Last night I packed my bags for the big safari. A towel, some soap and shampoo, contact lens stuff, insect spray, sunscreen, a change of clothes, and my Fujifilm camera (plus extra battery). Headed off to breakfast with my similarly excited colleagues, and then we went out to the parking lot to the safari vehicles, which were already waiting. Nine…
Today marked the last day of the first week of our Mission Rabies Tanzania project. Our assignment today was to go back to an area up in the mountains called Nkoarisambu. A Mission Rabies team had already been there, but the post-vaccine survey revealed that we’d fallen shy of the 70% needed to break the cycle and stop the spread…
I picked this book up in a thrift store for $3, which is surprising since the book was published relatively recently (2019). I still feel like a novice, so the first few chapters – about aperture, shutter speed, focal length, exposure, focusing, and composition – were a helpful review, although the presentation was a little dull. The last few chapters,…
Today was my kind of day. We drove around the Moivaro area, announcing through the loudspeaker that we were in the area, vaccinating dogs and cats for free. Then we parked in a residential area and went door to door, meeting people at their homes to vaccinate their pets. This allows us to walk through all the pathways and trails…
The first two days of this Mission Rabies vaccination drive, we worked “static clinics”. We drive to a place, set up our makeshift clinic, and people bring us their dogs. Today, we did “roaming clinics”. We drive through an assigned area announcing that we’re offering free rabies vaccinations to dogs and cats. When we see someone with a dog, we…
Today we were scheduled to vaccinate at two separate sites. We arrived at our first site around 8:15 and set up shop. A minute later, our team leader Lucy received a phone call informing us that a dog had been hit by a motorcycle on the road nearby. Courtnie and I grabbed our supplies and ran up the road, and saw…
Today is Mission Rabies Tanzania Workday 1, the first day we hit the road and start vaccinating. Didn’t sleep great last night. Still getting used to it being so quiet. I’m up early now, so I’ll start this blog post now and finish it tonight. Last night I packed my backpack with all of the items I think I’ll need…
Mediocre night sleeping last night. It takes a little time to get used to a new bed, plus I’ve been drinking tons of water all day to ward off any potential kidney stones; this is something that I’m prone to in hot climates. I guess it’s working, because I got up to pee twice. After the second time I got…
This is the third book of Henry Carroll’s that I’ve read. They’re short books, but they’re packed with a lot of insight. The technical information (which is only a small part of his books) is really geared toward beginners and doesn’t contain much info that I haven’t already learned, but that’s fine; I always benefit from hearing it again. It’s…
Day 8 Today was very cold out, and I had a million things to do in preparation for my upcoming trip to Tanzania, so I didn’t get to go out today. As my fallback, I employed Glitter, my muse, in the service of this project and got a lovely portrait of her as she sat on my printer. Day 9…
This year, I pretty much kept pace with last year in terms of reading. The pandemic increased my time spent indoors, and reading was my primary way of passing the time. I read 67 books in 2020. Although I love good fiction, I usually end up reading non-fiction. Last year, I tried to remedy that by making a deliberate effort…
Day 6 A bit of a dull day, photowise. I went out in the morning and took a nice photo of the Empire State Building on my walk to the gym. That was the main pic of the day. I got a quick picture of a dog, shooting stealthily from my hip. It got cut off, but editing it in…
Day 4: Gloomy day today. I ended up not going out this afternoon, so I’m glad I took a few pictures this morning while on the way to the gym. While at the gym, I saw these two women who always come in together, with their little elderly chihuahua in tow. The dog is always in a little baby carriage,…
Last year, I went to Ghana for a Mission Rabies project. I got to see several small village communities and I took many great photos. I’ll be going to Tanzania in mid-January for another Mission Rabies project, and I wanted to read some inspirational photography books to prepare me for (what I hope will be) more excellent photography opportunities. This…
Gross, gloomy day outside, but I had to go out to Union Square, so I was able to grab a bunch of photos. Tough choice picking my favorite for today, but I went with this reflection photo. I like how it shows the Black Lives Matter street art and the NYPD car in the same frame. The runners up: This…