David duChemin is a Vancouver-based freelance humanitarian and travel photographer. An unashamed do-gooder, David uses his powers for good and not for evil. This is his blog.
Had a long but wonderful weekend with some incredible people. I’ve posted a couple while I edit the remaining 3000 images. See a few of them on my portfolio under the OTHER gallery. Link to the portfolio HERE. You’ll have to find your way from there.
Northern Ethiopia, January 2006
I’m tempted to tell you this photograph has nearly nothing to do with me. It was shot, one of three frames, from the window of our beat-up Land Cruiser without slowing down. I saw the scene, knew there was no way I could get it, but tried all the same because I’m sometimes stubborn that way. Rightly, a great many of my images ought to be credited to a fast shutter and serendipity. In fact, I’d probably have a good deal more shots like this if I just got out of the way more often.
Trouble is, I think too much. I can give you twenty reasons a shot won’t work before I get the camera to my eye, and in so doing I lose out on moments like this that “would never work.” Often my thinking is a help - it works hand-in-hand with my intuition and complements the touch-feely or artsy-fartsy side. It’s helpful when dealing with technical things, like removing the lenscap. But give it a little room to move, give it too much license to control the process and suddenly there’s a hundred un-shot frames and my inspiration never gets a word in edge-wise. Think too much and the decisive moment is gone before you can react. And then the analytical side and the emotional side (the geek and the artist) are both unhappy with you and they take off for a bar and some single malt scotch to try to forget about you for a while.
I think as we grow up as photographers, as we “mature,” we lose a childlike willingness to experiment, to fail wildly, to try something for the sake of seeing what happens. I used to lie on my tummy with my old Pentax Spotmatic and a bellows unit and shoot out-of-focus raindrops on grass just to see what it looked like. And that was back when I paid for every precious frame of film.
Still, I’m glad it turned out as it did. We spent so much time in that Land Cruiser, saw so many children smiling, waving, running after us yelling “You, You, You, Youyouyouyouyou…” that this scene is as much about Ethiopia to me as some of the images I worked much harder for. More so because the two figures are children, and girls at that. Dotted all over the countryside you’ll see them carrying their jerry cans of water, large loads of twigs and firewood making them ant-like in proportion. More than 50% of the population of Ethiopia, like most sub-Saharan countries in Africa, are children. Many of them orphans. Still they smile, still they wave.
God, I miss Ethiopia.
Exif: Canon 20D, 17-40/4.0L @17mm, 1/1600 sec at f/5.6, ISO 400. Probably needs me to open it again in Lightroom and re-process it for better midtones.
The prestigious, but relatively new PX3 awards have been announced for 2008. If you’ve got some time and you’re looking for some inspiration, spend it HERE looking at the work of the winners. Some really gorgeous stuff in there, in a range of styles from international photographers.
This is REO, a 6-week old Cocker Spaniel I had a chance to photograph this week-end. One of my photographic ventures is RedCollar Photographic. My passion is shooting the world and creating photo-resources for the humanitarian and NGO community but I can only be out on the field so much. So, RedCollar is a something I’m rolling out to keep me out of mischief while I am in town and not already doing commercial work here in Vancouver.
I’d encourage those of you who struggle to make a living at this to diversify. Target your marketing to each individual market - don’t be a jack-of-all-trades shooter - and make sure you specialize in each of those markets, but intentionally diversifying your markets to a couple areas of really solid expertise is an excellent way to make sure you keep shooting.
So why do I photograph dogs and their people? It was an intelligent lateral move. Much of what I shoot for World Vision involves shooting children and animals. Shooting people and pets here at home allows me to extend my expertise in one area to another, while allowing me to hone my skills for my primary client. Each one feeds the other. I’d be less likely to shoot weddings (however, I have shot in war-zones with the UN kicking around, and that’s like several weddings I’ve been to…). It’s also a market without high-end competition, and one in which people are heavily invested emotionally - which means solid income.
Diversification, when done right, allows you to retain your positioning without diluting your apparent expertise. When done right it can be a powerful tool for staying in the black.
Check out the rest of Reo’s images at redcollar.ca
For the eager ones, I’ve posted a gallery of selects from my Tunisia trip - there are more here than I will eventually post in my portfolio, but these are for the keeners.
I do have a favour to ask of you however - if any of these particularily strike you as either excellent or “what the heck were you thinking?” please leave a comment at the end of this post.
Most photographers I know struggle to edit their own work - sometimes the images we like the most we like because we associate with the memory of being there, or the moment, and really those things don’t count. Unless it’s in the frame it doesn’t matter - or the photographer should have done a better job of getting it in the frame. Likewise we sometimes overlook an image because we read into it the fact that we didn’t quite make it say what we wanted. This trip was a challenge and I’ve looked at these images so long I can’t see the forest for the trees. Or the trees for the forest. Your comments would be appreciated.
So, here’s the link - CLICK HERE. I’d welcome your feedback.
The website has been updated in a blur of jet-lag-induced efficiency. Look for the NEPAL gallery.
I should have a Kashmir gallery up today as well but it’s taking me a while to slog through the 3000 images, get them all converted to DNG files, archive them, etc. So if not today, then tomorrow. As always, comments are welcome.
*1pm - Kashmir Gallery is now up.
I’ve been back from India for about twelve hours now and am already settling full-swing into the insanity of jet-lag. Not good for me, but for you it means I’ve been up for hours posting some of my favourite images online. There are two new galleries of images from India on my Pixelatedimage.com site HERE - the images are a mix of shots from Agra, Delhi, Jodhpur, and Varanasi. There are also a few India images thrown into the mix in the Travel gallery as well.
The trip was amazing - I hope it shows through in the images. I’d love your feedback, particularily if there are certain images that you find particularily compelling.
Namaste.
I have now posted 13 of the 4000+ images I shot recently on assignment for World Vision in Malawi and Democratic Republic of Congo. You can see them here on my portfolio pages. Can I take this moment and say what a privilege it was to work for and with World Vision. I am inspired and grateful to be kicking at the darkness with them. I hope my images communicate something of how deeply in love I fell with the people, particularily the children, of Africa.
My friend Matt has updated his site - The Digital Trekker - and if you’re at all a fan of my photography you will love Matt’s imagery. Matt and I are colleagues in several senses and are sounding boards to each other on our photography; it’s a recent friendship that I think will see us collaborating on projects in the future - including a potential photography course in India. Go check his stuff out - just don’t love him more than me, ok? Please? 
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