above, the first digital frame I ever published shot on a Canon 10D
I'm talking and showing photos tonight at National Geographic's Grosvenor Auditorium as part of a Photo Week DC panel discussion co sponsored by NG and National Public Radio. Details are here.
The talk is free and opened to the public.
-Stephen Alvarez
I've said it before and I'll say it again, a photographer should alway have a camera, any camera. My point and shoot of choice is the Canon G10. I know there is a G11 now, that should work better in this situation, but there is a limit to what I can spend. Yes sadly I have to buy my own cameras...
The camera you have in your hand (phd, camera phone, whatever) is always better than the camera that you left back at the apartment because it was too heavy.
The compact camera I'd really be interested in trying is the Panasonic GF1. Maybe Panasonic will give one up for Ira and I to test.
-Stephen Alvarez
November 19-22 3 legendary National Geographic photographers teach in Bangkok details here. Anyone interested in honing their photography skills with 3 gifted photographers and generous teachers will be interested in this workshop. It is filling fast.
Mike Yamashita has retraced Marco Polo's path across Asia, Ira Block's shot more stories for NG than I can count -he also writes our tech reviews here- and Dave Harvey among many things runs Burn, the best photo magazine going.
This sort of talent doesn't teach together often.
-Stephen Alvarez
ps full disclosure, I am typing this from Mike's Apartment in NY after just having had lunch with Ira so you know I am biased
Last night in SOHO I saw Brian Oglesbee present his work. It is incredible, see it here.
-Stephen Alvarez
I will be in DC next Monday, Nov 9 to talk about storytelling and how it is evolving in the digital age.
This Panel discussion is hosted by NPR's Jacki Lyden. It features NPR multimedia director Keith Jenkins, National Geographic Photographer Stephen Alvarez (me), NPR producer Andrea Hsu, and managing editor of NG online Rob Covey.
Monday November 9, 6:30 pm in National Geographic Grosvenor Auditorium
Details are here.
-Stephen Alvarez
Ok, enough gloom and doom about Sudan. There is plenty to be pessimistic about there. Anytime I look at the big picture I get plenty depressed. But sometimes the small scale is sometimes much more encouraging.
St Bartholomew's Orphanage in Kajo Keji takes care of 90 Sudanese war orphans. Orphanages on the whole are depressing affairs invoking images of right out of Dickens, but not this one. It is run by Sudanese war widows who LOVE these kids. They are cared for as family. Children are the future, whatever future South Sudan has.
-Stephen Alvarez
I am, or at least should be on my way home from Sudan right now. I love my work and traveling, but maybe even more than that I love coming home.
-Stephen Alvarez
I returned to Kampala last night from South Sudan. Some trips I win, some trips Africa wins, Africa won this round. I am beat from 2 weeks of driving on non existent roads and interviewing people with little hope for the future.
It is astounding to be with people of great faith -I was largely among Sudanese Christians this trip- but who are largely pessimistic of the future. I guess that is what 20 plus years of continuous war does. How can you think of something else when war is all you have known?Flying home tonight, but I have to get a DC photo week presentation together on the plane and organize my Atlanta photojournalism seminar talk. Life looks like the refrain from a Warren Zevon song till Christmas.
Cheers,
Stephen Alvarez
-Kampala
