graffiti on the telephone poles. Granada was founded in the 1526 by Francisco Hern‡ndez de Co—rdoba, and is the oldest European city in Central America. It has been a major site in all of Nicaragua’s big historical events.

The FSLN is currently in power and they’ve steered Nicaragua in an interesting direction.  One could argue that the tired looking architecture in Granada is symptomatic of a lack of focus on development.  That’s just not true.  The fact is political leaders in Nicaragua are tasked with reversing a century of privilege and their priorities are elsewhere.

In the early 1900’s the US intervened in most Central American countries, as per their manifest destiny belief the US wanted a canal through Central America, originally they proposed building it in Nicaragua.  That plan failed and instead they supported Panamanian independence movements seeking separation from Colombia, the cost was a sovereign American strip through the country to build a canal and then they proceeded to pacify Panama’s neighboors.

One of the churches I wandered by, Iglesia Guadeloupe, is at the entrance to Granada from the lake. Construction began in 1626 and it was periodically used as fort to defend against pirate attacks. In 1856 William Walker, an American who tried to make himself president of Central America, and 18 troops were cornered inside by Nicaraguan troops, the encounter left pot marks in the church which weren’t fixed until the 1940′s.

In Costa Rica, it was political which lead to revolution in the 40’s and in Nicaragua it was political with a little direct military intervention to assist it.  Then in the 30’s they assisted in establishing Anastasio Somoza García as a ‘king’ of sorts.  Until 1979 he and his sons used Nicaragua as a personal bank account.  They pillaged all the public services, assassinated and tortured dissidents and pushed the campesinos into civil war.  The Sandinista’s, named for Augusto César Sandino a general who led a guerilla war against the US marines occupying Nicaragua in the 30’s and the government they were backing, beat out the Somoza dynasty in 1979.

For the next decade the US carried out a covert war using black ops ‘Contra’s,’ short for ‘contrarevolution’ or ‘counterrevolution’ in English.  Most of them were Nica’s trained by the US, although the Green Berets were also evident.  By 1987, after almost a century without democratic rule Nicaragua began the transition back, in 1990 Violeta Barrios de Chamorro was the first female elected head of government in the America’s.

Nicaragua is still recovering from decades of war, and whilst Costa Rica was allowed to spend all the time marketing themselves as a Central American heaven, Nicaragua was busy fighting for basic human rights.  Now Nicaragua is finally at a point where Costa Rica was in the 1950’s, but the Nica’s have big dreams.  The Sandinista government recently outlawed misogyny, while it is a hard law to enforce; especially with a poorly trained corrupt national police force (see earlier post) it’s a lofty goal.  One the rest of America could perhaps consider looking at.

A man walking by the municipal library, a much more modest looking building than the churches.

There are more concrete measures on the ground too.  However, restoring colonial edifices falls somewhere behind education for all, equality amongst class and sex, access to universal healthcare etc.  I would argue Granada is still beautiful, and more so when you realize that the tired old colonial buildings, actually means Nicaragua has their development priorities sorted out

~~~ and back to the regular post ~~~

Iglesia Merced, was built in the mid-1700′s. During independence from Spain it was burnt badly and the inside was gutted during the revolution. It’s dramatic on the outside though.

A brightly coloured barbershop in Granada.

My lunch in Granada, Gallo Pinto, a Central American staple or rice, beans, tortilla and meat, in this case chicken. This was Nica style with the rice and beans premixed. As well as a Ton–a, Nicaragua’s national beer, a fairly bland pilsner.

Buses waiting to depart from a bus station in Granada. In the background is Mt. Mombacho, a volcano and cloud forest on the edge of town.

I wandered around Granada, snapped some photos of the churches and city etc.  The cool thing was a photo that came about while I was waiting for my bus back to Poste Rojo.  I was taking a photo of a busy main street, afterwards I saw a guy rushing towards me shouting, “Chele! Chele! Sacar una foto de mi!” I confirmed with him that he wanted his picture taken, told him it was digital though so I couldn’t give it to him, he didn’t seem to mind.  I took the picture, showed him the back of the camera, he nodded saying it was good, I just had enough time to get his name before he ran off back to his day.

Jorge, I forget the rest of his name, I was unprepared to really get info out of him. But as mentioned a series of similar photos would be kind of cool.

It wasn’t the first guy who yelled at me to take a picture of them.  At first I didn’t know what to make of it, and I worried that maybe my camera was attracting some unwanted attention, so I spent most of the walking around time with it in my bag, only taking it out for a picture.  I now realize it was likely harmless.

When I got back to the hostel some Americans had checked in.  As the evening set in we were all chatting and I relayed my story, one of the girls, a fine arts student from California, suggested it might make a good project.  I suddenly wished I had a week or more to be in Granada, just walk around with a camera all day, wait till someone yells at you then take a portrait Sartorialist style and add in some basic personal info, name, age, occupation, dreams?

That night a red eye tree frog popped by in the hostel reception.  There was a little photo shoot.

One of the American’s I was hanging out with on the final night. Striking a fighting stance with a red-eyed tree frog on his hand…

The next morning I headed out, local bus to Rivas, then another to the border at Peñas Blancas, no border issues (I had my proof of onward travel this time), local bus to Liberia, local bus to Nicoya, wait for an hour and then local bus to Nosara.  All in: 12 hours travel time, four stopping points, two countries and five buses.

Since I returned back I have been settling back into things.  My final day of work is July 18, so that leaves me with a month and 11 days.  My successor is all but confirmed, once it is I’ll post here and link to their blog

I spent most of this morning dealing with the quad, now there are tire issues and battery issues, I wanna take a sledgehammer to it sometimes, but then I would be without transport.

Oh and my new (hahaha ‘new’) med format camera is working great.  I dragged it to Nicaragua and processed a few shots, I scanned them using a little DIY scanner I made a few weeks back.  I posted about the process here.  So yeah here are some pictures shot on Kodak Tmax film, some of us still buy Kodak products…

A photo of the bridge at the hostel which connects the main reception treehouse to the yoga platform.

Me, chilling in a hammock with some morning coffee before heading to Granada.

The Church of Nicoya in Nicoya, Costa Rica en route to Nicaragua. This church is the oldest in the province of Guanacaste having been built around 1644.

This month is shaping up to be good, so hopefully some interesting posts will happen down the road.

Until later,

Paz siempre

Adam Dietrich

El fin de Mayo

Nosara is a strange place sometimes.  Electrical brownouts are quite a common thing, all businesses have surge protectors designed to store power to keep desktop computers on during the brief flickers.  There have been the odd power outages too, for a few hours at a time, they usually occur during storms.  Last Tuesday in the middle of the day, under a blue sky the power suddenly cutout.  I wasn’t able to continue working so I went to the beach to pass the time until the power came back on.

A female Howler monkey and her baby.

As I got near the beach one of the real estate guys who works in the plaza near the beach saw me, “hey, got your camera with you?” he asked.  I looked where he was pointing and there was a dead Howler monkey hanging from a power transformer, here was the cause of the blackout.  I took some pictures, but what I found interesting was not the dead monkey, but the family of Howler monkey’s across the road who had gathered and were screaming.

A dead Howler monkey hangs from an electrical transformer in Playa Guiones.  The monkey grabbed an exposed part of wire with it’s tale, electrocuting itself to death.

An hour and a half later the monkey had fallen to the ground, it was several hours before the body was picked up.

It’s a common thing in Costa Rica, the monkey’s use power lines to cross roads and jungle, and if there is a hole in the rubber casing or they touch a transformer they’re either horribly mutilated or killed.  There are several organizations set up to rehabilitate the monkeys, in some cases they have built bridges over the lines.

A female Howler monkey carrying her baby makes her way across a power line on the other side of the road.

Although the dead monkey was sad, the gathered monkey’s mourning on the other side of the road gave me an excellent opportunity to get some nice pictures of this endangered species.

A mourning Holwer, howls across the road from where another was killed on a power line.

Last Friday was a somewhat busy day; I was supposed to go to Nicoya for the opening of a new music centre, although, because the bus was late I missed out, so I ended up not going Friday.  However, while waiting for the bus there were a bunch of mountain bikers who biked by.  They were part of a five-stage race across the province of Guanacaste; the third stage took them through Nosara.

A one armed mountain biker taking part in the Guanaride bike race, from Ciudad Blanca in Liberia to Playa Naranjo in Puntrenas, passes through Nosara on his way to Samara during the 3rd stage of the 248 mile race on May 25. There are five stages in total, one per day, from May 23-May 27, the third stage started in Playa Langosta and ended in Playa Samara, 68 miles down the coast, passing through Nosara.

The next week I went to Nicoya to follow-up on the opening and try to get a photo.  At first I was worried when I got there, it was just a big open, empty room, with some smaller rooms off to the side where kids were having music lessons.  I wandered around and was invited into a few of the lessons, one pair was completely cool with me photographing them during a practice session, so at least I came away with a few nice pictures.

Yogathan Madriz Berrios, professor of violin and viola an the Nicoya music school, instructs Laura Gomez Diaz, 18 from Hojancha during a viola class on May 28. In addition to the two practice rooms, storage room and massive performance space, the building also has a shaded patio in the back for lessons.

Finally there’s been a community reforestation project on the beach for the last few days.  From Sunday-Tuesday volunteers came out to plant trees, it was a follow-up to an event last year where they planted over 1000 trees… 80% died.  This year they only planted 310 and used different compost and planting methods, organizers hope that more will survive this year.

Christian Santamaria, a local surfer, passes a tree to be planted to a student from Del Mar Academy. On Tuesday May 29 35 students from Del Mar took part in the reforestation effort.

Student’s from Del Mar Academy sit with a tree ready for planting while they listen to instructions on how to properly plant the trees.

Local surfer Christian Santamaria leads a group of students from Del Mar Academy to the planting site in southern Guiones.

Students from Del Mar Academy plant a tree during near the cemetery on Playa Guiones during a reforestation effort.

So yeah, that’s the kind of week and half it’s been, tomorrow I head to Nicaragua, first I have to take a bus to Liberia, then I’ll stay there overnight and take a direct bus to Granada, Nicaragua.

I’ll end off with this picture taken by Surfing Nosara, they have photographers on the beach everyday taking pictures of people surfing in the hopes those people will buy those photos later.  Their photog was a little bored Tuesday morning I think, and he took a bunch of pictures of people planting trees, there was one where you can see me at work.

See if you can spot me…

Next post should have some pictures of my Nica-adventures.

Paz siempre,

Adam Dietrich