Tag: bujumbura photographer

  • To my little champion of French,

    To my little champion of French,

    forest and boy, Hasselblad 501 C, Canon EOS-3, expat kids, french school

    forest and boy, Hasselblad 501 C, Canon EOS-3, expat kids, french school

    forest and boy, Hasselblad 501 C, Canon EOS-3, expat kids, french school

     

    forest and boy, Hasselblad 501 C, Canon EOS-3, expat kids, french school

    forest and boy, Hasselblad 501 C, Canon EOS-3, expat kids, french school

    forest and boy, Hasselblad 501 C, Canon EOS-3, expat kids, french school

    You just spent a year in a French speaking school… and your home language is English. Do you understand how amazing that is? I swore that I would never be THAT MOM that uses her kid as a walking Google Translate, but I am. Because, well… you know more French than me now and you sound so much better speaking it. Also, I make any excuse I can to hear you speak… it gives life to my soul every time. I am proud of you. We have been here exactly one year… and you know what? The thing I most admire about our journey as a family is YOU.

    There have been many moments when I didn’t think we could do it, or I second guessed our decision… usually moments when you were screaming at me or stomping off in the opposite direction madder than a hornet. There was a fine line between the guilt I felt at “dumping you” off into another language and culture and the total resolution I had that we were GIVING YOU A GIFT. The language gift. Now, I can finally see the gift beginning to emerge. You speak almost as easily in one language as the other… I wish that were true of myself. We gave you no choice but to learn, while giving ourselves a much easier road. While we are taking classes (and I find them gob-smackingly hard) YOU have had an emersion of the kind no one in this family has known. Your absolute bravery throughout it astounds me. The headmaster of your school mentioned it, too. As she handed you your diploma, she paused and said (my rough translation)…

    You are like a knight. A champion. At the beginning of the year you couldn’t speak a word of French, but now you can defend yourself like a champion.

    To your average American parent that might sound like we have raised one big bully, but I tell you what… I was GUSHING with pride that day. And my boy, we still are.

    Love,

    mom

    Hasselblad 501 C, Canon EOS-3, Portra 400, Fuji 400.

     

  • The Burundi Details.

    I LOVE being in the coffee hills. They are THE PEOPLE we moved here for. Being up there with them always reminds me of the reasons we gave up that other life, changed course, and set up camp in Burundi.

    Wedding photographers talk about “detail shots” a lot. What the flowers, the decor, and the dresses were like. I had a chuckle about this on Saturday (the wedding-ist-crazy day of the week) while we were in the coffee hills with some amazing guests from our organization, The Navigators. I realized that while I was photographing dirty feet and age old bikes, others were probably busy photographing pretty flowers and beautiful gowns. Mine is a whole different kind of detail. I love it though!

    This is the same community that I wrote about here… and let me tell you, they have captured my heart. I can’t wait to spend more time with them! Really, they are beyond amazing and I love that we are developing such an exciting relationship with them. More on that in my next post.

    The building project you see? That’s drying tables for the coffee, in progress.

    Love,

    me

  • Neo on film.

    We are back in Burundi (holy-moly-jet-lag-Batman!) and I have been nervous and excited about sharing these film images with you. We are finally back online, my husband BOUGHT ME A DESK (that’s a huge deal, as I was doing all my blogging, editing, writing, etc. from the couch or the bed or the table), and our “biggest little” is back in school.

    So many photographers are doing it these days. Snapping up a film camera and giving it a go. It is a way to differentiate yourself from the crowd of photographers, to make yourself feel more authentic in the age of  the “self taught” digital photographers crowding the marketplace. Many people also do it because of the amazing success a handful of photographers have had with film (Jose Villa, Jonathan Canlas, Ryan Muirhead, Elizabeth Messina to name just a few). Do mine look anything like theirs? Nope, not at all… but that really wasn’t the point for me.

    Why did I choose to start shooting film? Definitely to feel more authentic. To feel more connected with the art form that I am in love with. To go deeper with it. To understand light in a new way. Truth be told, I was getting a bit bored with digital. Being in Burundi, away from my newly established photography business, I was feeling the need to stretch my legs a bit.

    I will probably ALWAYS shoot digital, especially while we are in Burundi with no processing labs for film nearby. I owe a whole lot to digital. Would I have become a photographer if digital wasn’t accessible and fairly easy to teach myself? Pretty sure the answer is no. Have I begun a love affair with film that won’t end any time soon? You bet-cha! Do I have a million and one things to learn about film? For sure. Do I have a million and one things to learn about digital? Maybe just a million.

    Film is teaching me some great things. It’s teaching me how to slow down. How to take risks (with the high cost of buying and processing medium format film, every frame is a risk!). The challenge of learning something new is ridiculously frustrating and exciting all at once. When I processed my last batch of film, three rolls came back empty. Sometimes learning the hard way is the only way, right?

    All Hasselblad 501C

    Fuji 400

    What are you learning this year?

    I wanna know!

    Kristy

  • In Another Land

    We walked across the sand and the sea and
    The sky and the castles were blue.
    I stood and held your hand.
    And the spray flew high and the feathers floated by
    I stood and held your hand.
    And nobody else’s hand will ever do
    Nobody else will do

    Then I awoke
    Was this some kind of joke?
    Much to my surprise
    When I opened my eyes.

    We heard the trumpets blow and the sky
    Turned red when I accidently said
    That I didn’t know how I came to be here
    Not fast asleep in bed.
    I stood and held your hand.
    And nobody else’s hand will ever do
    Nobody else’s hand

    “In Another Land” by Bill Wyman, sung by The Rolling Stones 

    We are enjoying some much needed family time. It is hard to believe that we are here, and our short time is going sooooo quickly.  We are eating it up (I mean that literally) and Burundi already seems so very far away. Another world. For now, we are enjoying this one. It’s a world full of brothers and sisters and cousins and grandparents and cold and firsts. Our kids are getting some great “firsts” under their belts.

    First time seeing snow.

    First time wearing winter jackets.

    First time ice skating (that didn’t go so well).

    First time sledding.

    First snow ball fight.

    First time seeing their breath outside.

    First time having Christmas with their grandparents and cousins.

    Our poor kids experience so many new things every day that they fall into bed exhausted and wake up late (we are loving it!).

  • littlest little

    littlest little

    dear baby, you have my heart

    so stop.

    stop all this growing.

    please.

    don’t become a real boy.

    swirling whirling life.

    i can’t hang on

    the clock keeps…

    marching.

    and here we live

    chasing a dream

    we chase the dream

    for you.

    for two boys in africa

    our souls would burst

    if we never showed you,

    if we never lived it.

    love,

    mom

     

     

  • Long Miles Coffee Project: The TV show

    Long Miles Coffee Project from Cooked in Africa on Vimeo.

    Yeah, I know. I feel like we have some explaining to do. For the last six months, on and off, a film crew has been following us around documenting our journey into Burundi. The show is mostly about our lives, which scares me silly, and coffee. I hate being in front of the camera. Hate. Really, I am using that word. So, this has been a learning experience for me. I am not saying that I love it now, but I sure do love the people behind the scenes. They have come along for the ride and are now part of our family… even though they still bug the crap out of me with their cameras. I didn’t want to tell you. It’s true. I thought you might think we’re vain, or silly or something… anyway, I’m sharing it now. That’s the first step for us in-front-of-camera-haters.

    These guys clearly don’t have my in-front-of-camera phobia. Here’s Sunel, we call her Auntie Sunel around here, getting a good shot. Oh, and by the way, they shoot everything on the Canon 7D, which just happens to be the camera I shoot with too. Confession: before I met these guys I had used the video function on my camera one time.

    Here’s Coffee Guy doing his thing again… talkin’ about coffee some more.

    All while holding a baby and runnin’ around in the hills.

     

    Smelling the beans, always a good thing. I am aware that my children seldom have all their clothes on. I don’t really plan on changing that. Keeping us all in clothes is too much effort… at least I manage to get myself dressed!

    Here’s Uncle Wesley, our creative director, slogging the gear through the hills with Myles.

    World class sound man, right here.

    Hangin’ with the crew, workin’ on some great ideas.

    Wesley imparting age old Mac wisdom to my five year old…

    aaaand to my 1 year old. Neo loves Auntie Sunel… and her Macbook.

    So that’s what we’re up to folks. What do you think about all that? We’d love to know…

    Luv,

     Kristy

  • Featured in “On to Baby”

    Don’t worry guys… this is still a blog about Africa, coffee, and whatever else it’s about EVEN THOUGH this week it looks like a maternity photographer’s blog. What can I say? I love those preggie bellies!

    The great people over at On To Baby are featuring my session with Bonita and her husband, Dylan, today. You can visit both the post and the full gallery if you like. I am thrilled to see Dylan and Bon up there, they look so great! You also catch a glimpse of a their baby girl, Mila, over there. She appeared on the scene right before our move to Burundi. As a mostly unpaid photographer and blogger/writer, it is great to see my work featured in other places. For the love of the art, good people, for the love of the art!

    Since we’re now living in the middle-of-nowhere-Africa, seeing these photos is like visiting another world soooo different from the one I am in now. I have loved the trip down memory lane.

    Love,

    Kristy 

  • My open sore floor show

    Do you know those weeks that seem like ten thousand weeks all rolled into one? The ones where you look back on Sunday and can’t believe ALL OF THAT LIFE fit into one week? I just finished one of those. When last week began I didn’t have a five year old, and then suddenly I did. A tantrum throwing, I hate you yelling, sweet talking, cuddly love of a five year old. I also had a terrible horrible embarrassing THING on my face. I noticed an innocent zit on my chin before going to bed one night, but while I slept it turned into a monster the likes of which I have never seen. When I woke up, it was an open sore that had a pulse all it’s own. The monster would not heal. It refused, despite strict orders to myself not to even touch the darn thing. For one whole solid week it would leak and weep and leak some more until… my lymph nodes were swollen to the size of  jawbreakers. Then Saturday morning I woke up with tonsillitis too. The morning of Myles’ big birthday bash. Yeah, that’s right… I invited his WHOLE CLASS to our house plus other new friends, all so they had a front row seat at my open sore floor show.

    Somehow I got through it. I told myself to suck it up because this day was not about me… but inside I wanted to run away and cry and not let a soul see me. Instead I faced them… mostly by avoiding mirrors. Thirty kids, their parents and Myles’ teacher. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking it probably was not nearly as bad as I am describing, because “that Kristy” is such a drama queen… I can be, it’s true, but I am not exaggerating about this other BEING I was carrying around on my face.

    Early in the day it began to pour and our outdoor Star Wars party ended up inside. Just imagine thirty kids and their parents (and a few people without kids that I think are insanely brave for even setting foot in my house on that day) all inside. It was one big old Norwegian “Uff-Duh” and I woke up the next morning unable to swallow, with now golf ball sized lymph nodes and the friend on my face still naked as the day it was born. Ben called one of our great doctor friends from South Africa and asked him what to do. Then he zipped out like a hero and bought me some prescription antibiotics over the counter without a prescription for next to nothing. Ahh, I love Burundi. My open sore floor show is beginning to heal, but what a terrible awful no good tag along it has been.

    I have to make one observation after all this. Clearly something is in the water here, above and beyond just Cholera, because we seem to be striking out in the keeping healthy department early into the game. Maybe we need to eat more apples… if we can find some.

    Now I’m craving apples. Dang it!

  • The Bikes of Burundi

    The bicyclists of Burundi are amazing. They carry insanely disproportionate loads on the backs of their bikes. One day we saw an ENTIRE bedroom set on the back of a bike. A bed frame and two side tables. These “bike taxis” are everywhere used to transport everything. Often bikers get in accidents with cars, people, motorbikes and probably other things too.

    This (somewhat strange) video shows bikers on the road from Burundi’s coffee hills into the city where we live, Bujumbura. Cyclists take this route to and from the hills everyday transporting all sorts of things.

    Luv,
    Kristy

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