Into ‘Winter’

I haven’t seen blue sky in five days, we’re entering the edge of what locals here call ‘winter,’ which means rain. It looks like the clouds may be starting to break though, so hopefully…

I’m going to try something new with this blog post, rather than chronological order I’m going to start with my favorite photos and work down.  I should also make two notes, there are sunset photos near the end, for those who are followers of this blog you’ll note there are lots of sunset photos, you have been warned.  Secondly there will be a geeky final paragraph about some film stuff, if you don’t want to read a lot of technical film/photography jargon, then skip that too.

There were a lot of ‘firsts’ for Nosara this month, first mini-golf tournament, first charity race and first motocross race.  The motocross race on May 13 was cool, it was hosted in a field in the north part of town, and like most events here was low infrastructure.

I was able to wander all over and cross the track even during the race.  I’ve also always wanted to shoot motocross, so this was cool.  It was a loud muddy overcast affair, but I came away with some good clean pictures and had the chance to be creative.

Wicho, a rider in the rookie category flies past a lap marker during his race. Despite an earlier fall he tied for 7th out of 12 riders in his category.

Wicho falls off his bike after bumping with a rider in mid-air. There were no injuries and Wicho got back on the bike and finished 7th out of 12 for the day in his category, but held a position as 5th overall out of 20 riders because of points from previous rounds.

From left to right, Carlos, Wicho and Luis Diego follow each other over a jump during the rookie race at Nosara’s first motocross race on May 13.

I tried to slow the shutter here to keep the crowd sharp and the riders blurry.  I didn’t think to use a flash, second curtain sync would have given me the same picture with a slightly sharper view of the bike at the end of the blur, would’ve been cooler.

Riders land a jump in front of a crowd of onlookers perched on a hill near the start line.

A week and a half earlier there was a community outreach event.  A local hotel, provided dental services for school children from neighboring communities over two and half days.  Harmony Hotel has a community sustainability committee whose job is community outreach and development.

Dental access, like everything in Nosara, is limited.  Dentists from Nicoya visit once a month but their time is limited.  However, the university of Costa Rica’s dental program has an internship component.  Usually students fulfill this obligation by doing volunteer work in Costa Rica’s countryside.

Harmony Hotel’s sustainability committee contacted the university and offered to pay for transportation and accommodations for the dental students.  Several students and their prof showed up in the afternoon of May 2 and took over one of the hotel’s cabinas to use as an impromptu dental office then for the next two days then cleaned kids teeth and wrote referrals for anything serious.

A student from Garza’s school has his teeth cleaned in a Harmony Hotel room on May 4.

Saturday morning was a much-anticipated charity run through the jungle, I’ve been asked to write two preview articles for it to date.  There was both a 12k and a 5k race and the money went to charity, run of the mill stuff but I like the starting line picture.

Runners take off from the start-line for the first Adventura Nosara charity run. Both the 12k and 5k races started and ended at the same point in Playa Guiones on May 13. Proceeds from the race will fund three programs in town, the firefighting, security and recycling associations.

A week before on May 12 there was a mini-golf tournament, welcome to small town news.  It was little affair, surprisingly popular with the adults…

Two kids take part in the Mini Jr (Under nine) category of Nosara’s first ever mini-golf tournament on May 12. The course was designed by Mael Van der Weid, the 10 year-old son of CafŽ de Paris’ owner Thierry Van der Weid, Mael funded the course construction, all $20 000 through the sale of his paintings. Mael said he likes trophies and a tournament was an excuse to have trophies made.

During the first two weeks of the month my girlfriend Yamina came to visit again, it was pretty awesome, the next three pictures were taken while she was here and we were wandering around.

Horseback riders make their way along Playa Guiones in front of a storm front on May 4. Climatologists believe the oncoming rainy season, referred to locally as ‘winter,’ will be milder this year, with much less rain. Speculation focuses on the ‘El Ni–ño’ phenomenon and effects of global warming.

Here are the sunsets…

and here is the geeky post…

I like to shoot film, I brought a Baldex med format folding rangefinder with me, some Kodak D-76 developer, fixer powder and my developing tank.  I had never used the Baldex before so I’ve been testing how it works with some expired Tri X 400 a friend gave me as a birthday present.

I was able to develop two rolls so far, one at 400 ISO and one pulled to 200 ISO.  Although I don’t have an enlarger or a med format scanner to scan them, I saw a post on Petapixel (a photoblog I follow) which detailed how to build your own med format scanner with a remote flash, a DSLR and a cardboard box.

A Canon 5D mkII with a 135mm f/2 and 2x extender is used to ‘scan’ medium format negatives. The negative is held in a box with a flash placed behind it. The flash is triggered by a remotely by a pocket wizard and digital picture is cropped and the curve inverted to turn the negative into a positive.

The cardboard box I modified to light the negative and take a picture.

The results I got were ok, although I’m not sure if that was the expired film doing weird things or the ‘scanning.’  I have some rolls of still good Panf 50, so I’ll try that next and see.  At the very least it’s a good way to quickly scan negs to make digital contact sheets.

Picture of a palm tree on beach shot n the Baldex scanned with the 5D.

So yeah that’s it, some community meetings/events this week, then it’s back to Nicaragua for another visa run at the start of June.

Paz siempre,

Adam Dietrich

April

Ok so it’s been a month since my last post.  April was a bit of a slow and weird month, I spent a lot of time working out the details for my return home and my replacement in July.

However, that’s neither here nor there.  I spent most of the month working on a feature about the volunteer firefighters here in Nosara.  Aside from that it was the odd assignment for the web.  There has been some reorganizing of the staff internally and it’s been a somewhat confusing to say the least, but everything is starting to straighten itself out.

So going in chronological order…

Early in April I stopped by the Nosara Yoga Spa for a trippy little concert featuring three very talented guitarists.  One of them, Bill McPhearson, is credited with starting the live music scene, more or less, in Nosara, with a Tuesday night acoustic set at the Gilded Iguana, a popular bar/hotel in town.

Spectatoars watch and listen to a concert featuring three acoustic guitarists at the Yoga Spa in Nosara, Costa Rica. Above on the ceiling 'transvisualizations,' projected visuals used to 'visualize' live music, are projected by a VJ.

Tuesdays at the Iguana have now become an iconic part of Nosara’s nightlife.  McPhearson has also left Nosara to take up a teaching post in California.  However, he is married to a Tico (slang for Costa Rican) so he plans to return once a year at least.

Bill McPhearson, an American who is credited with kickstarting the live music scene in Nosara, Costa Rica performs on April 4 at the Yoga Spa. McPhearson has since left Nosara for a teaching position in California, however, he intends to return and play at least once a year, if not more.

About a week later I went to the animal rescue centre for a web feature on adoptable pets.  It was fun, the animals were cute and the woman who runs it is incredibly dedicated.

Plus I shot all the portraits at f/1.4 it’s the newest coolest thing in photojournalism (I say that somewhat sarcastically).  Basically it means shooting with the shallowest depth of field you possibly can, hence in this photo, literally only one eye is in focus.  More and more photographers are paying big bucks for lenses that open to f/1.4, 1.8, 2, and I guess the logic is, if you’re paying for it why not use it?  This was one of the first times I found it useful for an assignment that wasn’t a portrait.

An adoptable puppy inspects a camera lens. The Nosara Animal Rescue, run by Canadian Sarah Foster, takes in hundreds of neglected animals each year, they are cared for and given access to healthcare then put up for adoption.

I’ve also been getting into shape somewhat.  We’ve been running a blog-style post a week on the web about fitness options in Nosara.  What it means is I get to take a variety of free classes, ask some questions snap some pics then write a brief first person perspective on it.

So far there’s been Crossfit, which defeated me (I’m picking words carefully here), a Zumba/Bootie Fit class and today Tai Chi, my favourite thus far as been Tai Chi. although Crossfit made me feel like the hulk and Zumba/Bootie Fit left me feeling like a back up dancer in a rap video…

Anyway the photos weren’t anything special from any of the classes, but I like this one because I’m visible.  I never ‘see’ myself at work, and after looking at this photo I think that’s a good thing.

Yoga House founder and Zumba instructor, Jodie Buehner, teaches a Zumba/Bootie Fit class on April 20 at the Yoga House in Nosara Costa Rica. The class is a fusion of the fitness regime Zumba, which was designed by a choreographer in the mid 90's, and 'Bootie Camp,' which provides core strengthening, with a focus on 'the bootie.'

So this will mark the third post I have with rodeo pictures.  This time it was in the beach town of Garza, about 10km outside Nosara.  It was pretty cool and it operated the same way as the Nosara fiestas, after two of which, I had a system down.

One of the rodeo games played at the first annual Garza Fiestas, on April 21. The games are a combination of bullfighting and rodeo riding. Safety gear is completely optional.

The big thing at this fiesta was this psychotic bull called ‘Malacrianza,’ which I was specifically asked to get a picture of.  Talk about pressure, the rider lasted 7 seconds.  At three frames per second (5D Mk II) that gives me a max of 14 photos.  I had 8 useable ones, these two are my favorites.  It was crazy though the arena was sparsely lit with these flickering floodlights, every photo the white balance is a little different then the last.  Also Malacrianza was bucking in he part of the arena where my placement counter to floodlights left my pictures washed out.  For those familiar with Adobe Lightroom, these photos have the contrast and black toned tab turned up 100%,  and even still the photo lacks contrast…

Orlando Tellez Aguilar, 28 from Santa Cruz rides the infamous 'Malacrianza' during the second night of Garza's first ever fiesta's. Aguilar lasted for 7 seconds before being tossed by the bull.

I like that he wore a hockey helmet, it’s the second one I saw in Costa Rica, the first one was on a motorcycle driver…

Orlando Tellez Aguilar, 28 from Santa Cruz rides the infamous 'Malacrianza' during the second night of Garza's first ever fiesta's. Aguilar lasted for 7 seconds before being tossed by the bull.

These fiestas are crazy… people in and out of the ring.

Spectators inside and outside the arena wait for the start of the second night of rodeo games at the first annual Garza fiestas on April 21. The rodeo games feature audience participation, in that, after the bull throws his rider spectators get on the field and try to anger him without getting hurt.

Over the course of the month I’ve been meeting with the Nosara firefighters, speaking with their funders and founders, and other towns nearby about their situation for a feature on the underfunded and overworked volunteer department here.  The feature sprang from an idea I pitched in March about a series of portraits of the firefighters with bios and their opinions on what they needed to better do their job.

The idea was based off a project I saw by Canadian Photojournalist Louie Palu, he worked in Afghanistan for a while and shot a really stunning series of portraits of the soldiers he was with.  More pics shot at f/1.4.  Palu’s work is here, check it out, I still don’t have anything on it, but that’s how painters in the renaissance learned, first by painting work done by masters before them, then developing past or outside that.

Kyle Bombard, co-owner of Reef Realty, is one of three brothers who grew up on Santa Catalina Island in California then moved to Nosara. There was no professional fire department in Santa Catalina, so everyone in the town would help to fight fires. Bombard says the biggest issue they face is proper safety equipment, he cites a recent fire at the Nosara dump which had fire fighters breathing in fumes from burning plastic, silicone and other materials for close to 12 hours, with little to protect them except scarves or dust masks. Currently the volunteers supply their own gear and vehicles.

I’ve never been to or photographed an orchestra before, so this past Saturday was cool.  In March I wrote a preview story about a group of parents at the local Montessori school, they were planning to bring an orchestra from Nicoya comprised of high school music students to perform in Nosara.  It was big, more than 400 people turned out to see it.  Most of whom had never seen a show like that before.

Conductor, Juan Luis Guevara Mora leads the violin section during a performance at the Nosara catholic church on April 28. The orchestra, named 25 de Julio, is based out of Nicoya and is the only orchestra in the Guanacaste province.

The conductor was great, he was so emotive I had a hard time filing down pics.

Conductor Juan Luis Guevara Mora conducts the Nicoya youth orchestra during their first ever performance in Nosara. The choir is made up of music students from the area around the city of Nicoya.

I shot a bunch of regular photos of people playing instruments but to be honest, just a straight photo of someone playing a violin is boring, unless they’re really emotive or flamboyant.  So I was looking for something different.  Because they were kids most barely saw over their music stands, I decided to play around with that, this was my favorite.

One of the violinists in the 25 de Julio orchestra watches for the conductors cues during a free concert in Nosara on April 28. The concert was organized by a parent group from the Del Mar Montessori School called the community service committee.

This one falls outside the chronological order of the post as I shot it on the 24^th.  I looked outside my window and saw a strangely bright star, I looked it up on Google and it turns out that night Venus was going to rise with the moon and be visible to the naked eye.  I set up a tripod and took a photo, I haven’t done much astrography, but I want to try more.  It’s more accessible than I thought, I mean this was taken at a 270mm focal length, nothing huge, you just have to know when and where to look.

The crescent moon (left) sits almost horizontal with Venus, visible to the naked eye on April 24 from Nosara, Costa Rica.

On the 5^th of May there will be what’s called a ‘super moon,’ basically based on the Earth and Lunar orbits this will be the closest the moon comes to the Earth all year, making it look much brighter, bigger and visible.

I think I’ll bust out my medium format, which by the way works.  I had this old 50’s folding 6×6 shipped to me and I processed the first roll of film, some expired TriX a friend gave me.  Camera works great and it felt badass to process film in Central America.  #imanerd

Anyway, that’s it for now.

Paz Siempre,

Adam Dietrich

Solo at VON

Okay so a post every two weeks is pretty good right?

The biggest change so far has been the departure of my editor.  She’s been in New York on business (the paper’s owner lives there) for the last two weeks and returns today.   The biggest change for me has been that I have mostly been in charge of the breaking news in Nosara.  Yes sometimes there is breaking news.

Like the first weekend after she left, which left me exhausted.  It was the weekend of St. Patrick’s Day, on Saturday I was supposed to shoot the second round on an ongoing surf contest in the morning then a St. Patrick’s Day event in the evening.

So I drove the 15km to Playa Graza at 6am to meet the boats and waited an hour, no one showed up.  Frustrated and confused I left and drove back to Guiones to the Tico Surf school, they’re the ones who organized the contest.  I walked into the office and saw all the organizers watching TV on a laptop, turns out the waves that day sucked so they had decided to post-pone. I went home and started to relax.

Then came a call from the Nosara firefighters saying they were dealing with a fire in the nearby town of Esperanza.  I drove out there, it turned out that a farmer had tried to clear land by starting a brush fire, then the wind blew it up a hill and it spread out of control.  Although there weren’t flames, in dry brush fire travels along the ground, the hill was burnt.

I went back home, wrote a story ate dinner then drove out to cover St. Patrick’s Day.  I went to a bar called the Black Sheep, which only opens a few times in the year.   It’s an English pub, a legit looking English pub, in the middle of the jungle.  It quickly denigrated into a drunk fest…  Literally people almost drank the place dry, here are some pictures.

The line-up at the bar was took about ten minutes to get through. By the end of the night the Black Sheep was out of all but two types of beer. The only people decked out in green seemed to be the staff.

Ok so if the white balance above looks a bit off… it is, I might have turned up the green channel, for ya know, St Patrick.

The Irish Car Bomb station served Guinness beer with shots of Baileys and Whiskey dropped into the glass. This is how mistakes happen.

And then they were drunk.

Things got a little rowdy after midnight... Including people jumping fully clothed into the pool. When they saw the flash firing from my camera... more people started jumping, then the owners came out and put a stop to it. Something about safety.

The next morning started early.  I had gotten home the night before around 2am and had to be on the road by 6am to be at Playa Garza in time to catch the boats.  As it happened I woke up a little later than I intended to and made it just in time to get on the second last boat.  The second round of the surf contest was hosted at an off shore reef.  According to one of the organizers it was the largest surf contest, held off shore ever in Costa Rica.

Horses (not wild) gallop along Playa Garza before the start of the second round of the Triple Crown Surf Contest. Before Tourism hit the area, fishing and ranching were the two biggest economic activities. Some ranchers now offer sunset horseback rides for tourists.

No big deal just some horses racing along the beach for some reason.

Maikol Alvares Helps to raise a banner for the Triple Crown Surf contest from the top of the judges boat.

Raising the flag at Triple Crown.

A sea taxi sits waiting in Garza bay, sea taxi's are used to transport people from shore to fishing boats which anchor further out. This is due to tidal changes, however, for the purposes of the Triple Crown Surf Contest they ferried people from shore to the boats further out.

That guy later ended up driving me back to shore.  When I got in the boat I noticed three empty beer cans on the floor and one in his hand.  As the boat pulled away from the judges boat he a) finished the beer he was drinking b) threw that can in the ocean (unlike the others c) opened another, then d) lit a cigarette…

Maikol Alvares dives into the water in preparation for his heat in the second round of the Triple Crown Surf contest on March 18. The contest was Costa Rica's first offshore surf contest of this size.

The unfortunate part was that I couldn’t actually see the contest.  Even from where the boats were the surfers were on the horizon, it was way too far away for a decent shot.  So I focused on the side show of the floating crowd.  After about two hours the contest was still going on, I was exhausted and there were no more pictures to take, I figured I would go home and take a nap, so I hoped on a sea taxi and went to shore.

I got home and started making lunch, literally just as I put it in the oven the Nosara firefighters called.  It turns out there was a field fire in the neighbourhood of Santa Marta, started by someone burning trash, once again the wind carried it into a field and started a slow burn of a field.   I went home filed a story and went to sleep finally.

Since then I worked on a few other smaller things.  I covered a police briefing with community members, the arrival of a new police car, a preview for a reggae concert in the nearby town of Samara.  In the interim while writing stories I’ve been working on a personal project and trying to make interesting pictures… so here are some sunset and nature pics.

A woman rides into shore on her knees on a surfboard at Playa Guiones on March 29.

Knee surfing, a new sport?

A man walks along Playa Guiones at sunset on March 29. Sport fishing is gaining in popularity amongst tourists in Nosara.

No budget woes here…

A howler monkey looking for food in a tree. The howlers are considered endangered, as well as some of the slowest monkeys. They communicate by howling, which sounds like a dog bark or warthog, they can be heard up to 3 miles away. This one was camped in a tree not 15 metres from my front door.

No big deal, endangered animals hang around outside my apartment.

Anyway that’s all for now.  For a better look at what I’ve been doing with Voice of  Nosara check out www.voiceofnosara.com (although new recent updates mean you have to scroll way down to see my stuff two days ago I dominated the top of the page)

Paz siempre,

Adam Dietrich

A busy week

I’ve now been back in Nosara for about two weeks.  The First week was a slow ease into things but last week, starting on Thursday, was incredibly busy.  There was a movie opening, a concert, a surf tournament and a few articles and multimedia pieces I had to do coupled with a sudden fire that sprang up Sunday night.

I think the easiest way is explain is to go through this chronologically.

From left to right, Emiliana Garcia (Voice of Nosara editor), Dennis G—mez (one of the producers of 'El Fin'), and Miguel G—mez (director of 'El Fin') set up a projector for the screening of 'El Fin,' a Costa Rican dark comedy bout the end of the world. The screening was hosted at the Nosara rodeo grounds on March 8.

On Thursday March 8, the Voice of Nosara had organized an event with a Costa Rican filmmaker.  The Movie, ‘El Fin,’ which is a dark comedy about the end of the world caused by a speeding asteroid, was played.  We couldn’t find a big enough sheet or a suitable theatre so instead the film was projected on the side of a truck.  We had some 350 chairs and 400 people showed up to watch the movie.  Personally I enjoyed it; it was really well written, funny and yet dark.

About 400 attendees watch the screening of 'El Fin' under the stars on March 8. Nosara has no theatre so the film was projected onto the side of a white truck.

Some of the scenes were shot at Pelada beach, about 15 minutes walking from my house.

An attendee watches a scene in the film 'El Fin,' which was partially shot in Pelada Beach, one of the beachs of Nosara. The screening, on March 8, was projected onto the side of a truck outdoors to about 400 people, including the films director and of the producers.

The next morning I was up early for an interview.  The local Montessori school is bringing a 90-piece symphony orchestra for a free performance in Nosara; it’ll be the first time a show like this is put on.   The organizers are all parents of children at the school, so I had to meet them before they went to work for the day.  The interview went well, although transcribing it was fun… I hate transcribing interviews anyway and trying to do it in a foreign language is just that much more tedious.

However, there wasn’t much time to work on it, that evening was the opening night of the second round of Nosara’s fiestas.  The first round, held January 28, had been one of my first assignments with Voice of Nosara.  I’d be lying if I said I was pleased with the pictures I got from the first round, they sucked.  Partially that was because I was still figuring everything out then but that’s not really an excuse.  In the intervening month and a bit I had sent photos out to different photographers for critiques, people were generous with their time and responded, I took all the advice I received and kept it in mind and came away with what I considered to be a pretty good showing, especially compared to last time.

A rider is tossed but attempts to maintain his composure as he falls off a bull during the opening night of the second round of the Nosara fiestas on March 9. Audience size was down considerably from the opening night of the first round held on January 28.

There was a doubles ride which seemed like a bad idea…

A rider is tossed from a bull during a doubles ride on the opening night of the second round the Nosara Fiestas on March 9. Although assisted out of the ring the rider did not suffer any severe injuries.

remarkably no serious injuries…

A potentially deadly game ends in bruises and a sore head. The rider was riding doubles on a bucking bull without a helmet and was run over after ring tossed.

However, a decline in attendees was bad news for food vendors and games operators.

Carnival games operators wait for participants to play during the opening night of the second round of the Nosara Fiestas on March 9. The night was tough for vendors at the event which experienced a dramatic decline in attendees compared to the same event hosted a month earlier on January 28.

I got home from the fiestas around 11:30 then started editing, I wanted to stay on top of it otherwise I knew it would catch up.  Importing my photos, took twice as long as normal because I accidently broke my card reader so I’ve had to use the camera to import.  However, I did download a trial version of Adobe Lightroom 4, it has gotta be the most powerful photo editor I’ve ever used.  I finished up around 2am and went to sleep.

At 6:30am the next morning I had to get up to meet my ride to the Triple Crown Surf contest, the first of three surf contests.  This one was hosted at Playa Ostional, some 15km from my house and because the quad needed repairs I was getting a ride from my bosses friend.

Stone Van Timmeren, cuts the top of a wave during the first heat of the the Triple Crown surf tournament hosted at Ostional beach near Nosara, on March 10.

Upon arriving I saw something I haven’t seen in a while… other photographers!  There were three of them, all setting up big tri-pods.  Curious, I got talking with one guy who told I needed at least a 400mm lens to be able to properly shoot surfing… I hate when people tell me this, “You can’t shoot such and such, because you don’t have such and such.”  It happened for years shooting basketball at Carleton, and I more than made it work.

Christian Santamaria, carves through a wave during the third heat of the first day of the Triple Crown Surf contest held at Ostional beach on March 10. Points are still being tallied but those who have enough will advance to the second round on March 17.

By the numbers here’s the advantage: All the surf photographers were using 7D’s, whose sensor is slightly smaller than my 1D, this meant that a 400 on their cameras had a true focal length of something like 620mm.  The longest lens I have is a 135mm, I also have a 2x teleconverter, which doubles the focal length to 270mm.  On my 1D its true focal length, because of sensor size, is 320mm giving them twice the reach.  My solution was to wade into the water up to my waist further proving that you don’t ‘need’ a 400mm to shoot surfing.

Selena Moberly rides ahead of huge crashing wave during the third heat of the first day of the Triple Crown Surf contest hosted on March 10 at Ostional Beach near Nosara. The contest had about 55 contestants making it one of the biggest surf contests ever hosted in the area.

I got home in the early afternoon; exhausted I edited some pictures then fell into a deep sleep.  I woke up just in time to get on the shuttle bus headed up the hill to the 4^th Annual Caricaco music festival hosted at the hotel Tierra Magnifica.  The set up was unreal, it looked like one of those shots of an after party location in Entourage, the OC or the Hills.  There were projectors with fancy light patterns, and open pool in front of the stage, sushi bar etc.  The eight bands that played were also excellent.  My favorite was one of the local acts called ‘Calle.’  They played ska and did a really good job of it.  The lead singer, who wore an Alexisonfire t-shirt, also happens to be the general practitioner in Nosara… Small town.

Psychedelic lights projected onto a wall at the side of the Tierra Magnifica Hotel in Nosara. The lights were part of a series of elaborate decorations at the 4th annual Caricaco Music festival on March 10.

As I said, the set-up was unreal…

On another much larger wall a live view of the concert is projected onto the side of Tierra Magnifica Hotel. Throughout Caricaco people were in and out of the pool as well.

SKASKASKASKASKASKA!

Nosara's ska band, Calle performs during the 4th annual Caricaco music festival. There were eight bands of varying genres.

Crazy fans…

A fan screams during a performance by the band 'Calle,' a ska band from the Nosara area during the Caricaco music festival at the Tierra Mignifica Hotel on March 10. Alejandro Gutierrez, Calle's lead singer, is also a medical doctor in Nosara.

And some fire dancing…

A fire dancer performs during the fourth annual Caricaco music festival, poolside at the Tierra Magnifica Hotel, held on March 10. You can see the full-moon in the middle of the fire circle.

It was capped off with fireworks before the last band, although I asked for the names and even offered digital prints they flat out refused and started making-out.  Bah.

A couple (name not given) watches a display of fireworks during the 4th annual Caricaco music festival held at the Tierra Magnifica Hotel on March 10.

By the time I got to sleep again it was close to 2am, although this time I wasn’t able to edit before bed, I was too tired.  The next morning I wanted to sleep but there is construction across the road from me and they start with power tools at 6am everyday and go until 7pm.  I was up so I started editing pictures and working on a video for the Voice of Nosara website, I’ve started doing more multimedia, its not something I’m good at or comfortable with yet, but I need to learn and the practice is good.

Sunday night I was looking forward to being able to relax again.  However, literally just after I finished editing photos from the night before and having decided to make dinner I received a text message from my boss saying the dump had caught fire and she was looking for a ride for us to get there.

We got there just as the sun went down, which made pictures fun.  I used my flash a bit, but in the pitch darkness it just ended up flooding the scene and destroying the drama in the pictures.  The Nosara volunteer fire dept. barely has functioning hoses much less a system of flood lights, however, in one area they were using the light of a pick-up truck to work by, I settled in there to shoot some silhouettes and actually came away with one picture I’m fond of.

A firefighter with the Nosara volunteer firefighters dismantles a fire hose by the light of a pick-up truck. At 12:30pm March 11 the firefighters responded to a call at the dump, after fighting the fire for seven and a half hours the Nicoya firefighters arrived. However, flares-ups began again and the fire continued to smoulder under the trash over the next few days. The Nosara fire department, which runs on donations and volunteers, says several of their hoses were damaged by shards of broken glass in the dump.

Monday was tying up lose ends.  I finished captioning pictures and re-edited a few and finished a multimedia piece on the fiestas.  Then Tuesday I returned to the article about the symphony, the interview now four days old it took a while to get into writing it, and then I finished a multimedia piece on Caricaco.

Yesterday after finishing everything off I decided to unwind a bit by going to the beach to read.  While there I spotted some locals climbing the trees.  Snapped a photo then went over to chat, they ended up offering me a coconut fresh off the tree, sooo good.

Victor Ovanado, sits a top a four metre high palm tree on Guiones beach on March 13. using his feet Ovanado kicked down ripe coconuts, which could be cracked by a machete. Once cut open they offer a nectar called, 'coconut water,' which as well as rehydrating a person is highly nutritious.

Today I’m treating like Sunday, as a day off.  Then starting tomorrow I wanna get a head start on an article I’m doing freelance, it’s a travel piece I hope to sell to Canadian media.  After that I have several events coming up and I’d like to be ahead of the game for once so I think I’ll contact the people involved in organizing them ahead of time.

Below are some links to the stories from the last couple of days including links to the multimedia pieces.

Caricaco music festival

Triple Crown Surf contest

The Fiestas

The dump fire

The screening of ‘El Fin’

Also the Voice of Nosara has started working with other Costa Rican papers, mostly online stuff.  We share stories that are relevant with them and they do likewise.  The idea is to create more web traffic.  One of my photos was used on elpais.cr and my preview about the Triple Crown Surf contest was just reposted to insidecostarica.com

So that’s it this week, coming up there’s a second round of the triple Crown Surf contest this Saturday.  Saturday night is a picture story about St. Patricks at the Black Sheep pub, the only Irish-style pub in Nosara and on the 20th fiestas come to Garza a town 10km away.

Paz siempre,

Adam

Into Nicaragua

Well, it has been a long time since I posted.  Mid February was a little slow I was working on a few different stories but not much too exciting happened.

Then the last week of February my girlfriend Yamina came to visit, we had a pretty excellent time here, lots of beach time and seaside drinks.  Then suddenly she was gone.  Although I didn’t really have time to miss her right away…

Some dweebs playing photographer at a restaurant we ate at, the guy on the right was hanging out a restaurant in a speedo, enough said.

There were long walks on the beach after sunset…

Yamina on a walk home shortly after sunset.

And a trip into the jungle on ziplines…

Some good form coming towards the end of the third line.

The guides were pretty awesome people.

The ride over to the start of the course was in the back of a truck, the guides were super fun and super cool.

Complete with a sarcastic sense of humour…

The first line of the course

Our last night was so romantic, they should make a movie.

Beachside campfire, weenie roast, sunset, box of wine oh and the moon.

The day after she left I had to go to Nicoya, the capital of the province Nosara is in.  The paper wanted some stock photos of the of the members of town council there for future stories about their decisions.  It was nice and easy, I was also asked to shoot some stock pics of key places in the city.

In Nicoya the main Catholic church at night with a parishioner on her way to the alter. The framing in this photo isn't what I wanted, I saw the picture just as it was happening and had to race to pull my camera outta my bag, I shot this then took a step to the right to re-frame but she had taken her seat already. It drives me a little nuts. Its a weak excuse but I like the picture enough despite the error to include it.

The next morning rather than going back to Nosara I had to leave the country because my visa had expired.   When you enter Costa Rica you’re supposed to get a visa good for 90 days, however, mine was only good for 40 days, although I’m not sure why I think it was because I didn’t have a return flight booked.

So I left Nicoya at 6am for Liberia in northern Costa Rica then caught another bus to the border town of Peñas Blancas.  I walked across the border and hit two snags: first I got screwed changing money, I changed $50 and the guy that did it took a $20 commission, then I left Costa Rica, at the Nicaraguan immigration booth I was dealing with my visa, just before we were finished the border guard became somewhat sketchy and quiet and told me I need to pay extra because my passport was dirty.  While it is true there’s a coffee stain on it, that hasn’t been an issue for Canadian, American, Costa Rican or Peruvian authorities, this ass was soliciting a bribe.  So I made him repeat himself then said I didn’t understand and asked him to explain exactly what he needed.  It’s a technique I used in Cambodia to minimize or limit bribes required for border officials, making them state loudly and clearly, “I want you to pay me $X because your passport is dirty.”  The idea being, the guard won’t want to be overheard by superiors or coworkers, the tactic worked and he growled at me, stamped my passport and I was on my way having only paid the prerequisite $12 for a tourist visa.

I got into the town near by and looked for a bus, I found a brightly coloured school bus headed to the capital, I hopped on board and we pulled out.  The town of Peñas Blancas on the Nicaraguan side was like the wild west meets shanty town, people selling stolen watches, wallets and homemade food.

The bus dropped me off on the side of a highway about a kilometer from the hostel I was staying at.  The hostel was located in the village of Poste Rojo, about 10km outside of the larger town of Granada.

One of the more conservative "chicken buses" in Nicaragua, so named because people on occasion bring on chickens.

Poste Rojo is a series of tree houses in the jungle.  They rent small cabinas, private rooms, dormitory beds and hammocks, the latter was only $4 a night so naturaly that’s what I took.

Sunset from the reception area of Poste Rojo Hostel.

Some of the areas were accessible via bridge.

The suspension bridge at Poste Rojo Hostel.

My bed…

Can you imagine anything more relaxing? Nah me neither.

I slept well enough.  In the mornings though between the sun, Howler Monkeys and Cicadas it was hard to sleep in past 7am.   The sound made by thousands of Cicadas during the day is completely deafening and I had a mild headache by the end of most days, thankfully at night they go quiet.

A big spider with a Cicada it caught. The spider lived in the hole above the light, after catching and killing the Cicada it took it five minutes to maneuver the body into the crevice. Nature is gross but cool.

The day after I arrived was free rum night, yes all you can drink free rum…  Everyone seemed to either black out, vomit or both… I didn’t though, I know how to drink without making an ass of myself.  The party included a cow costume with a hole in the udder to feed rum out of and a visit by the Nicaraguan police…  The cops, however, were dissuaded from doing anything when the hostel owner offered them beer and rum and a pack of cigarettes, they then joined the party.  We took turns wearing their helmet and holding their shotgun for photos, then the cops sorta joined the party for a little while, I’m still not sure what to think about this.

My last full day in Nicaragua I joined a few other backpackers, two girls from Tilsonburg a guy from Germany, a guy from Sweden and a Nicaraguan-born Canadian, headed to a dormant volcano.  The volcano, now called Laguna Apoyo has become a huge lake and is one of the deepest lakes in all of Central America.  The water was beautiful, bath-tub warm and didn’t have salt!  After a month and a half of the surf and salty pacific, a fresh water lake was amazing.

Yeah that's me standing in a volcano...

The walk down and up the crater was killer though…

Some of the people I met at the hostel. The lake was at the bottom of the volcanic crater a full 40 minutes walking uphill to get out, needless to say we were a little exhausted.

The next morning I headed back on what became one of the most epic single day treks of my life.  By the numbers: it was eleven hours, six cities, five buses, 2 countries and about $5.  I also had trouble at the border, again, the Costa Ricans wouldn’t let me in because I didn’t have a copy of onward travel.  I explained I only had a confirmation number for an electronic plane ticket, I couldn’t find an internet café to print out the number so instead I purchased a bus ticket from San Jose to Managua good for one year and then they let me in.  I’ll need to leave again in three months to renew my visa anyway, so now at least I have a ticket direct from San Jose to Managua, next time I go I’ll bring a copy of my itinerary with me.

Interesting point too about Nicaraguan buses, they’re recycled school busses from North America, the one I rode from Poste Rojo to a town near the border actually said the words “Canadian Bluebird” in it and the emergency exit signs were in French and English (neither of which is widely spoken in Nicaragua).  I wondered if maybe I’d been on the bus before, perhaps headed to a field trip as a young kid?

A strange piece of home in a a faraway land... The photo was taken on my cellphone though because I didn't feel comfortable pulling out a $4000 camera setup on the crowded bus...

When I got back to Nosara I had dreams of a quiet beer and Skype with the girlfriend, however, that was not to be.  My boss and the other reporter were at the office.  Voice of Nosara has set up something big in August and she wanted to celebrate, so we got a bottle of Glenfidditch and went to a bar in town, bought some pizza and got a little silly.

This morning it was back to work, preparing an article about an upcoming surf competition and looking into some confusing rules relating to the Nosara airport terminal.

I promise I will try to update more often.

For now though that’s it.

Paz Siempre,

Adam Dietrich

The Red Cross and fire

I spent the last Thursday to Sunday with the Red Cross unit here in Nosara.  Here is some key background about healthcare in Nosara: Healthcare in Costa Rica is universal, provided by the state.  Doctors and hospital services are allocated based on population size and density.  In Nosara, a town with a fluctuating population (due to tourism) health service are few.  The Red Cross (a non-governmental organization) set up to provide basic, essential, paramedic and emergency services.  However, due to the lack of adequate healthcare in the region they have slowly become the main providers of health services in Nosara and surrounding areas.  They cover everything from pregnancy, injuries, illness, even hospice services.  The government only reimburses the Red Cross for emergency services and the organization itself survives on donations and volunteers.  As a result, the Red Cross in Nosara has had to cut back on non-essential services in recent years.  The people of Nosara put the blame on the Red Cross, in reality the government has failed to provide adequate healthcare to the people of Nosara and are content to let the Red Cross shoulder their blame.

 

Victor Hugo, a full-time paramedic, answers the phone, this time its not an emergency but someone with the flu. Due to a lack of proper healthcare services in the Nosara region locals often turn to the Red Cross for minor health concerns. Despite the fact that it costs them money, money the state won't pay back, the Red Cross answers every call as if its an emergency,

 

Thursday: A simple affair, I followed Victor Hugo, a full-time paramedic, as he went about his evening shift.  Thursday’s are typically slow. He dealt with a dog bite and a sick infant then made dinner and relaxed.

 

Victor Hugo, one of three full-time paramedics at the Nosara Red Cross cleans and dresses a dog bite in the Santa Marta neighbourhood of Nosara. Although rabies has been eliminated from Costa Rica, dog bites are a major issue in the country infections can develop after.

 

 

Following the dog bite, Victor Hugo fills out an emergency report in his ambulance. Although the Red Cross operates independent of the Costa Rican state, the state health insurance provider will reimburse the Red Cross for emergency services. This is part of the states national healthcare strategy, these forms are vital for receiving reimbursement from the state and thus maintaining Red Cross operations.

 

 

After a long day Victor hugo eats dinner in the Red Cross office in Nosara. Shifts can be 8-12 hours and the office is open 24 hours a day, staff and volunteers nap in the dormitory's just to the left of Hugo. Further left, volunteers review notes from the days board of directors meeting before sending them to the Red Cross central office in San Jose for processing.

 

Friday: A quiet day for most of it.  In the evening I hoped in the back of a local’s SUV with Hugo.  The Red Cross has limited ambulances and on Friday they were all out (one was in repair, two were making trips to the nearest hospital, 60km away and the fourth was on a call).  The SUV took us to a house in Santa Marta, a neighborhood outside Nosara, inside a family’s matriarch was dying of emphysema.  Hugo told me after she had a week, maybe less.  He hooked her up to an oxygen tank, explained its use to the family and left.  I didn’t shoot a single frame, something about it seemed wrong, as there were 15 members of the family standing around me watching.  Although I had permission to take Hugo’s picture, I did not have the matriarch’s permission, I chose to respect her privacy.

 

Ilse Lopez Juárez, the office administrator takes a break from filing receipts and accounting to clean and dress a wound from a motorcycle accident. The staff at the Red Cross (three full-time paramedics, one administrator and 18 volunteers) is severely over worked due to a lack of political interest in extending healthcare services to Nosara.

 

Saturday: Another slow day, the crew at the office busied themselves with maintenance and cleaning.  At dusk I followed David Perez Montiel, a volunteer paramedic, to the Nosara soccer field.  The Red Cross sponsor’s a kids soccer team as part of a community outreach effort, he brought pop to give out to the kids at the end of the game.   That night the Red Cross had six different calls and had to make two trips to the hospital in Nicoya, 60km away.

 

Gustavo 'Pelon' Díaz, a volunteer driver and mechanic washes down an ambulance. Volunteers have their uniforms paid for and are given free meals while on shift. Despite that, Díaz says he volunteers to give back to the community and because he likes the people he works with.

 

 

Carlos Villalobos Espinoza (in red), president of the red Cross committee in Nosara fills out an emergency report, while volunteer paramedic Gabriel Chavarria Acevedo looks on holding supplies. In the room, volunteer paramedic David Perez Montiel attends to a patient with epilepsy. The patient was later transferred from his home in Nosara to the Nicoya hospital, 60km, away for treatment.

 

Sunday Morning: I was offered breakfast, consisting of fried pork and fried cheese in a tortilla, as well as a trip home to Guiones beach in the ambulance.  On our way back, as we rounded the second to last corner, the road was filled with police and firefighters.  I realized this was the fire my boss had texted me about earlier that morning.  Because there hadn’t been any injuries the Red Cross wasn’t called, I asked them to stop and I hopped out and started shooting.  Unfortunately, I missed the flames, which had been doused by 8-8:30, I arrived at 10:30 and was only able to catch firefighters dousing hotspots.

 

Firefighters from Nicoya work to douse a few remaining hots sports at a fire just outside of Nosara. Volunteer firefighters from Nosara had the blaze 80% under control by the time 'professionals' arrived from Nicoya (60km away). The cause of the fire remains unknown, one volunteer freighter speculated that a power line fell on dry leaves while the property owner blamed arsonists.

 

This one was my favourite because of the faces.

 

Firefighters from Nicoya work to douse a few remaining hots sports at a fire just outside of Nosara. Volunteer firefighters from Nosara had the blaze 80% under control by the time 'professionals' arrived from Nicoya (60km away). The cause of the fire remains unknown, one volunteer freighter speculated that a power line fell on dry leaves while the property owner blamed arsonists.

 

I also saw the paper copy for this month; I have about 90% of the photo credits in it… Now its back to work.

Paz siempre,

Adam Dietrich

Days of sun and boredom

The last couple of days have been real slow, I didn’t shoot anything on the 30^th.  However, all of that changes today, I’m headed out of the office for four days and living with the local Red Cross unit until Sunday.

In Costa Rica, there is universal access to health care, although the state covers most healthcare costs and processes, paramedic work is carried out by the Red Cross then billed to the state insurance provider.  In Nosara there is an issue though, many of the locals understand that the Red Cross provides paramedic services, however, when they call sometimes there’s no answer…  The reason is because all emergency services are routed through the 911 system here, which is based out of San Jose, the number most people call, is the administrative office of the Red Cross in Nosara.

Really its an issue of popular misconception… why call 911 in San Jose, when the Red Cross is in Nosara?  Except the number for the Red Cross is their administrative line…  So the idea of this piece will be to dispel some popular myths about the Red Cross and hopefully open up the organization to people here.

For me it’s an opportunity for a hell of a picture story, maybe some multimedia too.  The access is pretty incredible, as the Red Cross station is staffed 24 hours, I’ll be with them the entire time and I’ll likely be following them on calls.

In the interim here are some photos for yesterday… I camped out at the edge of the beach, read a lot and shot some random stuff and more sunsets…

A man wades ashore with his fishing net empty after an unsuccessful attempt, while birds, I think a type of Heron? continue to look for fish. Everyday right before dusk the edges of the beach are filled with locals fishing.

Those birds were huge… but they weren’t the only ones.

A.... I think they're some kind of Turkey Vulture? Circles over the ocean looking for fish

The moon too is consistently visible in the sky from about 2pm on.  Its kinda cool to see them both there as the sun and the moon control the tides and thus in a way, beach life.

The moon, clearly visible at about 4pm.

Low tide reveals these sea rocks everywhere, worn and shaped by the ocean into weird shapes.  In the pools left by the ebb tide there are tiny crabs and minnows.  I picked up a seashell thinking it looked nice… it turned out there was a hermit inside.

A man makes his way across the beach shortly before dusk, in front of him is a field of sea rocks which will be covered by the tide in about an hour.

Then the sun started to set in earnest, so I made my way back…

An elderly couple watches the sun set in some beach chairs they brought out.

And another…

a man standing in the shallows watches as the sun dips below the horizon.

***The following contains camera talk, follow the hyperlinks to better understand***

I recently watched a PBS documentary on Ansel Adams, perhaps one of the most famous fine art photographers in history.  He belonged to an informal group of photographers (painters have ‘movements’ photographers have ‘clubs’) called ‘the f/64 club.’  So named because they would shoot landscapes at f/64, which means the aperture of the lens is super small, which means the depth of field is huge which means the area in focus is huge.  Back then too (the 20′s) film (or rather glass plates) had really low light sensitivty, well below what we would call ISO 50…  Until now I’ve never had a lens combo that lets me shoot at f/64, they’ve always capped out at f/22.  However, the 135 and the 2x extender make this possible.  So just after the sun went below the horizon I found a rock, stabled the camera on it, set it to ISO 50 (the lowest I can go), f/64 and a 30 second exposure.  The low light sensitivity meant really smooth tones, the slow shutter speed turned the ocean to fluff and the narrow aperture made everything sharp enough.

A rock sits in the surf just after sunset. I can't wait until my medium format gets here, I have some Ilford Pan F plus (50 ISO) to use...

Then I decide to cast myself in the photo.  I set the timer and ran in.  The distance from camera to rock was about 75-80m so it took me  just a little more than the 10 second timer to run in, however, because of the 30 second exposure I still had time.  Looking at this photo though, I think it too should be in black and white…

Nice end to the day

Well thats it.  My boss will be here in about an hour, then I’m off to Nosara.  I intend to post this coming Sunday, which I’m sure will be a  long night of editing…

Paz siempre,

Adam Dietrich

Cowboys and surfers

This week has been a little hectic, compared with the previous one at least.  It’s production week for the paper meaning decisions about cover, content selection and layout need to be made.  I’ve worked production at a paper before, however, the charlatan is a weekly publication, the voice of nosara publishes once a month.  Which means content relevance is perhaps the most challenging aspect, since the issue will sit on stands for a month, the stories and pictures inside need to be relevant for the whole month.

So on Wednesday I was asked to go to a hotel in town to get a photo of liquor for a story on the changing liquor laws here.  Apparently there are a limited number licenses available depending on community size, most of those licenses have already been bought up at prices as low as $6, the owners of those licenses in many cases rent them out for as much as $3000 a month, that’s a hell of business plan.  Most license owners purchased theirs as far back as the 30’s and have held on, clearly some updates to the law are needed.

The folks at the hotel agreed to make me a cocktail so I could photograph it.  I was supposed to keep logos and faces out so as not to implicate the hotel as one of the abusers of the liquor licenses… the photos were kind of boring but the drink was on the house, so I lingered by their pool and sipped it after.  Not too bad.

 

Sometimes its hard to do what I do...

Thursday was an equally quiet day; all I did was work on a few police briefs for the printed copy then hit the beach.  We managed to figure out that the suspected thief captured in Nosara the other week had been released on his own recognizance pending a trial date.  The police seem to have a case against him although the residents are still paranoid.  After that I worked on another brief about a car fire from a week ago, seems a battery shorted and the hood caught on fire, otherwise no major issue.

That evening I decided to go to the beach to read.  I ended spending more time photographing surfers in the fading light, I got a few nice ones…

 

This pretty much defined the evening...

As I said.. less reading more photography…

 

Surf instructors hit the waves at sunset because its after work and they have free time, the birds hit the waves for the fish.

Sunsets here are beautiful, though I think I’ve stated this before.

 

A surfer watches the sun set, they paddle out and sit and wait for waves to come. The light is beautiful...

 

Though it looks like there’s no waves they show up.  One minute the ocean would be calm as can be, then suddenly it would swell and there would be waves.

 

A surfer paddling to catch the front of a wave. The trick is to get just ahead of a wave before it breaks and quickly stand up.

This time I used the 5D, shooting at 6400 ISO gives you a lot more more leeway, just fewer fps for catching peak action.

 

This guy was good, he would ride the wave until it finished then lower himself back onto the board to paddle out again. No crashes, no falls.

Finally the sun hit the horizon and everyone just kind of stopped to watch it.

 

Two seagulls fly low looking for fish while a surfer waiting for a wave watches the sun dip below the horizon...

Friday was the start of two busy days…  First I was given a driving lesson on the quad and access to the keys.  It was maybe the third time in my life I’d driven a quad and the first time I’d driven a manual transmission vehicle.  The driving lesson was mostly my boss groaning every time the quad lurched as I tried to change gears…

 

Me and my new ride. The travel scarf is needed to keep from swallowing a dustball, as are the glasses and the helmet well safety first.

The reason I needed access to the quad was to get to Nosara for the fiestas of Nosara, a three-day rodeo and festival on the edge of town.  The event opened on Friday evening, it was part rodeo, carnival, running with the bulls and community dance.

 

A food vendor adds fuel to his cooking fire at the Nosara rodeo. There were more than 10 different places to eat mostly serving refried meats.

Safety precautions were not quite what they would have been in Canada, spectators are allowed right up to the fence, they can even sit on it.

 

A young rodeo fan watches the introductions before the start of the first rodeo game.

 

There was a big arena set up in a field outside of town; the rodeo games began with an introduction of the rodeo riders, complete with a prayer.  Then they released the first rider, after he was thrown the real games began… Drunk locals and tourists then would taunt the bull until he charged them, then they try to get out of the way…  I personally couldn’t believe it, in Canada the Calgary Stampede takes flack every year for potential animal abuse, in Costa Rica participants take their lives in their hands without even signing a waiver…

 

A festival participant tries to avoid a charging bull. Had I wanted to, I probably could have joined in I won't lie though I was a little nervous.

Although I didn’t get in the ring I did spend most of the time sitting on the fence, at one point a bull charged and in my rush to get back over my sandal caught the edge of the fence and I fell about 5 feet.  I din’t break any equipment or bones and I landed on the right side side of the fence.

 

A rider is tossed from a bull while festival participants rush in to distract and draw the attention of the bull, no one was hurt. To give you an idea of how close you can get to the action, this was shot with a 24mm on a full frame camera with little cropping. A minute later that bull charged the fence I was sitting on.

Of course I might have been overreacting… I mean if drunk, barefoot tourists can get in the ring without spilling their beers, I probably would have been ok.

 

A tourist protects himself and his beer from a charging bull. There were several tourists who participated in the rodeo games most of them were wasted.

Friday was a late affair; the event started at 8pm and went until about 2am.  I left around 12:45, because after 12 the rodeo was finished, the sober people left and the dance began.  I was tired and drove home to edit.  Having never shot a Rodeo before, and having to compete with some truly shitty lighting I somehow shot just over 1200 frames, I have never shot that many in a single night.  I trimmed them to a further 76 then finally down to 15 for use on the voice of nosara’s facebook page, it was about 3am when I finally got to bed.  Apparently they’ve set aside two pages in the paper as well, so some should make it in there as a pictorial story.

Saturday was thus a slow start, however, after lunch it was back on the quad to head to the second event called the Tope (pronounced toe-pay).  The Tope is basically a big lunch and party, complete with some cowboy skills competitions.  Since I’m missing the all-star game in Ottawa, this is the best I could do…

 

Cowboys arrive on horseback to the Tope, a big day of eating, drinking during the fiestas of Nosara on January 28.

 

It was brutally hot, I’m not sure how people could drink beer and whiskey for 3 straight hours in that heat and still ride home…

 

A young boy rests on bags of horse feed. Although the Tope was held in the shade, the day was immensely hot.

 

I tried some shooting from the hip, there’s an old photography adage, “F/8 and be there,” it means closing your aperture enough to increase your depth of field, allowing you to shoot without have to worry too much where your focus is.  In this case it let me catch this without having to be obvious about it.

 

Friends great each other near the beer truck at the Tope. The day was a relaxed feast and social event.

 

And of course there were lots of horses.  I spent some time on a farm in Uruguay in 2007 which cultivated a real appreciation for horses, these were pretty talented riders too.

 

A cowboy regains control of his horse, the horse grew impatient after trotting on the spot and began moving around wildly. Within a minute the rider was able to regain control.

 

This evening is the finale but I don’t think I’ll be there, today is my day off and my boss has the quad so I’d have to bike the 7km.  Instead I’m going to start work on a new project and get some beach time.  There is a hotel, bar and adventure travel company in town called The Gilded Iguana.   The owners are originally from Toronto and have established their business here as a sort of fixture.  Several people have told me that The Gilded Iguana is the place to be in town on a Tuesday night.  I was there this past Tuesday with my boss and the place was packed, we couldn’t find a seat much less a table for most of the evening.  I met with the owner and asked if she’d be interested in an interview, I think this is something that if pitched properly could be freelanced to a Canadian publication.

So I sent the owners an email and received a speedy reply essentially saying drop by whenever, so today I’ll call and hopefully be able to meet with them.  This isn’t a project I intend to rush, I’d like to take time, and build trust, if this is going to work I’ll need photographic access to the entire operation.  So I’d like to start with a very basic introductory interview, and hopefully a tour, I doubt I’ll shoot a single frame today.  After a few months, I’ll hopefully have something marketable.

Paz siempre,

Adam

P.S. My apologies for the break in posting this week and thus the huge post today.  The office internet has been down for the last three days, it started working this morning again, so fingers crossed it keeps working…

First week of work…

A worker clears brush in preparation for planting, I think sugarcane? I wasn't quite sure what he said and I was in a rush to another assignment.

Monday morning was the start of my first full week of work.  I woke up to an email from my boss asking me to cover three assignments that day.   The first one was a little ridiculous…  We’re doing a story on ‘Tanorexia’ also called ‘sun addiction.’  I was asked to go to the beach and take some photos of people enjoying the sun, specifically women…

Ali Stark-Rinder (left) and her twin sister Glory Stark-Rinder live in the United States, but their family owns a house in Nosara, they try to come twice a year for the sunshine.

The issue wasn’t photographing women on the beach, the issue was talking to them afterwards…  I ran over my speech a few times in my head, so I wouldn’t sound like a creep.  Imagine some guy with a big camera who walks up to you and says, “I’m a journalist and I’m doing a story on sun-addiction, anyways I just took a photo of you and I need your name, and where you’re from and why you’re here.”  After I hung out on the beach for a bit…

The Nosara Beaches Hotel from a distance, the hotel I explored the other day. Apparently it was built inside a protected area of the beach. The Nosara beaches are spawning grounds for sea turtles so no construction is allowed within 50m of the shoreline. Someone built the hotel anyway and the government shut it down

After that it was off to the liquor store for a very basic photo of liquor bottles.  Costa Rica is in the middle of changing its license management system, and Voice of Nosara wanted some stock pictures of liquor bottles for any stories related to it.  Having finished the first two I had some time, so I went back to the beach to try and get rid of the t-shirt tan I seem to have developed.

A crab, one of many, I found on the beach. This was my favourite photo although i think I need a macro lens... The crab itself is about the size of a small tomato

While that was actually successful, I got something worse… a tan-line in the shape of my camera bag strap.  I’ll have to go back either without the bag or with the strap on the other side and correct that.

Monday evening was the third assignment, I went down to a place called the Yoga House, which is guess what? A yoga studio!  They had a speaker, an American author named John Perkins who became famous in 2004 for his book, ‘Confessions of an Economic Hitman.’  The book was groundbreaking because it outlined his role for the previous few decades as an agent of the American economy sent to foreign countries to assist in destabilizing the economy for on behalf of American business interests.  The theory is complex, but these so-called economic hitmen were instrumental in implanting America’s neo-liberal polices globally, but especially in Latin America in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s I highly recommend looking it up.

Author John Perkins explaining the prophecy behind 2012.

Perkins is now a new age spiritualist and spoke about many topics.  Mostly he talked about the meaning of several different spiritual and indigenous prophecies relating to 2012.  It turns out that the Maya prophecy isn’t the only one relating to the dramatic changing of times in 2012 most importantly, its not the end of existence but rather a changing of existence.  The talk was heavy at times but really enlightening.

John Perkins demonstrating a Quechua transformation ritual by blowing fire with high proof alcohol. The Quechua use corn beer, Perkins used Bacardi 151.

I felt I was a little obtrusive though, the room was so quiet that the echoes of the mirror slap from my SLR could be heard.  It gave me an opportunity to try out the 5D’s ‘silent shoot’ mode.  It’s a lie, it’s not silent, although it is much quieter.  Basically you enter mirror lock-up, the focusing mirror smacks up blacking out the viewfinder, and you use the screen to frame.  When you actually take a photo the only noise is the shutter opening and the curtain closing, the problem is it limits the frame rate to only one photo at a time.

Tuesday morning started off slow.  Shortly after I woke up I noticed some workers spreading some brown crap all over the road outside my window.  In order to control dust during the dry season they pour molasses all over the roads, which with heat and pressure hardens and keeps dust from going everywhere.  It looked like kind of a shitty job.

A city worker throwing molasses on the road to control dust.

Then I received an email asking me to track down some business inspectors from the Costa Rican government and follow them while they inspected local businesses (mostly immigration and health issues).  There have been some claims of corruption apparently, however, the inspectors never made it today.  Instead my boss showed up on an ATV.  We headed out to the town of Nosara and I got a nice little tour.  We drove through lower income neighborhoods built out of sheet metal with no electricity or running water.  Then headed to three different construction sites to photograph bridges that were under construction.  During the rainy season several poorer areas of Nosara are essentially cut off from vehicle traffic because of high water levels in the river.  The government has finally gotten around to fixing this problem.  It also presented me with an opportunity to try to be creative, how the hell do you take a picture of a build site in the jungle and make it interesting?  What made it worse was we showed up during lunch so there weren’t any workers around.

A view over the shoulder of my boss while she drives the quad back to Guiones Beach from the town of Nosara. I love ATV's.

After that we headed back, and I had to shower off a layer of dust covering my whole body then came the ‘fun’ part; editing and translating.  Because the paper is bilingual everything is translated, so while I only filed English captions for the Spanish people to translate, I was given an 800-word story in Spanish to translate.  I put on Jurassic Park for background noise and got to work, such a good movie.

All that’s done now though, so I’m going to make dinner then head out to the Gilded Iguana, a bar in town with live music.  My boss and I are going for drinks, it will be my first actual night out, should be fun.

Paz Siempre,

Adam Dietrich

P.S. I just wanted to thank those who have read my blog and commented so far.  I post with the expectation that no one reads it, but the encouraging comments from strangers and the number of page views say otherwise.  While I don’t publish comments made (trying to maintain a portfolio feel to the site) I do read everyone.  Thanks and I hope you keep reading.

Days off

Saturday wasn’t actually supposed to be a day off.  Instead I woke up at 6am to get to the edge of town for 6:50, I was supposed to be meeting a source from the day before.  He was the security guard who helped bring in the thief; he and the Tourist Police were headed to the hills to scour for clues and I was supposed to accompany them, take some pictures and write a perspective piece.  I got there ten minutes early and waited for more than an hour, my ride never came.  I suddenly found myself with an extra day off…

I hadn’t actually gone grocery shopping yet, I’d only purchased a few over-priced items at the mini-mart.  I’m not actually in the town of Nosara, that’s about 7km away, instead I live at Guiones beach.  So I figured I’d bike into Nosara, see the countryside a bit and buy some groceries.  I got a little lost (what’s a 20 minute detour anyway?) but otherwise I got there without trouble, the town was like a ghost town, dusty roads and abandoned buildings (maybe even tumbleweed)… However, I found the grocery store and bought some food.  Then as I was leaving, my bike chain snapped… Leaving me with no choice but to walk the 7km back to Guiones in midday heat and sandals.  Very, very bitter I forgot about taking photos for the most part (I will be going back at some point obviously) until I was about halfway home and working on instinct.

Near the airport was this sign… I put it up because when I got home I was coughing up dirt for an hour…

Laugh all you want... this is a serious issue in the dry season...

Dunno… thought this was a cool shot, the plane coming in to land…

This was a third of the way home... I was still smiling... an hour later, not so much.

When I got home, I drank almost 2 liters of water, peed black and passed out for an hour, woke up and made my first real meal since arriving here (by real I mean not just rice and onions…).  I spent the rest of the afternoon keeping cool and rehydrating, then bought some beers and wandered down to the beach to read before sunset.  It was truly peaceful.

Every sunset amateur cowboys wander down the beach...

I brought two beers with me for reading and sunset… but in the heat they tend to warm up, thus creativity is needed…

Find a rock in a tidal pool, leave beer to chill...

Then I got a little silhouette happy…

Like with this couple walking back along the beach past the tide pools

And then there’s the self portrait…

And why the eff not? If I didn't photograph me no one would! ...

This morning I woke up with the intention of taking a surfing lesson… I woke up at 8, went to the washroom then somehow slept for another 2 hours… I had one of those weird dreams that leaves you in a stupor when you wake, I dreamt about old friends, home, family and finally failing as a freelancer…  I felt uncomfortable and perturbed, and spent the next three hours contacting Canadian newspapers and magazines to introduce myself and offer up photos, as well as ways to pay down debt and finance Loyalist when I get home.  After doing that I felt somewhat more relieved, although it was now midafternoon, I decided to forgo surfing for today, I’ll spend the week looking for an affordable place to learn and book a lesson for next Sunday.

I didn’t want to waste my day off though, so I took a very long walk down the beach.  First I wandered as far as I could before I hit jungle, then swam in the surf, read and decided to walk back.  On my way back I stepped on glass or something and slashed my toe open, I sat on the beach trying to clean it with salt water and my towel, then used gaffer tape and a bit of towel to wrap it up.  Its doing well and didn’t hurt too much on the walk back, however, the day before, I developed a bad blister on the same foot walking from Nosara, my poor left foot…

On the way back I wandered up to this building I had seen from a distance for a long time, it turned out to be an abandoned hotel on a cliff over looking the pacific… I explored for a while and found one other person, he could only tell me it was closed, he had no idea why.  I wanted to climb to the top of a spire that was in the center of the hotel, however, my progress was halted by a pack of wild dogs who showed up in force to bark at me…  I’ll be back, I’ll be careful, the view of the beach from the top will be unrivaled.

A horse tour coming out of the hotel area... Note the sign falling apart, it should say 'hotel' not 'hote'

Anyone see Jurassic Park?  It takes place on an island off the coast of Costa Rica right…

I'm not even kidding... I half expected to see a velociraptor come through here. Damn movies.

Isla Sorna…

The most confusing part about the hotel... it's abandoned, with a big manicured lawn.

However, reanimated dinosaurs weren’t the real concern…

A pack of pissed off, possibly rabid, dogs was the issue... Next time i'll bring a big stick with me...

I continued my trip back to the office, made some dinner, threw on the Bang Bang Club and wrote this up.  Tomorrow is the start of my first full week of work.

Paz siempre,

Adam Dietrich