My Occasional Blog

Buckeye Days Parade

2012-01-28T20:46:00.000-08:00

Cowboys ride their ponies down the main street (which is not named Main Street) in Buckeye Saturday morning during the Buckeye Day Parade. People from Arizona Public Service (APS) were pulling a huge inflatable Arizona flag behind the cowboy. The event was a part of Arizona's centennial celebration of statehood. Arizona became the 48th state in the union on February 14, 1912.

The state is marking its 100th birthday with parades, fireworks, mass weddings (since the centennial is on Valentine's Day) and other parties. It's a big deal, since this only comes around once every 100 years or so.

There are more photos from the parade in my archive or available from ZUMA Press.

Martin Luther King Day Parade in Mesa

2012-01-16T14:26:00.000-08:00

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the day the United States set aside to honor the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, the civil rights leader assassinated in Memphis in 1968. King is rightly remembered as the greatest civil rights leader in US history. Later in his career, from about 1965 until his death though, he was also a passionate opponent of the Vietnam War. Among his many quotes and speeches on war and peace this one stands out for me, "The bombs in Vietnam explode at home; they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America." He was right too. The wars in Southeast Asia killed President Johnson's "Great Society" and set the tone for next 40 years in American politics. One side vowing not to repeat the mistakes of Vietnam, the other vowing to put Vietnam behind us and not learn from those mistakes.

For most of us, the King holiday is another day off from work. It should be day for introspection and reflection. Maybe a day to do some community volunteer work.

The are more pictures from the Mesa parade in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

Coming Home

2012-01-15T17:06:00.000-08:00

About 100 soldiers of A (Alpha) Company of the 422nd Expeditionary Signal Battalion (referred to as “Alpha 4-2-2”) of the Arizona Army National Guard came home Sunday a nearly year-long deployment to Afghanistan.

Since the military has been downsized - leaner and meaner - more war fighting responsibility has fallen on the citizen soldiers. National Guard and reserve units have been called up in the greatest number since World War II. More than 10,000 Arizona Army and Air National Guard Soldiers and Airmen have been called up to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since September 2001. Almost all American soldiers have left Iraq but there are still approximately 200 Arizona National Guard Soldiers and Airmen serving on federal active duty overseas. For the soldiers and their families the end appears to be in sight as the war in Afghanistan starts to wind down in the next year.

There are more photos from the homecoming in my archive or available from ZUMA Press.

Welcoming Our Newest Citizens

2012-01-14T19:57:00.000-08:00

A member of the Daughters of the American Revolution welcomes the Phoenix area's newest citizens to the Chandler Multicultural Festival in Chandler Saturday. More than 140 people from 21 countries were sworn in as US citizens in an outdoor ceremony. It seems appropriate that the new citizens were sworn in on the weekend that honors Martin Luther King, a man who fought for civil rights for all Americans.

There are more photos from the ceremony in my archive or available from ZUMA Press.

Another Day in Maricopa County Government

2012-01-12T17:11:00.000-08:00

I had to cover a Maricopa County Board of Supervisors meeting this week. In most counties a "Supes" meeting (also called county commissioners in some states) is a yawn inducing exercise in government minutiae. For photographers, in some places, "supes" meetings assignments are as popular as court assignments. In others words, not at all popular. But this is Maricopa County and nothing is as it should be.

This is the county where the Sheriff arrested two of five supervisors on corruption charges, where the chief deputy (since fired) has been quoted as saying the goal was to arrest 3 of 5 to deny the board a quorum. The county where Supervisors hired a private eye to sweep their offices for listening devices, fearing the Sheriff had "bugged" them. The county where the Supervisors are suing the Sheriff's department for malicious arrest. Americans like to make jokes about "banana republics" usually thought to be small Latin American countries. But for the last six years, Maricopa County has been the prototypical banana republic.

At almost every supes meeting, a group of human and civil rights activists opposed to Sheriff Joe Arpaio picket the meeting and speak out against the Sheriff whenever the MCSO is on the agenda. It doesn't matter why he's on the agenda, his opponents will use the opportunity rail against him. This week the Sheriff's department was on the agenda for a relatively routine budget adjustment. His opponents were there and monopolized the first hour of the meeting. Some were critical of perceived racism by MCSO deputies on the immigration sweeps. Others spoke out against the way his jails are run, especially after a video was released showing detention officers repeatedly shocking a man, an unarmed veteran with a history of mental health problems, with a taser then locking him in "safe" cell (basically a padded room), where he went into cardiac arrest and eventually died.

Lately the other side of the issue has been showing up, speaking out in support of the Sheriff. At first it was just a couple of local Tea Partiers. Now, members of the Oath Keepers are attending the meetings to support the Sheriff.

Thanks to the tit for tat back and forth protests, meetings that should take 45 minutes to an hour take two or three hours to get through. But they are sure are entertaining. This week the anti-Arpaio people spoke out against the Atencio death and then a the pro-Arpaio Tea Party and Oath Keepers spoke in support of the sheriff. Finally, Randy Parraz, the public face on the historic recall of Russell Pearce, spoke out against the Sheriff. Parraz' supporters stood in silent support, the Tea Partiers started shouting and it was off to the races. The stand off ended when Parraz and his supporters walked quietly out of the room, but not before an Oath Keeper (top photo) lunged towards the human rights' activists. He was pulled back to his seat by the woman, also a Sheriff's supporter, behind him.

When they got outside, members of Citizens for a Better Arizona taped a notice to the door of the Supervisors' building that they intend to put the Sheriff's department back on the agenda in the two weeks time. I can hardly wait.

Praying for the Legislature

2012-01-09T23:30:00.000-08:00

People gather in the Arizona State Senate chamber Monday to pray for a fruitful and productive legislative session. The "Prayer Walk" was organized by the Center for Arizona Policy, a right wing think tank. The Prayer Walk was just one of several activities that took place at the State Capitol Monday before the Governor's State of the State address.

I like photographing politics and the political process and I've covered almost every State of the State since 1999, when we moved to Phoenix. There's usually a lot to photograph.

Special interests groups congregate on the Capitol to press their issues. The CAP Prayer Walk was the first event Monday morning.

There were also rallies by Planned Parenthood in support of pro-choice and women's health issues (only 3% of Planned Parenthood's services are abortion related, most of the rest are related women's health needs), there were Tea Partiers rallying for lower taxes, smaller government and greater gun rights and a small number of conservative Catholics rallying against abortion rights.

Governor Brewer delivered a rather short State of the State speech in the afternoon. She promoted the state's centennial (Feb 14, yes Arizona became the 48th state on Valentine's Day in 1912), and took credit for righting Arizona's Ship of State.

I was at the Capitol for about 10 hours, from well before dawn for the Prayer Walk, until late afternoon for Democrats' response to the Governor's speech. I shot way too much - I filled nearly 3 eight gigabyte compact flash cards. That's not unusual for me at something like this. There was a lot to photograph.

Then there are the State Senate and House chambers. They are very dark, cave like really. The base exposure is about 1/60 of a second at 2.8 and ISO 3200. Factor using a 300mm lens and although I shot a lot, I only archived about ⅓ of that because many of the photos were soft from movement (both the camera and the subject) and some were out of focus. In others, the subjects had their eyes closed or their hands were in front of their faces or there were other issues. So 24 gigabytes quickly gets winnowed down to 8 gigs.

Thanks to the miracle that is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom though, the editing went pretty quickly. It took me just about 3 hours to ingest, sort through, caption, tone and transmit the photos.

There are more photos from the State of the State in my archive.

Dueling Press Conferences

2011-12-17T14:42:00.000-08:00

Photos © The Arizona Republic

A lot of news was made Thursday. Unfortunately for photographers, most of it was delivered in dueling press conferences. My morning started at the US Department of Justice offices in Phoenix where Thomas Perez, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, (top photo) delivered a scathing report on civil rights violations committed by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department during their "crime suppression" sweeps when deputies blanket a neighborhood and pull over anyone they think might be an undocumented immigrant, and in the county jails, where DoJ officials allege Spanish speaking inmates were not afforded their constitutionally protected rights.

The day ended at the Maricopa County Sheriff's Offices across the street from the DoJ, where Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his lawyers strongly refuted the DoJ claims. (On the right in the bottom photo, with Lisa Allen his spokesperson) Arpaio claims the Justice Department's report is politically motivated by Democrats and liberals in Washington DC and retaliation against him because he's investigating whether or not President Obama is a US citizen. His claim is that if the President is not a US citizen he may have committed fraud by duping Arizona voters into voting for him. Arpaio's claim of a political attack overlook the fact that the investigation into his department was started during the Bush administration and his investigation of the President started just a few months ago, just before the DoJ investigation was concluded. If anything, Arpaio's investigation was intended to blunt the DoJ investigation, not the other way around.

I've been photographing Sheriff Arpaio and the jails for more than 10 years. It's always kind of a surreal experience.

When I started in Phoenix, it was incredibly easy to get access to the jails. It was as simple as calling the Sheriff's PIO (Public Information Officer) and asking to get into the jail to make pictures. I've been in the jails photographing chain gangs, English classes for Spanish speaking prisoners, Christmas mass, celebrity tours (like Shaquille O'Neal), women prisoners reading to their children and weather stories (when it's 110 on the streets of Phoenix, it's about 120 in the tents at Tent City). I've accompanied his deputies on "ride alongs" during immigration sweeps in Phoenix, Gila Bend and Guadalupe. During the Cave Creek Complex Fire, a massive 2005 wild fire north of Phoenix, the Sheriff had his deputies conduct media tours of the fire line when the Forest Service refused to give us access to the fire. The Sheriff said he was the ranking law enforcement officer in Maricopa County and no federal official would tell him or his deputies or their guests where they could go in Maricopa County.

The truth is that I wish all law enforcement and government agencies were as easy to work with. I've never met a public figure with a better understanding of the value of media coverage.

During a Herman Cain stop in the Sheriff's office (before Cain was beset with allegations of sexual harassment but after he suggested electrifying the border fence), Cain was being grilled about his "joke" on the border fence and the Sheriff jumped in and asked the reporters why he wasn't being questioned about immigration. The Sheriff loves the limelight and doesn't like to share it.

To Sheriff Joe, there's truly no such thing as "bad press."

When a reporter writes something critical of the Sheriff, he uses it in his fund raising to show how the liberal media is ganging up on him. When a reporter writes something positive about the Sheriff he uses it to show how even the media (read: liberals) like him. He can rattle off the history of his media appearances the same way a NFL quarterback can recite his statistics.

But in 10 years of photographing the Sheriff, I've never seen him as angry was he was during Thursday's press conference. He flatly denied any wrong doing by his department and said that if there were instances of racial profiling they were isolated instances and correctable through training and discipline. He waved the DoJ press release around while expressing outrage at both the report's conclusions and the lack of notice about the release of the report (MCSO got the report just a couple of hours before the media did).

In a one on one setting, the Sheriff is a very amiable guy. He likes to joke with reporters and photographers. But there was no joking around on Thursday.

I have more photos of the Sheriff and the jails in my archive and some of the photos available from ZUMA Press.

Michele Bachmann Comes to Scottsdale

2011-12-12T11:00:00.000-08:00

Congresswoman and GOP Presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann (R-MN) attended a Politics on the Rocks mixer in Scottsdale last night. The event was held at The Mint, a former bank (hence the name) now an upscale restaurant and club in downtown Scottsdale. Politics and the Rocks is a networking group for conservative Republicans, Bachmann was very warmly received by the crowd.

I only had about 10 minutes to photograph Bachmann. She arrived at about 7:15 and I had to leave by 7:25 to make deadline. Sometimes things just work out that way.

There are more photos of Bachmann working the crowd in my archive or available from ZUMA Press.

Christmas Wreaths for Heroes

2011-12-11T10:30:00.000-08:00

About 200 people came to the National Memorial Cemetery in Phoenix Saturday morning to honor veterans in the final resting place. The occasion was the laying of Christmas wreaths on veterans' headstones.

It's become an annual tradition. In 1992, Morrill Worcester, a businessman from Maine, placed wreaths on headstones in Arlington National Cemetery. Every year since then the tradition has grown. Now, on the 2nd Saturday of December, Wreaths Across America places wreaths in cemeteries across the United States. Not just veterans' cemeteries but anywhere veterans are interred.

Saturday I went to the National Memorial Cemetery in Phoenix to photograph the wreath laying. Hundreds of people - some veterans' groups, some corporate volunteer groups and some individuals lined up for wreaths and then walked through the cemetery placing wreaths on headstones.

Some people simply walked to a grave and placed a wreath on it, others knelt in quiet prayer. Veterans and military members laid a wreath on a headstone and snapped off a smart salute. It took about 20 minutes to distribute the wreaths. After that some family members kept vigil at loved ones gravesides.

There are more photos from the wreath laying in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

Mitt's Back!

2011-12-06T18:28:00.001-08:00

Perennial Presidential candidate Mitt Romney was in Phoenix this afternoon to announce that former Vice President Dan Quayle was endorsing him for President. The two did a joint appearance on the podium for a few minutes then Romney did a live interview with Neil Cavuto on FOX. In between his appearance with Quayle and the interview on FOX, Romney worked the crowd, talking to children, signing autographs and posing for photos.

There are more photos from Romney's campaign stop in my archive.

Where There's Smoke

2011-12-05T20:17:00.001-08:00

I never go anywhere without a camera of some sort. On my walks I just bring my iPhone but when I'm out for anything else I bring a "real" camera. When I'm not working, the real camera is a Panasonic Lumix GF1 and a few lenses (14mm, 20mm and 45mm). The GF1 is a remarkable little camera, not much bigger than a Canon G12 but much more capable. It's a 12megapixel, interchangeable lens micro 4:3 camera, a format pioneered by Panasonic and Olympus. It's small, fast and the lenses are exceptionally sharp. Because it's so small, it's easy to carry around. The whole kit fits into a large belt pouch or tiny shoulder bag. The sensor is half the size of a full sized 35mm sensor like the ones in the Canon 5D Mark II or 1Ds Mark III - it has a 2X crop factor - so the 14mm lens is roughly the equivalent of a 28mm lens, the 20mm lens = a 40mm and the 45mm = a 90mm. In other words, it's nearly a perfect combination for street photography or daily journalism work.

This afternoon, on my way home from lunch with some of my former coworkers, I happened upon a house fire about two blocks from my home. I stopped to see what was happening and made a few photos. I was certainly helped by the weather. It's cold and very dry, so the sky was a brilliant blue. It was mid to late afternoon, so the light on the south facing house was nearly perfect. The little Lumix did a very nice job.

This is not the first time I've used the Lumix for photojournalism. I used it to photograph most of a couple of projects in Bangkok. One on the Bangkok's commuter light rail, the Skytrain, and one on Soi Arab, the section of Bangkok popular with tourists from the Middle East.

Honoring the Virgin of Guadalupe

2011-12-04T17:32:00.000-08:00

December 12 is Virgin of Guadalupe Day, one of the most important holy days in the Latino Catholic calendar. Between now and then there will be thousands of processions at churches across Latin America and in Latino congregations in the US to honor the Virgin, also known as the Empress or Patroness of the Americas.

The processions started in Phoenix on Saturday. The Phoenix diocese of the Church hosted the sixth annual "Honor Your Mother" day, which included a procession with hundreds of participants and a special outdoor mass to honor the Virgin.

According to Mexican history, on December 9, 1531 Juan Diego, an indigenous peasant, had a vision of a young woman while he was on a hill in the Tepeyac desert, near Mexico City. The lady told him to build a church exactly on the spot where they were standing. He told the local bishop, who asked for some proof. He went back and had the vision again. He told the lady that the bishop wanted proof, and she said "Bring the roses behind you." Turning to look, he found a rose bush growing behind him. He cut the roses, placed them in his poncho and returned to the bishop, saying he had brought proof. When he opened his poncho, instead of roses, there was an image of the young lady in his vision.

The Basilica of Guadalupe, one of the largest churches in Mexico City, is built on the site close to where Juan Diego had his visions. The poncho he wore hangs in the Basilica. I've been photographing Virgin of Guadalupe observances for about 20 years, since my first trip to Mexico City. It's one of my favorite religious observances.

There are more photos of the Phoenix procession in my archive or available from ZUMA Press.

Occupy ALEC

2011-11-30T18:03:00.001-08:00

A Phoenix police officer pepper sprays a group of protesters at the Occupy ALEC protest this morning in Phoenix.

The Occupy Phoenix protesters brought their battle for social justice uptown this morning when they tried to Occupy the ALEC conference at the Westin Kierland Resort in north Phoenix. ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative think tank that supports private prisons, wants to do away with the EPA, and helped write SB 1070, (Arizona's tough anti-immigration law). ALEC claims tax exempt status but some progressive organizations think ALEC is a lobbying organization and should have its tax status changed to reflect that.

This morning about 300 people picketed the ALEC event. Most of the protesters were peaceful and respectful to law enforcement but a relatively small group tried to blockade the resort. Police responded by pepper spraying the crowd several times and arresting a handful of people. There were also a few scuffles between police and protesters but no one was seriously hurt.

There are more photos of the ALEC protest in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

Cowboy Up!

2011-11-27T14:53:00.001-08:00

A bull rider head butts the bull he was thrown from at the Grand Canyon Professional Rodeo Association (GCPRA) finals at Rawhide in Chandler, AZ, Saturday. The cowboy lost the head butting contest and was taken to local hospital.

I really like photographing rodeo. It's a chance to see a part of America that's disappearing as people leave small towns and rural areas. It's a connection to the ranching heritage that helped settle the west.

The Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association (PRCA) rodeos get all the attention, and they are excellent rodeos, but I prefer the smaller rodeos, which there are plenty of in Arizona. Access to the cowboys and action behind the chutes is much better at small rodeos, and that's a big deal for photographers.

This weekend the Grand Canyon Professional Rodeo Association held their finals at Rawhide. The finals are the culmination of the year's rodeo, when the GCPRA names its champions. The rodeo was a lot of fun, up to the bull riding when the cowboy in the picture had a wreck in the process of getting bucked off his bull. After the head butting, the bull came back at the cowboy, who was unconscious on the ground, and rammed him into the posts in the chute area. The cowboy ended up requiring facial surgery, was hospitalized overnight and discharged from the hospital today.

Injuries happen pretty frequently in rodeo. It's a tough sport, whether it's the rough stock events like bronc and bull riding or steer wrestling, when cowboys throw themselves off of a galloping horse and onto a galloping steer and wrestling it to the ground. "Playing through the pain" is a just another day at work for rodeo cowboys - hence the phrase "Cowboy Up."

There are more rodeo photos, including photos from the GCPRA Finals, in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

Let the Shopping Commence!

2011-11-25T17:33:00.001-08:00

Shoppers wait in line to pay for their "Black Friday" purchases at the Target Store in Paradise Valley.

On Thursday Americans ate themselves silly celebrating Thanksgiving. Turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, pumpkin pie the whole holiday feast. Before the meal many watched the Thanksgiving parades and after the meal it was football. And as soon as the football ended, many got into their cars and drove to the malls and big box stores for the annual tradition of Black Friday.

Black Friday is a peculiarly American tradition. It's the unofficial start of the Christmas shopping season and supposedly the busiest shopping day of the year. But in truth, holiday shopping starts right after Halloween and the busiest shopping day of the year is usually the Saturday before Christmas Eve. Still excitement's in the air on Black Friday. Mall Santas are in abundance. The decorations are up and it's usually one of the first really cold days of the year, which in Phoenix means temperatures in the upper 40's.

My iPhone and the Phoenix Recession

2011-11-23T17:07:00.000-08:00

I've started taking daily walks around my neighborhood, anywhere from four to eight miles depending on my schedule at work. I don't take my cameras with me on the walk but I do have my iPhone 4 with me where ever I go, so I've started using it to document my neighborhood.

Driving the city streets at 40 miles an hour you don't realize how distressed the city is. When you get out of the car and start walking though, you see the signs of the so called "Great Recession" everywhere. In the closed businesses on every block. Abandoned buildings, and, in the shadow, abandoned people. The ones who have fallen through the cracks of the social safety net and are now living on the street.

What's particularly distressing about this is that our neighborhood is not a bad one. By Phoenix standards it's doing pretty well. We have a good selection of family owned restaurants, office towers, retail (including an always packed Apple Store just three miles from our house) and a couple of grocery stores nearby. But the recession is everywhere.

Head out to Avondale or Queen Creek, the communities that 12 years ago were farm fields and eight years ago were booming suburbs and you can see the economic malaise up close. Blocks of abandoned homes. Others in foreclosure. These are the communities most devastated by the recession. Farmers sold their land in the good times. Developers started building during the boom, and people of limited means bought with no down payment, adjustable mortgages or subprime loans. Then the house of cards collapsed and the Phoenix economy along with it.

Jon Talton, a Phoenix native and former business columnist at the Arizona Republic, had been predicting the collapse for years. His column roiled against what he called the "real estate industrial complex" that controls the Phoenix area economy. He wasn't popular with developers or the real estate industry but he was right. He now calls Phoenix "Detroit in the desert" because Phoenix is a one industry town. The industry is home construction and just as Detroit collapsed with the auto industry, he claims Phoenix will collapse with the collapse of our unsustainable real estate industry. I thought Talton was the best business columnist at the Republic. I wish he was still writing at the paper.

There are more photos of the recession and Phoenix in my archive or available from ZUMA Press.

Meet the Mayor

2011-11-10T15:14:00.001-08:00

Greg Stanton, and his wife Nicole France Stanton, celebrate Stanton's victory in the Phoenix mayoral election.

Tuesday was election day and Phoenix elected a new mayor. Greg Stanton, a former Phoenix city councilman and former Deputy Attorney General, handily beat Wes Gullett, a former lobbyist with a long history as a Republican political operative.

In Mesa, long serving Senate President Russell Pearce was recalled, losing to Jerry Lewis, also a conservative Republican. Pearce was the author of SB 1070, one of the toughest anti-illegal immigration laws in the country, and other anti-immigration efforts. He sponsored numerous bills to loosen Arizona's minimal gun control laws and tax cutting legislation. He was a darling of the Tea Party and one of the most conservative people in a very conservative state senate. Lewis' campaign was built around one simple issue: he wasn't Russell Pearce. He is in step with Pearce on many issues, but this race revolved around personality and Lewis was the winner.

The Greatest Generation

2011-11-04T10:21:00.000-07:00

One of the great things about being a photojournalist is the people we get to meet. Yesterday I was assigned to photograph the only living African-American veteran of Pearl Harbor. Nelson Mitchell (above) is 91. He joined the Navy in 1940 and served through the war. Mr. Mitchell was born in a small town in east Texas in 1920. I can't begin to imagine the changes he's witnessed first hand. After the war, he moved to the Phoenix area to join his family, which had moved here during the war.

Last week, I was assigned to photograph five vets of all ages for a Veterans' Day story in the Gilbert section of the Arizona Republic. One of the vets was Peter Curtin (below) a US Marine veteran of World War II. I photographed him at the American Legion Post in downtown Gilbert.

Both men represent the last of America's "Greatest Generation." More than 1,000 of America's World War II veterans are dying every day (according to the Associated Press). The death rate will go down as the number of vets decreases. The youngest WW2 combat veteran is now about 84 (assuming 18 years old and in combat in 1945). The greatest generation could be gone by 2031.

Now About That Fence

2011-10-18T19:55:00.000-07:00

Michele Bachmann, a Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota, talks to Arizona legislators about border security at the Arizona Capitol Monday.

Michele Bachmann, once a Tea Party favorite for the GOP Presidential nomination, visited with Arizona Republican legislators at the state capitol Monday. She talked about securing the border and promised that, if elected, she would complete a border fence.

Afterwards she held a press conference where a couple of protesters tried, unsuccessfully, to shout her down. Other protesters, who stayed quiet, tried to ask her some questions during the q&a, but she didn't recognize them or tackle their questions.

There are more photos of Bachmann in my archive or available from ZUMA Press.

There's Something Happening Here...

2011-10-17T19:38:00.000-07:00

...What It Is, Is Increasingly Clear

An OccupyPhoenix protester sleeps on the sidewalk in front of Cesar Chavez Plaza in downtown Phoenix Monday morning.

With apologies to Stephen Stills. The original lyric "For What It's Worth" is "There's something happening here, What it is ain't exactly clear." That song and those lines have been played and recited a lot by the mainstream media as they grapple with covering the Occupy movement and the movement's goals.

The movement's diffuse nature and their dedication to open democracy confuses people used to covering the Tea Party, which say what you will, is disciplined.

Spend any time with Occupy protesters though and it's very clear what they want.

It boils down to economic justice. They're angry, especially at banks but also other large corporate interests that pocket millions and billions in profits while the middle class of the US shrinks and the gap between the rich (the 1%) and everyone else (the 99%) grows ever wider.

They're angry that corporate executives in the US make millions while fattening the bottom line of their corporations by laying off and cutting the pay of US workers.

They're angry that health care in the US has become out of reach to all but the richest. That the super rich from developing economies like India, South Africa and Thailand come to the US for medical care, while middle class and those that can afford to travel from the US go to India, South Africa and Thailand for health care because the same procedures are out of reach here.

(True fact: a colonoscopy in Thailand costs about $500 and includes a night in a private hospital room, same procedure in the US is about $1700. And it's out patient.)

They're angry that there are no jobs, either for the laid off victims of the Great Recession, or the young people leaving college now or the veterans returning home after fighting for our country.

The mystery isn't "what's happening here?" but why it didn't happen sooner.

Some pundits have compared the Occupy protesters to the other populist movement of this century, the Tea Party. The only similarity I see is the anger.

The differences are more pronounced. The Occupy protests are more diverse. Protesters are young and old. Employed and unemployed. Black, White, Hispanic, Native American and Asian. It's not, as some have said, all "hippies."

Where the Occupy protesters are diffuse and seem to be unfocused, the Tea Party stays on message and marches in lockstep politically.

Members of the Occupy movement want to make the world a better place. Members of the Tea Party want to make a better place in the world for themselves.

There are more photos from the Occupy Phoenix protests in my archive or available from ZUMA Press.

Demanding Justice

2011-10-14T21:27:00.000-07:00

An Occupy Phoenix protester leads a chant in front of the Bank of America in Phoenix Friday night during a march to kick the Phoenix edition of the Occupy protests.

About 300 people, from button downed office workers to anarchists marched through central Phoenix Friday evening to start the Occupy Phoenix that organizers hope will last through the autumn. The protest has been organized to support the Occupy Wall Street protest that has been going on in lower Manhattan since September 17. Protesters have a list of issue, but they are most angered by the growing economic inequality in the US, with the very rich getting richer while the middle class shrinks and working class falls further and further behind. The banks are a special target of protesters' ire. They are angry that the largest banks, which arguably caused the recession and economic meltdown, have gotten billions in federal assistance but, protesters claim, are now not lending or reinvesting in the community.

These protests are sweeping the country and have been called the "American Autumn" just as protests in the Arab world earlier this year have come to be called the "Arab Spring." The march in Phoenix was spirited but peaceful and the protesters were looking forward to the occupation which starts Saturday.

There are more photos of the protest in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

A Sign of the Times

2011-10-09T18:02:00.000-07:00

A woman paints a sign in anticipation of the Occupy Phoenix demonstration planned for next weekend.

The movement started by the folks who occupied Wall Street last month is making its way across the country. Next week, the movement is coming to Phoenix. Organizers of the Occupy Phoenix protest are planning a march next Friday evening that will wind through downtown, stopping at the large banks that are special objects of the protestors anger, before going to Cesar Chavez Plaza near City Hall for a rally that will start a weekend of actions in downtown.

The Occupy movement caught a lot of people by surprise. They were barely covered by the so called "main stream media" at first and a lot of people outside the movement don't seem to know what the demonstrators want.

I thought the New York Times' Paul Krugman had the most interesting analysis when he said in a recent column that the occupy movement was like a left wing Tea Party, except that unlike THE Tea Party, which supports large banks (or at least opposes regulations on those banks) the participants of the Occupy movement were angry at the right people - large banks and corporate officials who pocket huge profits and guarantee large salaries for corporate officers, (in the US, corporate CEOs make 450 TIMES the average salary of their regular workers). The protestors are angry because CEOs and high ranking corporate officials pocket large bonuses while cutting pay for regular workers and in many cases, laying workers off. The real surprise is why people didn't rise up in anger sooner than this.

Twinkling for a Candidate

2011-10-07T17:29:00.000-07:00

Russell Pearce supporters wave their hands silently in the air, a form of applause called "twinkling" during a debate in Mesa Thursday night.

There's an election in Mesa next month. Russell Pearce, the fiercely conservative, fiercely Republican and darling of the Tea Party, President of the Arizona State Senate is the subject of a recall election and is being forced to defend his seat from a challenge by a Jerry Lewis, a fellow Republican. The Democrats are not running a candidate against Pearce, who is from one of the most consistently Republican legislative districts in the state.

The two men met for a debate in Mesa Thursday night.

Pearce, a long time politician, talked about his accomplishments - his authorship of and the passage of SB 1070, one of the most strict anti-immigration bills in the country; his support for lower taxes and support of gun owners' rights.

Lewis, a political novice running for office for the first time, talked about his vision for a better Arizona, one not sullied by the extremism some say Pearce has caused.

Obviously, neither man talked about the baggage he carries. Pearce blamed the recall on liberal political operatives from outside the district, essentially ignoring the fact that more 15,000 people who live in his district signed petitions calling for his recall. He wasn't asked about and didn't address charges that he improperly accepted gifts from the Fiesta Bowl organization. Nor was he questioned about charges that his supporters actually recruited a third candidate to run against him and take votes away from Lewis. A Maricopa County court found the charges to be true, but the third candidate, Olivia Cortes dropped out of the race, which made the question mute.

Lewis, the newcomer, was not asked about and did not address charges circulating on right wing blogs that he improperly diverted non-monetary gifts away from the charter school he ran.

Football Night in Scottsdale

2011-09-24T16:27:00.000-07:00

I shot my first football game in five years last night, Desert Mountain vs Notre Dame at Desert Mountain in Scottsdale. I was never much of a sports photographer - it just doesn’t interest me. I don’t watch football on television and I barely know what team is in what place at any given time.

On top of that, my kit is not built around shooting sports. My cameras are the Canon 5D Mark II, a terrific camera with outstanding image quality but slow as molasses. The autofocus was state of the art in 1995 - images in the viewfinder don’t snap into focus, they sort of drift into focus. When pictures are in focus they’re tack sharp, but it may take awhile to get there.

Compounding the problem, the 5D Mark II maxes out a claimed 4 frames per second, but I think that when you’re shooting continuous autofocus at a night time sports assignment it’s more like 3 fps. The camera has a 12 picture buffer, after that it slows to about 1.5 fps until the buffer is cleared.

On Canon’s current state of the art sports camera, the 1D Mark IV, the autofocus is so fast it’s almost supernatural and the camera blasts through pictures at 10 fps. The 1D Mark IV has a 32 photo buffer, after which it slows to 4 fps. Still faster than the 5D Mark II.

So if a play lasts 10 seconds, I’m lucky to 20 frames. The photographer next to me using a 1D Mark IV will get three times as many, increasing hugely the probability of getting “the” photo.

I wouldn’t trade the 5D Mark II bodies for anything. For what I want in a camera, it’s easily the best camera out there right now. But as good as it is for what I do, it’s really not a sports camera. So I approach sports assignments with a fair amount of dread. So I was pleasantly surprised when my take from last night.

Dangerous Places

2011-09-23T15:54:00.000-07:00

A special unit of the Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, police department, conducts an anti-drug and gang sweep through the city.

The folks over at PhotoShelter, did a blog entry this week on the world’s most dangerous places for photojournalists. I was flattered when they asked me to contribute my thoughts on working in Mexico, which came in at number eight on the list. I’ve worked a lot in Mexico, in many places throughout the country, on stories about immigration, agriculture and traditions. I always had a great time and was touched by the warmth of the people I met there. It breaks my heart to see what the drug wars have done to the country.

The PhotoShelter blog entry has subsequently been picked up by other photography blogs (which also used one of my photos).

PhotoShelter is a great organization. My archive has there for years and I recently moved my entire web site over to PhotoShelter.

The (political) Elephant in the Room

2011-09-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

Mitt Romney was the first of the 2012 GOP Presidential hopefuls to bring the campaign to Arizona this week when he hosted a “Town Hall” style event in Sun Lakes, an upper middle class retirement enclave southeast of Phoenix. There was no podium or mic stand in the room, so Romney jumped on a chair and spoke for about 30 minutes before taking questions for another 30 minutes. At the same time that Romney was meeting voters in Sun Lakes, Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann was across town courting Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Phoenix.

The room, in a gated country club community, was packed. Most of the attendees were retirees but there were a few working age people and a couple of kids. They were very receptive to Romney’s promises to roll back regulations on industry and business and repeal the health care reform bill passed by Congress in 2010. He disputed charges made one person in the crowd that the Massachusetts health care bill Romney signed while Governor of the state is the basis for the health care bill passed by Congress in 2010.

One of the things I found interesting was that several people asked Romney what he would do to curb the powers of unions but no one asked what he would do to curb the power of corporate interests.

There are more photos of Romney’s meeting in my archive.

Bacon on the Hoof

2011-09-04T19:40:00.000-07:00

4-H contestants walk their pigs at the Minnesota State Fair.

We were at the Fair in St. Paul, MN, this weekend. The “Great Minnesota Get Together,” as the Fair is called, almost defies belief. It’s one of the largest state fairs in the country. It dates back to 1859, the year after Minnesota joined the Union. Nearly 160 animals are born at the fair, most in front of a live audience, in the Miracle of Birth barn at the Fair.

The fairgrounds cover 320 acres and include a large midway, a kiddie midway, a machinery hill that highlights new cars and tractors as well as a large collection of antique tractors, there are barns for horses, cows, sheep, chickens, llamas and more.

Then there’s the food. Minnesota celebrates its dairy heritage so there’s lots of milk. But there’s also pork on a stick, deep fried candy bars on a stick, salad on a stick, fruit on a stick, chicken on a stick, hot dish on a stick (an unappetizing combination of tator tots and meatballs), hot dogs on a stick (i.e. “pronto pups” and corndogs) and chocolate covered jalapeños on a stick. If you don’t like your food on a stick, there are sit down meal halls, sandwiches, deep fried cheese (not on a stick), mini donuts galore, corn on the cob (which is dangerously close to being corn on a stick) and chocolate chip cookies by the bucket load. Literally by the bucket load. There are lots of beverages to wash it all down, from sodas and lemonade to beer (again by the bucket).

All in all, the Minnesota State Fair, which runs for 12 days, is a treat not to be missed. There are more photos from the fair available from ZUMA Press and in my archive.

A Dust Storm Hits Phoenix

2011-08-18T20:41:00.000-07:00

A "haboob" or dust storm moves from the suburb of Tempe to downtown Phoenix Thursday. To get an idea of how big the dust cloud was, check out the buildings in the lower right corner. Those are 30 - 50 stories tall.

A haboob (Arabic for "strong wind") is a type of intense duststorm commonly observed in arid regions throughout the world. They have been observed in the Sahara desert, the Arabian Peninsula, throughout Kuwait, and most arid regions of Iraq. In the USA, they are frequently observed in the deserts of Arizona, including Yuma and Phoenix, as well as New Mexico and Texas. "Haboob" has been widely used to describe dust storms for more than a generation In Arizona but this year the very word "haboob" has become a political football because some conservatives have lobbied against use of the word, favoring English words, like "dust storm." Personally, I think haboob has a nice ring to it.

There are more photos of the habob in my archive or available from ZUMA Press.

Faces of Arizona

2011-08-17T16:01:00.000-07:00

I was up in Eagar and Alpine last week working on stories about the aftermath of the Wallow Fire, the largest wildfire in Arizona history.

The fire ripped through the White Mountains, from Greer in the west to Alpine and Nutrioso in the east, and from the edge of Eagar in the north to south of Hannigan Meadow. It was a massive blaze, its scars, large swaths of scorched countryside, will be visible for at least a generation.

At Luna Lake, east of Alpine, a group of ranchers met with US Congressmen Steve Pearce, of New Mexico and Paul Gosar, of Arizona, both Republicans. There was something about their faces I really liked.

Mob Rule

2011-07-30T16:39:00.000-07:00

Girls dance at a “flash mob” in front of the Arizona Science Center this morning.

A sort of flash mob took over the plaza in front of the Arizona Science Center this morning. I say “sort of” because it was an extraordinarily well planned flash mob. There were briefs in the Arizona Republic encouraging people to participate in the mob, a local radio station was there for a live remote and it was cosponsored by the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” physical fitness campaign.

If a 21st century flash mob is a group of people coming together because of a series of text messages and SMSes, this was more of a 20th century flash mob called together by 20th century means. Not that that’s a bad thing. It’s just not a real flash mob.

Still it was a lot of fun. There was music, some people danced, a few stayed to go to the Science Center and the others went on their way. The whole thing lasted about 25 minutes.

There are more photos of the flash mob in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

Speeding Up Lightroom

2011-07-24T04:13:00.000-07:00

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is an amazing bit of software. I use it for nearly 100 percent of my photo processing needs. From ingesting to converting to cataloging, it’s all done in Lightroom. One of the things I like about Lightroom is that handles all of the RAW files in my archive from Canon D30 (circa 2000) to the 5D Mark II. I even have a couple of Nikon D1 files floating around.

My biggest complaint with Lightroom is that it’s a little slow with large catalogs, especially when launching and ingesting and when I’m working on 21megapixel files from the 5D Mark II. After some trial and error, I’ve settled on a couple of very easy steps that make working in Lightroom faster (for me at least, your mileage may vary).

But before I get into specifics there are a couple of things to keep in mind when using LR (or most any image editor).

• Disable languages you don’t need. For me, that’s everything but English. It’s easy, (but it’s done in the finder, not Lightroom). First quit Lightroom. Then, in the Finder select Lightroom, then type Command (or Apple) i. This opens the Get Info box for LR. Scroll down the box to Languages and deselect everything you don’t need (by default LR will always select one language so you can’t deselect everything). Close the Get Info box and relaunch Lightroom. Only the language(s) you’ve selected will load with LR and it should be speed things up a little. (This trick also works with any application on your Mac.)
• More RAM is better than less. I run LR on two similar Macs, a 13 inch 2.26 ghzMacBook Pro with 4 gigs of RAM and a 20 inch 2.16 ghz iMac with 2 gigs of RAM. On paper, the little MacBook Pro isn’t much faster than the iMac but with the extra RAM it leaves the iMac in the dust when it comes to Lightroom.
• Dedicate as much of your system as possible to Lightroom. When I sit down to start a serious editing session in Lightroom, I quit Safari, TweetDeck andMail. When I’m done with LR, I quit out of it before restarting Safari, TweetDeck and Mail. This is especially true if you’re working on a RAM impaired (2 gigs or less) computer.

Now on to the workflow habits that can speed up your Lightroom experience.

When you launch Lightroom it’s going to load the last folder or collection you used and it’s going to load all of the photos in that folder or collection before it lets you start another session.

If you quit LR with your entire 100,000 image catalog selected, you’re going to wait a while before you do anything. And if you quit LR with it on an empty folder or catalog it’s going to be ready to go nearly instantly. I use Quick Collections while I’m sorting my photos. When I’m done with a LR session I empty the QC and then leave it selected and quit LR. Next time I launch LR, it starts up in the empty QC and is ready to go instantly. This significantly speeds up the time LR needs to start up. (Top photo)

I’m pretty impatient and for me the most frustrating part of using Lightroom is waiting for thumbnails and previews to build because I can’t start sorting and editing until I can see the photos.

I typically ingest photos from my cards into folders on my hard drive. I set up my import (Command Shift I) to copy photos from the card to a folder in my LR catalog. Once LR has started importing the photos, I select the target folder in LR, set the thumbnails to as small possible (using the slider on the bottom of the tool bar) and clear all of the panes off the screen to get as many photos on screen as possible. LR only builds previews as the images are on screen. So if you select the largest thumbnail setting and have all the panes visible (Identity Plate, Catalogs, IPTC and Filmstrip) LR will only generate previews for the pictures on the screen. Then I kick back and wait. Use the time to catch up on email (if I have access to a second computer), get something to eat or drink or do paperwork. Anything to take my mind off of waiting. (Second photo)

Using the fastest cards and card readers you can afford will substantially speed up the import process. I’ve always used SanDisk Ultra II cards, because they were fastest most inexpensive cards available. I recently started using SanDisk Extreme IV UDMA cards with a SanDisk Extreme IV FireWire 800 card reader. The combo flies. I still have to wait for previews to build, but they start building a lot sooner than they did with Ultra II cards and slower card readers.

Once I have the photos imported and previews built I go to work sorting, captioning and editing photos. This is where you’ll see the speed gains you made earlier in the process (getting extra RAM and quitting other applications).

When it comes to writing captions (every photo in my catalog has a caption), presets can make things go a lot faster. I have a “boilerplate” template for each of several agencies I send photos to. The template has all the information specific to that agency, which saves me typing time. LR also remembers (and auto completes) entries you’ve made on other photos, which speeds up the sorting/editing process.

Other than the tips I’ve already listed (extra RAM, quitting others applications), I haven’t found a way to speed up the export/conversion process. This seems to be heavily dependent on processor speed and RAM. Bigger files (i.e. those from a 5D Mark II, D3X or Sony A900) take more time to convert than smaller files (i.e. Canon D30, Canon 1D or Nikon 1D). If you have any tips for speeding up export I’d love to hear them.

UPDATE AUG 3: On his web site, Lloyd Chambers goes into some detail on why Lightroom is rather pokey on exports and some tips on how to speed it up. He recommends dividing your batch export into two batches and exporting them at the same time. The full explanation is here and worth reading.

My photos are available from ZUMA Press or PhotoShelter. My PhotoShelter archive is searchable.

Let's Get Small

2011-07-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

There was a time, back when men were men* and photojournalists used film that transmitting on deadline was a major production.

Back in the day, I used to travel with a footlocker of gear that contained an entire traditional wet darkroom, from film processing reels and tanks to an enlarger, and an AP transmitter, which was about the size of a portable typewriter and took 24 minutes to send one color photo over landlines.

The digital revolution made all that obsolete. (I sometimes miss the days of using film. I never miss the days of turning my hotel bathroom into a functioning darkroom. The enlarger always went on the toilet, which meant the toilet couldn’t be used as, you know, a toilet.)

Now a traveling photojournalist works off of a MacBook Pro and wifi (or a cellular aircard) and you transmit from where ever you are. But there are times when even working off of a MacBook Pro and looking for wifi can be too time consuming.

Hello iPhone. The iPhone 4 was my first iPhone. Before the iPhone I had a Palm Treo 680, slick when it was new, way back in 2006, but starting to show its age now. The iPhone has quickly become an indispensable tool in my digital toolbox. At first it just replaced my Treo - I used it for checking email, surfing the web and making phone calls. Now it’s way more than that.

In July, at the height of the SB 1070 issue in the federal courts, I had to transmit photos of the ongoing protests from the sidewalk in front of the courthouse to the Arizona Republic. Working off my MacBook Pro wasn’t practical (too big to carry around, no where to sit and work etc) so I used the 5 megapixel camera in the iPhone to make photos and emailed them back to the office. The camera in the phone is great. For a cell phone camera. But it doesn’t equal even a point and shoot let alone a high end SLR. And there was no way to caption photos so editors on the receiving end had to cut and paste my caption from the email into the photo in Photoshop and then transfer the photo to the newspaper’s archive. The iPhone, while a good solution, was not a perfect solution.

All of that has changed in just the last two weeks. Now there’s a Secure Digital (SD) card reader for the phone and a terrific iPhone/iPad app called Filterstorm that allows me to use any camera that uses SD cards (in my case the Canon G11) access the JPEGs, caption them and ftp them to the Republic’s archive. Way cool.

The SD reader is kind of expensive for a SD reader - about $40 at Amazon - while generic USB readers are well under $20. But it’s the only SD reader available for the iPhone, because Apple’s Camera Connection Kit for the iPad doesn’t support the iPhone, so they have the market cornered. (The Zoomit reader also works with the iPad.)

Filterstorm is an amazing app. At $3.99 it should be on every photographer’s iPhone or iPad. It’s gets regular updates and the support is superb. It has all the editing tools for editing photos you would expect, brightness and contrast control, sharpness and blurring and even curves. But what really sets it apart is the IPTC information and the ftp client. It does things some of the major players in software for photojournalists said couldn’t be done with the iPhone or iPad.

Now my workflow on breaking, “we need it NOW!” stories is to make the photo with my Canon G11 pull out my iPhone attach the card reader and edit on the spot.

I select the photos I want to send using the zoomit app, and copy them into my iPhone’s Photos app (I never actually launch the Photos app). When the photos I want to send, usually just two or three, are copied over, I exit out of zoomit and launch Filterstorm.

I select the first photo; crop, color correct, tone and sharpen it, add a caption and then ftp the photo straight out of Filterstorm. When the first photo is done, I start on the second and so on. If I am covering a march or protest this allows me to keep up with the protesters where I would have fallen far behind if I had stopped to use a computer.

The photo quality from the G11 is so much better than the iPhone that photos made with the G11 can go into the paper or on the web. Although some of my iPhone photos have been printed on paper, they were generally reserved for internet use. If I had a SLR that used SD cards, like the Canon 1D series, I could run photos from that camera through the phone (this could be a real boon to sports photographers who use the 1D series cameras).

Working this way isn’t perfect. You can only work on one photo at a time with Filterstorm and you have to work with JPEGs - neither the iPhone nor the iPad have the oomph to convert raw files. Accurately typing names and captions on the iPhone’s touch screen is a challenge (and that’s being charitable). Finally, color correcting photos on a cell phone screen, even one as great as the iPhone’s, is really difficult.

It would be easy to dismiss this solution as too little to be really useful. But I prefer to see it as just about perfect. It would be great to open multiple photos at once and set up a queue for transmitting, like I can on my MacBook Pro. But the phone’s not a MacBook Pro it doesn’t have the processor or RAM to deal with four or five 10 megapixel files (even JPEGs) at the same time. For what it does and what I need it’s darn near ideal.

(This was originally published in my technical blog “Geek Speak” on Oct. 1, 2010.)

No offense intended. I mean “when men were men” in a gender neutral way.

Tasty

2011-07-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

A banana flower salad at Chote Citr, a restaurant in Bangkok. This is the tastiest Thai salad I’ve ever had.

I love Thai salads. They’re not like salads in the US. There’s no overflowing lettuce, no syrupy mayonnaise based dressings. Thai salad dressings are lime juice based with herbs and spices. The base of the banana flower salad is banana flower (duh) tossed with mint, some chicken and spices and it is delicious.

In general, my favorite Thai salad is Som Tum, made with shredded green papaya, peanuts, dried shrimp, lime juice and lots of spice. Som Tum is especially popular in Isaan (northeast Thailand, along the Lao and Cambodian borders). I’ve never been able to find the Banana Flower salad anywhere besides Bangkok. A lot of Thai restaurants in the US have never even heard of this salad. I’ve been told it’s a Bangkok and south central Thailand thing, that the Banana Flowers are unique to that part of a Thailand, which I find hard to believe since bananas grow like weeds in Thailand.

I’ve been going to Chote Chitr for about four years. It’s a great little restaurant, a hole in the wall near Bangkok City Hall. It used to be packed with Bangkok municipal employees on their lunch break. But once the owner was profiled in the New York Times (where I first read about it) and on NPR, its popularity with tourists soared. When I was there earlier this month, all of the customers were farangs (foreigners). The food was still delicious but the ambiance was different. More run of the mill, less Thai, more touristy. The price of fame I guess.

There are more photos from my summer trip to Thailand in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

Buddhist Lent, the Monks Annual Rains Retreat, Starts in Thailand

2011-07-15T05:41:00.000-07:00

A monk collects flowers and candles presented during a merit making ceremony at Wat Phra Phutthabat in Saraburi province of Thailand.

I went up to Saraburi today to witness the beginning of what is widely called "Buddhist Lent" or in Theravada Buddhist tradition, Vassa. The three-month annual retreat during the rainy season is observed by Theravada monks and nuns.

Wat Phra Phutthabat is highly revered in Thailand because it houses a footstep of the Buddha. On the first day of Vassa (or Buddhist Lent) people come to the temple to "make merit" and present the monks there with dancing lady ginger flowers, which only bloom in the weeks leading up Vassa, and only around this temple. They also present monks with candles and wash their feet. During Vassa, monks and nuns remain inside monasteries and temple grounds, devoting their time to intensive meditation and study. Laypeople support the monastic sangha by bringing food, candles and other offerings to temples. Laypeople also often observe Vassa by giving up something, such as smoking or eating meat. For this reason, we in the West sometimes call Vassa the "Buddhist Lent."

The tradition started in the early days of Buddhism when the Buddha's arhats (disciples) would wander the Indian countryside without a permanent home spreading his teachings. Travel during India's rainy season as a homeless preacher was difficult so the disciples would meet up and form temporary communities. These temporary communities evolved into the Buddhist temples of today.

There were thousands of people at the temple this morning. It was an amazing experience and, on my next to last full day here, seems like the perfect way to close out this trip.

There are more photos from the beginning of Vassa in my archive or available from ZUMA Press.

Riding the Light Rail

2011-07-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

Passengers on a Skytrain, Bangkok's excellent light rail, wait for the doors to close and the train to leave Siam station.

Bangkok has a great light rail system that runs for about 30 miles along two lines - the Silom line, which runs through the Central Business District and the Sukhumvit line which runs down Sukhumvit out to Mo Chit. The two lines meet and passengers transfer at the Siam station, conveniently in the heart of Bangkok's upscale shopping district.

The most expensive ticket is 40 Baht, about $1.30 US. The least expensive is 15 Baht. The trains are clean, cheap, air conditioned and faster than a car on surface streets. The perfect way to get around Bangkok.

I really enjoy riding the light rail, it's the best way to get from Point A to Point B and the people watching is great fun. Folks in the US think we Americans are addicted to our gadgets. But you haven't seen gadget addiction until you visit Thailand. Thai teenagers are constantly on their smart phones (and like the US, the iPhone is the smart phone of choice) texting, emailing, hitting web sites and playing Angry Birds.

I have more photos of the Skytrain in my archive or available from ZUMA Press.

Aerobics with an Edge

2011-07-13T04:48:00.000-07:00

A woman in Lumpini Park in central Bangkok, goes through her morning aerobics routine with a sword.

I went to Lumphini Park, in Bangkok, to photograph people doing Tai-Chi one morning. The park is a haven, 142 acres of green space in the midst of Bangkok's concrete and asphalt surfaces.

It's packed early in the mornings, when it's a little cooler, with people jogging, doing Tai-Chi, yoga and even karaoke. I photographed a couple of groups of women exercising when one group started working out with very large swords. It was fun.

We used to play in the park when we were kids here in the 1960's. It's just a couple of blocks from an apartment we lived in at the corner of Wireless Road and Phloen Chit. The apartment building is still there, but not much else remains from 1969. The childhood time contrasted with the time I was in the park last year with Thai troops while they attacked Red Shirt civilians camped in and around the park. There are no reminders left of those bloody days last May.

There are more photos of Tai-Chi exercises in the park in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

Soi Arab

2011-07-10T21:53:00.000-07:00

A woman from the Middle East talks to a Thai souvenir vendor on Soi 3 in Bangkok.

One of the things I love about Bangkok is the city's incredible diversity. It's a real melting pot, I think it's probably the most diverse city in Asia. Lower Sukhmvit Road has been best known for its tawdry nightlife. Soi Nana and Soi Cowboy are world famous "red light" districts that cater to sex tourists from around the world. Rock music blares from speakers while scantily clad women hang out in the "beer bars" waiting for lonely or desperate men with more cash than common sense.

Just across the street from Nana and a couple of blocks from Soi Cowboy though is Soi Arab. What started out as one small street, formally known Sukhumvit Soi 3/1, is now a veritable casbah of businesses that cater to Muslim, overwhelmingly Arab, visitors to Thailand. The signage and music is Arabic. You hear Arabic being spoken on the street more than English. Many of the street vendors are Muslim Thais (about five percent of Thailand is Muslim). Finally, there's a real family vibe to the whole neighborhood. You wouldn't know you're two blocks from some of the most infamous adult "entertainment" districts in the world.

There are more photos from Soi Arab in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

Street of many Buddhas

2011-07-05T21:41:00.000-07:00

A man works on a statue of the Buddha in front of his shop in Bangkok.

Bangkok, like many old imperial capitals is actually a city of artisan's neighborhoods. Although the city has gobbled most of them up, a few still exist, like Soi Baan Baat, where artisans still make the alms bowls used by monks on their morning rounds, or Ban Krua, a Muslim community that is renowned for its silk makers.

Bamrung Muang Street is one of the city's hidden gems. It used to be the place where most of the Buddha statues and religious paraphernalia used throughout Thailand were made. It was one of the first paved streets in Bangkok, back in the very early 20th century. It was one of the first streets with something of a modern sewage and drainage system. Now the statue makers have moved out to the edge of the city, but Bamrung Muang Street is still where the statues are sold. I wandered up and down the street for several hours photographing merchants and customers, monks and nuns, all looking for the perfect Buddha for their home or temple.

There are more photos in my archive or available from ZUMA Press.

And the winner is...

2011-07-04T02:34:00.000-07:00

Yingluck Shinawatra and Pheu Thai.

And the Thai people. Pheu Thai won the election tonight. By a lot. Most of the pundits predicted Pheu Thai would get the most votes, but not necessarily a majority of votes. Thailand has a parliamentary system and the winner must score 50% +1 to form a government, anything less and the parties form a coalition. Most had expected PT to score 40-45% of the votes, the Democrats somewhat less but that the Democrats would be the ultimate winners because they would form the coalition first.

Instead, PT scored a landslide. Exit polls showed them winning 320 or so of 500 seats in the parliament and the mood at Pheu Thai headquarters tonight was euphoric. The final tally did not match those lofty expectations. PT scored about 261 of 500 seats in parliament, still enough for an outright victory but a much narrower victory than first thought. Yingluck didn't waste the opportunity though. She still put together a coalition with several minor parties so the PT coalition still controls more than 300 seats. A pretty secure future assuming the courts don't reject any of the Pheu Thai members of parliament.

There are more photos from the victory party and of Yingluck Shinawatra in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

Shelter from the Storm

2011-07-02T00:59:00.000-07:00

A man waits out a rainstorm in front of a bridal shop in Bangkok.

I left the Pheu Thai rally in Bangkok Friday night early because it started to rain. An end of the world, frog strangling, full on apocalyptic downpour and while I had a cheap plastic poncho for myself, I didn't have my rain gear for my ThinkTank camera pouches and I didn't want my cameras to get drenched.

It turns out I should have stayed at the rally. By the time I got out to the street I was completely drenched. My cameras stayed sort of dry (because I buried them under my the poncho and my shirt) but I was completely soaked head to toe and the rain was coming down in buckets. Sometimes literally when canvas awnings over street stands burst because of the water they collected. I was in a part of Bangkok I had never been in before and had no idea 1) where I was, 2) where the nearest light rail station was or 3) how to get back to the hotel. I flagged down a taxi and the driver took one look at me and drove off. I didn't even have a chance to tell him where I was going. I flagged down a second taxi and the driver looked at me and when I told him where I was going, he drove off without so much as a "no way." So I started walking. And I kept walking for about 45 minutes in the most miserable heavy rain I've ever seen (and while we live in the desert now, we used to live in Florida, where it ain't a dry heat, so I know rain). I sort of, kind of headed in a direction that I sort of, kind of thought the light rail would be. After 45 minutes of slogging through the downpour, watching taxi after taxi pass me, laughing I'm sure at the stupid farang (Thai for European foreigner) on the street, a cab pulled over to let a fare out.

I jumped in before the woman even finished paying the cabbie. He looked at me and shook his head. I told him where I wanted to go. He shook his head again. I shut the door and stayed in the cab. He looked at me and didn't say a word and I stared right back and then he burst out laughing, punched the meter and away we went. After another 45 minutes of navigating streets that were flooded we turned onto Petchaburi Road, a street I recognized.

I was going through my camera gear to see what I had wrecked and was surprised to find only piece of gear was DOA, a flash (as an aside, it's been my experience after three years with my 5D Mark II bodies that they're nearly bullet proof). As we passed the bridal shop I saw the man with the umbrella in front of the bridal shop. I already had my 200mm lens on the camera and grabbed three frames through the window of the taxi and we floated past. It had been so dark at the Pheu Thai rally that I already had the ISO at 3200 and much to my surprise the photo of the umbrella man came out.

Fifteen minutes later, the cabbie dropped me at the front door of my hotel, where the front desk staff laughed hilariously when I walked in still soaked and now freezing from the cab's air conditioner which had been on full blast the whole time.

Closing The Campaign

2011-07-01T23:14:00.000-07:00

A Pheu Thai supporter cheers for Yingluck Shinawatra at the last Pheu Thai rally of the campaign.

The Thai political parties closed out their campaigns with huge rallies Friday night. The ruling Democrats closed their campaign in central Bangkok, near Dusit Palace. The Pheu Thai challengers closed their campaign in a giant stadium about halfway to the airport. I decided to go to the Democrats' campaign because it was a closer to my hotel.

On my short walk to the BTS (Skytrain) station, two motorcycle taxis stopped and offered to take me to the Pheu Thai party on the edge of town. I declined and got on the Skytrain to go to the Democrats' rally. The stop before the Dems rally site was the connection for the Airport Link, a light rail system that goes to the airport. On a whim, I got off the train and jumped on the airport link and followed the crowd to the Pheu Thai rally.

I'm glad I did. The Pheu Thai rally was electric. People were jazzed and clearly expected to win. Even though I didn't have any credentials, Pheu Thai volunteers waved me into the media area, which made it easier to photograph the rally.

There are more photos from the rally in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

Men Become Monks

2011-06-28T16:54:00.000-07:00

The mother of a man becoming a Buddhist monk says goodbye to her son at his ordination ceremony in Chiang Mai.

We went on a drive around rural Chiang Mai today and ended up at one of the countless temples that dot the province. We walked in on an ordination ceremony for two men who were becoming Buddhist monks.

This is a very important moment in a Thai man's life. Almost every Thai male joins the "Sangha," or Buddhist clergy, at least once in his life. Sometimes for a just a week or two (the men I photographed planned to be monks for nine days), but for others it's a years long commitment. With typical Thai graciousness the families invited us to participate in this most holy of ceremonies and photograph freely.

There are more photos in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

A Rainy Night In Chiang Mai

2011-06-26T13:46:00.000-07:00

We're in Chiang Mai and it's raining. A lot. Not as much as it did when we were in Bali last year, but a lot more than it normally does here, even in the rainy season. I made this photo while we riding in a pickup truck on our way to a cooking class.

There are more photos from Chiang Mai in my archive. They are available from ZUMA Press.

The Littlest No Voter

2011-06-22T01:30:00.000-07:00

It's another election season in Thailand and the shirts are back on the streets. In this case, it's the Yellow Shirts and their little dogs. The Yellow Shirts are urging Thais to vote "No" in the upcoming national election, hoping the no votes will overwhelm the probable Pheu Thai landslide and electing another Shinawatra to the Prime Minister's office. Pheu Thai is the official party of the Red Shirts. The election is July 3.

The Sweet Science

2011-06-17T10:11:00.000-07:00

I made this picture while I was in Cambodia in 2006. I was driving back to Phnom Penh after a day in the countryside and I saw a crowd standing under a billboard of boxers. I stopped and went into the business, which turned out to be the studios of Cambodia’s main television network and they were telecasting the weekly fights.

I photographed for a couple of hours while the boxers pummelled each other and the crowd went nuts. I made the observation to a local that it was just like Thai boxing and he became quite indignant (in a thoroughly friendly way). It seems that boxing, like everything else in Southeast Asia, becomes very complicated when it involves Thailand and Cambodia.

My new friend told me that I was watching Khmer Boxing and that the Thais stole it from the Cambodians centuries ago during one of the frequent wars between the ancient Siamese (now Thai) Kingdoms and Khmer Kingdoms based in Angkor. Cambodians make the same claims about classical Thai dance, which they claim is purloined from Khmer Aspara dancers.

There are more photos of Cambodia and Khmer boxing in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

Fire on the Mountain

2011-06-06T10:10:00.000-07:00

Jim Pinter, a part time resident of Alpine, AZ, packs his car ahead of the mandatory evacuation of Alpine because of the Wallow Fire.

I spent the last four days in the Eagar / Springerville area trying to cover the Wallow Fire, for the Arizona Republic. The fire is actually burning near Alpine and Nutrioso, about 25 miles south of Eagar. It’s frustrating trying to cover a wildfire when the closest you can get to it is 25 miles. You need a really long lens to pull that off. I got into Alpine last week just before the town closed. I was waiting for a briefing from firefighters to start when I met Mr. Pinter and his wife. They told me they were going to leave immediately rather than wait for the briefing, which turned out to be little more than an announcement of the mandatory evacuation.

I followed them home and photographed them while they packed their belongings and cars. The smoke over Alpine that afternoon was so dense that the sun turned it bright orange and red when it could cut through the smoke at all. It looks like the fire is burning just behind the Pinters’ cabin. In reality, it’s probably 10 miles away. This photo was made at about 6PM, when it’s normally still daylight.

As of Monday this fire has consumed more than 180,000 acres, making it one of the largest wildfires in Arizona history. These fires are getting bigger and meaner every year.

Some folks blame environmentalists for blocking forest thinning operations. Some of Arizona’s forests are so clogged with growth you can’t walk through them - it’s more like a jungle than a forest. The problem is, this land isn’t made to sustain that kind of growth. There isn’t the water or ecosystem. The forests got into this condition because of decades of mismanagement on all levels. A healthy forest is a thinned forest.

Others blame the Forest Service for allowing camping in the forest when there hasn’t been significant rain in months and the forests are tinder dry. It’s a part of the ongoing urban vs rural nature of Arizona. People in Phoenix want to get out of the Valley, where the daily high in June is well over 100, and up to the White Mountains, altitude around 7,000 feet, daily high, normally around 75. People who live in the mountains want to keep campers out when the forest is in drought. People who live in the city want to get up to the pines when it’s broiling in Phoenix.

This year the Forest Service lifted fire and camping restrictions just before Memorial Day, even though the forest is tinder dry. This fire was apparently caused by a mismanaged or untended camp fire. Hindsight is 20/20, but maybe, just maybe, this fire could have been avoided with fire restrictions.

Of course, some people are just stupid and would have been out there despite restrictions. What some folks in Phoenix don’t seem to realize is that we’re visitors in the forest. People live in the White Mountains, for them it’s all they have. Camping is fun and who doesn’t love a camp fire? But we’re screwing with other people’s lives when we set camp fires in the summer drought.

What isn’t as much a part of the discussion as should be is Climate Change, what we used to call Global Warming.

Arizona is a dry state. Phoenix gets about 8 inches of rain per year. Arizona relies on winter snows and a brief summer monsoon for it’s moisture. We’re in the midst of a record drought. Last winter (2009 - 2010) was a better than normal year for snow and rainfall. But 10 years before that were way below normal and this winter (2010 - 2011) was a little below normal, despite a couple of big storms. One good year doesn’t make up for a decade of drought.

The forests, and much of the rest of the state, is dying a slow, parched death. There’s less water from winter runoff and less water from summer rains. What moisture we get is less predictable. Sometimes there are huge storms and sometimes we go months with nothing. When it does rain it either runs off the soil hardened to the consistency of concrete or just evaporates. It doesn’t get into the root system the way it’s supposed to.

This is a trend that’s causing concern around the world. Rice farmers in northern Thailand are losing crops because their rain has become so unpredictable. Fishermen and delta dwellers in Bangladesh live in fear of bigger and bigger cyclones that wipe out entire cities and swamp fleets. Wheat farmers in Australia, cattle ranchers in Texas, all dependent on reliable weather are dealing with an increasingly unreliable climate. The short term is higher food prices and increased social instability. In the west, we pay more for meat and potatoes and grumble about inflation. In Africa or the Middle East, where people can’t afford to pay more they riot. In other places, people just go without.

Some people, especially on the right, say climate change is a myth. They cite summer snow in places like Lake Tahoe, which had a freakish Memorial Day blizzard this year, as proof that Climate Change or Global Warming isn’t real. I think it’s just the opposite: Tahoe’s summer snow is a sign that the climate is changing and becoming more unpredictable. We live in precarious balance with nature. A little shift in that balance - a tiny bit less rain here or in Australia, a tiny bit more rain in the Pacific Islands or a slight increase in average temperatures wreak havoc with the systems we’ve created. These fires should serve as a wake up call. Instead it’s just another fire.

There are more photos from the Wallow Fire in my archive. The Arizona Republic has extensive coverage of the fire.

Memorial Day

2011-05-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

Members of the Parade of Colors march into the Memorial Day service at the National Memorial Cemetery in Phoenix Monday.

Today is Memorial Day, the day we’ve set aside as a nation to honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to the United States.

We’ve been embroiled in two wars for almost 10 years now and most Americans have not had to make any significant sacrifices. A relatively small percentage of the population enlists in the military any more and civilians, safe in the homeland, can go weeks without hearing about what’s happening in Afghanistan or Iraq. But the media keeps us up to date with Charlie Sheen’s and Lindsey Lohan’s latest antics and Donald Trump’s latest blow hard pronouncements.

During past wars Congress and the administrations had to raise taxes to pay for the war, but this is not the political atmosphere to try and raise taxes, so the true cost of these wars will be pushed onto future generations.

There are more photos from the Memorial Day service in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

ZOMBIES!!!

2011-05-28T09:51:00.000-07:00

Comicon is in Phoenix this weekend. The modern scourge of Zombies comes with the fun of folks reenacting their favorite Star Wars scenes, living the life of the Ghost Busters or just doing their civic duty as Super Heros.

Last night Zombies went on a rampage through downtown Phoenix. The Walking Dead, or as the Brits call them “Mobile Deceased,” terrorized the placid denizens of downtown.

But payback’s a bitch. This year the Zombie hoard was pursued by Zombie hunters who either killed them outright (head shots are particularly effective) or chained them and led them away to reintegrate them into society. Rumor has it that Arizona zombies are being housed in a private prison near the state capitol.

There are more photos from Phoenix Comicon and the Zombies in my archive or available from ZUMA Press.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

2011-05-22T17:56:00.000-07:00

Tongues started wagging in Scottsdale this weekend when the Arizona Republic reported that Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and running mate of Senator John McCain during his 2008 Presidential bid, bought this $1.695 million home in Scottsdale. According to the Republic, the Palins paid cash for the home.

The probable purchase of the home has contributed to speculation that Palin is setting up in Arizona for a possible 2012 Presidential run, or, barring that, running for the US Senate seat soon to be vacated by Jon Kyl.

After Bristol Palin bought a place in Maricopa (south of Phoenix) blogs started reporting that Palin was considering a move to Arizona to further her political ambitions. This is sure to add to fuel to those rumors.

Whoever bought the house, they are almost certainly not happy about the news of the sale becoming public. People inside the house started yelling at me as soon as I got out of my car when I went to photograph the house Sunday morning. While I was there, a young man came out of the house to put up “No Trespassing” signs. He wouldn’t say anything about the home’s owners. Local TV stations set up at the house Saturday and were asked to leave by people who wouldn’t identify themselves but were driving a black SUV with Alaska license plates. Three or four cars full of “PalinGazers” stopped to check out the house while I was there. Three people on horseback rode past the house photographing with their cellphones.

If it’s not the Palin house, the new owners are getting a lot more attention than they bargained for. The house is not in a gated community and the street in front of the house is public, so the occupants have little chance of privacy.

There are more photos of Casa de Palin in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

Confronting Budget Monsters

2011-05-19T08:42:00.000-07:00

Congressman Ben Quayle (R-AZ) points a chart of the looming federal deficit during a town hall meeting in Anthem Monday night.

Congressman Quayle came to Anthem, an upper middle class development north of Phoenix, Monday to talk about the deficit and press the case for budget reform and the Republican’s draconian budget plan. Nearly 200 people were there and I’m sure he was expecting a friendly crowd, given the demographics of the Anthem area.

The crowd, though, was hardly friendly. I’d guesstimate that well over half the crowd were opposed to the Republican budget plan, especially the parts that would end Medicare and replace it with a voucher plan. But there were also questions about continuing subsidies for the oil industry during a time of near record oil industry profits, cutting funding for Planned Parenthood and women’s health care even though only about 3% of PP’s services are abortion related and the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In general, they were skeptical and critical of what appear to be Republican plans to roll back the 20th Century.

To his credit, Quayle (who, despite being the son of former Vice President Dan Quayle, is a political neophyte), confronted and answered the questions head on. He didn’t flinch or refuse to tackle a subject. Even when questioners “refudiated” his answers with facts of their own he stuck to his guns.

There are more photos of Quayle in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

The Passing of a Legend

2011-05-17T13:50:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege of photographing Harmon Killebrew in 2002 in his home in Scottsdale, AZ. He was a genuinely nice guy who gave me as much time as I needed, and chatted about everything from the weather to his time with the Minnesota Twins. I’m not much of a sports guy (I didn’t tell him that), but what little attention I paid to baseball as a child was because of Killebrew.

(I used a Holga a plastic camera with lots of light leaks and a soft lens, which is why the photo has a different look.)

My family is originally from Minnesota but we never really lived there. My grandparents though lived in St. Paul up until the time they died and visiting them during summers meant hours of watching the Twins on grainy black and white TV’s, either on the back porch or in the basement.

Killebrew played virtually his entire career with one team, the Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins from the time he joined professional baseball in 1954 until he left the Twins in 1974 - a feat almost unheard of even when he played. (The Senators moved to Minnesota and became the Twins after the 1960 season.)

After leaving the Twins he played with the Kansas City Royals for one season before retiring from baseball.

Killebrew’s stats speak for themselves:

13 times on the American League All Star team
1969 American League Most Valuable Player
six time American League home run leader
573 home runs (currently 11th on the all time Home Run list)
Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1984.

And none of these records have asterisks behind them. There was never a hint of scandal or cheating with Killebrew.

The world learned that Killebrew had entered the final innings of his life late last week when he went into hospice care for esophageal cancer. He passed away this morning. For a lot of Minnesotans of a certain age, it’s the passing of an icon.

The Next Big Thing

2011-05-14T10:03:00.000-07:00

Meet Kylee, the hottest thing ever to come out of Chandler, AZ. Not many folks have heard of her in the United States, but in Japan she’s a bona fide superstar. Kylee (full name Kylee Saunders) is a 17 year old high school student in Chandler who has a thriving career as a pop sensation in Japan. She commutes between Chandler and Japan promoting her music. She’s often compared to Hannah Montana, who also had a double life as high school student by day and pop singer by night. Kylee is signed with Sony records.

Friday morning she put on her first national performance on the Today Show on NBC and Friday night she performed in front of the home town crowd on the “Plaza” at 200EVB, in front of the Arizona Republic building. The Friday night show was broadcast on KPNX, which, like the Republic, is owned by Gannett and in the Republic building.

I made these photos during the show last night after my shift at the Republic. There are more photos of Kylee in my archive.

Party Time

2011-04-15T23:08:00.000-07:00

Arizona Capitol Police arrest a man on the lawn of the State Capitol during a Tea Party rally this evening. It’s not clear what he did to warrant being arrested. He rode a bike into the rally and was sitting on the bike in front of the crowd listening to the speakers. Officers spoke to him and then left him alone. A crowd of Tea Partiers surrounded him, he said something to one of them and then the police swarmed him, pushed him to the ground, handcuffed him and took him away.

About 500 Tea Partiers gathered on the Capitol lawn Friday night to mark tax day. They listened to speakers, complained about high taxes, the federal debt and illegal immigration. No one said anything about crumbling infrastructure, failing public education or income disparity.

This year a small group of counter protesters, no more than 50, tried to shout down the Tea Partiers. They used bullhorns and street theater to make their points and from time to time the two sides would confront each other with verbal exchanges. One woman, a counter protester, claimed to have been pushed to the ground by a Tea Partier. I didn’t see it happen. But at least one Tea Partier was led away (not in handcuffs or in custody) by police for an interview.

Attendance at this year’s event was down compared to 2009. In 2009 there were 8,000 - 9,000 people at the Capitol. It was packed. This year’s crowd of 500 was tiny in comparison.

There are more photos from the Tea Party rally in my archive or available from ZUMA Press.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

2011-03-28T15:11:00.000-07:00

Burmese rafters cross into Thailand on inner tubes along the Moie River between Mae Sot, Thailand, and Myawaddy, Myanmar (Burma).

Yesterday I wrote about the hazards faced by western journalists working in Libya and the Middle East. While those hazards are real, they’re nothing compared to the risks local journalists take in those countries every hour of every day.

Western journalists are somewhat protected by their status as foreigners. People at the New York Times started looking for their coworkers as soon as the four New York Times journalists went off the radar in Libya. The same thing when Joe Raedle and the two AFP journalists went missing. Calls were made to the Libyan foreign ministry and diplomats are notified, and wheels start turning. The seven disappeared under relatively public circumstances. No one came into their hotels in the middle of the night and snatched them.

Local journalists are not so lucky. When one of them disappears, it seldom makes headlines here. No one raises alarms about their missing colleagues. Foreign diplomats don’t get involved. Local journalists are routinely snatched from their homes or off the street after work.

Little of what we (foreign journalists) do would be possible without the help of local journalists. We frequently hire local journalists to work with us as translators and guides and local drivers to get us around the checkpoints and roadblocks. We call them “fixers.” Our work would be many times harder and considerably more dangerous without them.

Which brings me to the photo at the top of the page. I made the photo while in Mae Sot in 2008 working on story about Burmese refugees and immigrants in Thailand. An exiled Burmese newspaper editor in Bangkok arranged for me to work with one of her reporters in Mae Sot; he was my fixer.

We drove along the riverfront the first day we worked together and I saw people crossing on the rafts I asked him to stop but he wouldn’t. He kept saying it was too dangerous. So we motored on to some Burmese hangouts in Mae Sot. Several days later I went down to the river and photographed by myself for an hour or so, then I found a Thai Army patrol watching the border and photographed them for a bit.

Afterwards, in a small coffee bar in Bangkok, the editor asked me how things had gone. I told her everything was perfect except the reporter wouldn’t work along the riverbank with me. She asked if he had explained why and I said no, he just said it was too dangerous. Then she told me his backstory.

He had been a reporter in Burma (which I knew) and done a story (a as in one single story) critical of the regime. He was tried and sentenced to death, escaped and made his way to Thailand. But the Burmese government death warrant was still hanging over him. He was afraid that if Burmese agents, who watched the Thai side through binoculars, saw him they would either a) come across to kidnap him or b) shoot him.

To us this sounds paranoid. About 10 days before I arrived in Mae Sot, a Burmese exile, sitting in a rocking chair on his porch, was assassinated by Burmese agents who crossed the border and then took a raft back to the Burmese side. As they say, when everyone is out to get you, paranoia just makes good sense.

Later on the same trip, we saw Thai immigration officials returning Burmese migrants to Burma. I tried to photograph them and my fixer asked me not to because the Thai police would come after him. He said, I’d be protected because I’m a farang (Thai for Westerner) but Thai authorities would come after him because he was helping me. I put my cameras down.

I had a similar experience in south Thailand. I was traveling with my fixer on a highway between Pattani and Narathiwat (two large cities in Thailand’s insurgency wracked south). We were stopped at an Army checkpoint where they compared people passing through the checkpoint with a list of people suspected of being insurgents. I asked in the officer in charge if we could photograph and he politely, but firmly, said no. I said okay and we left.

As we drove away, Tuwae, my “fixer” asked why I didn’t push it with the officer. He said the week before I arrived he had worked with a BBC crew who tried to videotape the same checkpoint and got the same answer. The BBC producer then proceeded to read the Thai officer the “riot act.” The “Beeb” producer said that if Thailand is a democracy with a free press then videotaping the checkpoint should be allowed. And that they (the BBC crew) were British, Britain has a free press and he would by God, videotape whatever they wanted to. Only a dictatorship like Burma, he said, would not allow the videotaping. Comparing Thailand to Burma really rankles Thai officials, who take great pride in Thailand’s relative affluence and stability despite the Kingdom’s imperfect democracy.

I told Tuwae that if I had pushed it with the officer I was afraid it would cause problems for him. I told him I was leaving in a week to go back to the US, but he lived in Pattani and that I was afraid anything I did to upset his relationship with local military officials would harm him in the long run. He thanked my for my discretion and then said he wished the BBC crew had shown the same restraint.

The stories I work on when I travel are my stories. I come up with the ideas, I research them and make sure they’re doable. But once I’m on the ground and actually have to conduct the interviews and make the photos it becomes a team effort , a responsibility shared by myself and my fixer. It’s that way for most Western journalists working in the developing world.

While we think about the fate of our countrymen working as journalists under very difficult circumstances we must not lose sight of the local journalists working with them. The risks they face are much greater than the risks any of us face.

There are photos from the Thai/Burma border and the Thailand’s southern insurgency in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

"The Air Was Full Of Metal"

2011-03-27T16:45:00.000-07:00

The world has been riveted for the last two months on the news coming out of North Africa and the Middle East. Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and most recently Libya, have seen changes the likes of which the world hasn’t witnessed since the end of World War II. Some of have said it’s the last convulsions of the Ottoman Empire (because the maps for the modern Middle East were drawn by the British and French after they defeated the Turkish Ottoman Empire in World War I).

These revolutions have been dangerous for the western journalists who are covering them.

Lucas Mebrouk Dolega, French photographer on assignment for the European agency epa was killed in Tunisia, shot in the face by security personnel.

In Egypt, Wally Nell, a South African photographer living in Cairo and represented by ZUMA Press, was shot in the back. CNN’s Anderson Cooper and CBS’ Lara Logan were both assaulted in Egypt.

In Libya, four New York Times journalists were captured and repeatedly assaulted by the regime. Their harrowing first person account of the ordeal is the kind of stuff that keeps journalists in conflict zones (and their families at home) up at night. In a separate incident, Joe Raedle, a Getty photographer and friend from our days in El Paso, was also taken prisoner by the regime along with two other AFP journalists he was traveling with. They were released and are now safely out of Libya.

The video at the top of the page features John Moore, also a Getty photographer, talking about covering the uprisings in the region. When he says it’s the most dangerous fighting he’s ever seen, he knows what he’s talking about, he’s worked in some of the world’s most dangerous places, like Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and now Libya.

Most US newspaper readers probably don’t know his name, but they almost certainly know his work - he was covering Benazir Bhutto’s election campaign in Pakistan in 2007, on the day she was assassinated. The photos that ran in newspapers around the world the next day were his.

At a time when we take news and information for granted, especially from conflict zones far from home, it’s important to remember that people are putting themselves in great danger to bring you the news.

Hail To The (Ex) Chief

2011-03-16T23:11:00.000-07:00

Former President George W. Bush speaks at the 50th Anniversary dinner for Arizona Christian University, a small conservative Christian school in north Phoenix.

We were allowed to photograph the first three minutes of the President’s speech and were escorted out of the building on minute four. It was stills only - no video. More than 1200 people paid $500 each to nosh with El Jefe (stuffed chicken with a cheesecake pastry dessert) and listen to him recall decision points in his administration.

Outside the venue, about 100 anti-war protesters and social justice advocates demonstrated against the former prez, claiming policies he authorized like torture and “extraordinary rendition” are not representative of the Christian values a school like Arizona Christian University upholds.

There are more photos from the evening in my archive.

Why Is This Man Smiling?

2011-03-14T21:07:00.000-07:00

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne leaves the grounds of the state capitol in Phoenix escorted by immigrants’ rights activists who heckled the AG the whole time he was at the capitol Monday.

Immigrants’ rights activists have been at the capitol for weeks protesting against the anti-immigrant bills being put forward by the state’s Tea Party influenced GOP legislators. One of the bills would require hospitals to verify the immigration status of patients checking in for elective care. Another would turn school officials into ICE agents because it would require schools to verify the residency status of their students, including home schooled children. Another would result in arrest and impoundment of the car for undocumented drivers in Arizona even if they have a driver’s licence from another state. (Arizona does not issue driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants, but some states, like New Mexico, do.)

Horne has been a target of the immigrants’ rights activists since he authored legislation outlawing ethnic studies programs during his time as Arizona’s education superintendent. It’s not clear why he came to the capitol Monday (his office is about three blocks east of the capitol complex). Certainly as AG he does a lot of business at the capitol, but on Monday he didn’t go into any of the buildings or meet with legislators. He walked from the parking lot into the crowd, who started heckling him as soon as they saw him, around the plaza between the buildings and back to his car (a Jaguar in case anyone is wondering). It’s almost as though he did it just to rile up the crowd.

There are more photos of Monday’s activities at the Capitol in my archive or available from ZUMA Press.

UPDATE 3/18: The State Senate defeated all of the anti-immigrant bills during their session Thursday. This means the Republicans defeated them since the Democratic minority is too small to defeat or block legislation. The GOP change in heart apparently came after the Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to the Senate saying, essentially, enough is enough. Immigration is a distraction and causing a lot of anti-Arizona backlash in other states. Get on to job creation. They seem to have listened.

Wearing His Tea Party Hat

2011-02-27T18:09:00.000-08:00

The Tea Party was in Phoenix this weekend for the 1st Tea Party Patriots American Policy Summit. They expected about 2,000 people but the times I was there the venue was only about 1/4 full, so I don’t know if they ever reached their attendance goal.

They talked about the ballooning federal deficit and the constitution, about illegal immigration and unions. Russell Pearce, the Arizona State Senator who authored SB1070 and most of Arizona’s other anti-immigrant laws was the first speaker on Saturday. He got a rock star’s welcome. Other speakers included former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Texas Congressman Ron Paul.

There are more photos from the Tea Party in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

Arguing About Immigration

2011-02-22T21:19:00.000-08:00

An opponent of undocumented immigration, right, argues with a supporter of immigrants’ rights at the Arizona State Capitol Tuesday before an Arizona Senate committee started discussion of several bills that would further reduce the rights of undocumented immigrants in Arizona.

One of the bills would turn school officials into ICE agents because it would require schools to verify the residency status of their students, including home schooled children. Another would result in arrest and impoundment of the car for undocumented drivers in Arizona even if they have a driver’s licence from another state. (Arizona does not issue driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants, but some states, like New Mexico, do.) Hospitals would be required to check the immigration status of patients checking in for elective care. (Federal law prohibits such intrusions for emergency care.)

These bills, and others (like the abolishment of the Arizona’s Medicaid agency) brought hundreds of people to the Capitol. Most were opposed to the immigration bills but there were also Tea Partiers, who support almost all of the legislation; medical professionals, who oppose the hospital bill and dissolution of Medicaid; educators, who oppose the education portion of the immigration bill; bikers, who were coincidently at the Capitol for a picnic scheduled weeks ago but ended up supporting the bills to limit undocumented immigrants; and unionized state workers who showed up to support workers’ rights that under attack in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

It was a cornucopia of people and competing interests and ideas. It was democracy.

There are more photos from the day in my archive.

Let the Games Begin

2011-02-14T14:27:00.000-08:00

Congressman Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona’s 6th Congressional District, looks at his wife while announcing he would seek the Republican nomination for the US Senate.

Flake made his announcement at a Phoenix hotel Monday morning. The same hotel incumbent Republican US Senator Jon Kyl used Thursday of last week to announce he was retiring from the Senate. Flake’s announcement surprised almost no one. Kyl had barely finished his retirement announcement last week before people were mentioning Flake as a possible successor. Flake is a social and fiscal conservative with a something of an independent streak. He wants to loosen the trade and travel restrictions against Cuba and he voted against most of his party colleagues on “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” when he voted to end the discriminatory practice that prohibits gays from serving openly in the Armed Forces.

At this point Congressman Flake has to be considered the GOP front runner. None of the likely Democrats have thrown their hats in the ring yet.

There are more photos from Congressman Flake’s announcement in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

Supporting the Constitution

2011-02-07T19:32:00.000-08:00

About 200 people, many of them children, who support the US Constitution came to the Arizona State Capitol earlier today to show their opposition to some Arizona lawmakers’ efforts to strip out the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

Some Republicans in State Senate want to pass a state law that would prohibit citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants born in the US. In spite of the wording of the 14th Amendment, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The State Senate held hearings this afternoon to discuss the proposed law. In a rare bit of Republican disharmony, the Republican sponsor of bill withheld it from a vote because he couldn’t get enough GOP votes to pass it out of committee. That doesn’t mean the bill is dead - he could shop it around to a more receptive committee - but it does put the bill on legislative life support.

There are more photos of Monday’s happenings at the capitol in my archive or available from ZUMA Press.

Arizona StandDown

2011-02-05T09:50:00.000-08:00

A homeless vet gets a haircut and a shave during the Arizona StandDown, an event that brings needed services to homeless and at risk veterans in the Phoenix area.

The Arizona StandDown is an annual three day event that brings together the Valley's homeless and at-risk military veterans, connecting them with services ranging from VA HealthCare, mental health services, clothing, meals, emergency shelter, transitional and permanent housing, ID/ drivers licenses, court services and Legal Aide, showers, haircuts and myriad other services and resources. Arizona StandDown is held annually at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum at the Arizona State Fairgrounds in Phoenix on Super Bowl weekend.

Most times we just drive by the homeless without really seeing them. We forget that as many as one quarter of the homeless are military veterans, men and women who have served our country. Many are dealing with post traumatic stress issues and other problems associated with their service.

There are more photos from the StandDown in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

The Revolution Will Be Televised

2011-02-01T15:34:00.000-08:00

About 200 people from all walks of life came to central Tempe last night to show support for pro-democracy protestors in Egypt (and Tunisia, Palestine, Jordan etc).

People who watch international news have known for a long time that Hosni Mubarek is, at best, an unpopular leader in Egypt. But it seems to have been widely accepted that he was our best friend in the Middle East, a dangerous part of the world. How quickly the mighty have fallen. He’s still in charge, at least nominally, in Egypt but he’s the leader in name only. His departure is a question of when not if.

This reminds me of the “People Power” movement in the Philippines in 1986 when a petite widow wearing yellow unseated one of Asia’s worst tyrants. No one thought Marcos would give up but faced with overwhelming public opposition, a few brave generals who wouldn’t fire on civilians and Corazon Aquino’s steadfast determination Marcos relented and went into exile. Egypt seems to lack a Corazon Aquino like figure, but otherwise there are many similarities.

Watching this unfold on BBC (whose coverage is much better than CNN’s) is mesmerizing. I wish our local cable provider carried Al-Jazeera in English. Their website’s coverage is outstanding.

There are more photos from Monday’s demonstration in my archive and available from ZUMA Press.

The Star and the Sheriff

2011-01-28T11:28:00.000-08:00

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is in the midst of his 18th “crime suppression” sweep through the Phoenix metro area. He held a 30 minute press conference yesterday to talk about the sweep’s accomplishments. Then one of his spokespeople let drop that Hollywood superstar and martial arts champion Steven Seagal was in town to participate in the sweep as a volunteer lawman.

A few minutes later Seagal came out dressed in his camo garb, shooting glasses and backwards baseball hat. Seagal chatted with the deputies and the sheriff before wandering off. He didn’t say anything to the reporters. The photographers were more interested in photographing Seagal than Arpaio.

Meet the New Year, Same as the Old Year

2011-01-27T23:25:00.000-08:00

2010 ended with immigration being the hot topic in Arizona and 2011 is starting the same way. The Republicans in the Arizona Legislature introduced a bill today to bar US citizenship to US born children of undocumented immigrants. Their bill seems to be in clear violation of the US Constitution, a document they claim to hold close to their hearts. The 14th Amendment says, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” Seems pretty clear to me.

Not only does the bill seem to stomp on the Constitution (and would likely be overturned by the US Supreme Court) it also appears to be overwritten. The bill would limit citizenship to permanent residents, thus leaving out people here legally on tourist visas, business visas, student visas or anything but permanent residents. And one analyst thinks it would deny citizenship to the children of US citizens who happen to be born outside of the US, like the children of military members or military service people on duty overseas. Not very patriotic for a party that prizes patriotism.

A group of people opposed to the so called “anchor baby” legislation gathered at the State Capitol to show their displeasure at the bill. One of the protestors came dressed as an “anchor baby,” the derogatory term the right uses to describe these US citizens.

City Sunrise

2011-01-18T09:09:00.000-08:00

A US Airways flight lands at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport Tuesday morning. Most of the tall buildings in downtown Phoenix face due east. The glass ones take on a golden glow for the few minutes that the sun strikes them from a low angle.

This photo was made with a Canon 5D Mark II, a Canon 300mm lens and an EF 2X teleconverter, the ISO was 1600. I was about three miles from downtown and even though the camera was on a tripod, the combination of long lens (total focal length 600mm) and low light made camera movement a significant problem. Many of the frames showed significant amounts of camera movement.

There are more photos of sunrise over Phoenix in my archive or available from ZUMA Press.

A Candle Against the Night

2011-01-15T23:42:00.000-08:00

A woman holds up a candle during a Jewish prayer service for Gabrielle Giffords, and other victims of the mass shooting, on the lawn at University Medical Center in Tucson Saturday night.

I went back to Tucson today to see how people were coping after the shock of mass shooting one week ago. The initial shock has been replaced by more complex emotions. Sorrow for the families of the deceased. Hope for the survivors. Anger at the shooter. And still the question, why? A question that is mocked by the haunting smile of the alleged attacker’s “mugshot.”
The employees of the Safeway where the shooting happened came out for a small service at 10:10AM, the exact time of the attack. Some of the employees were still so heartbroken, a week later, they couldn’t participate. The emotional scars from the attack will take far longer to heal than some of the physical ones.
Candles line the sidewalk at Gifford’s office. A steady stream of people come by to drop off cards, flowers, teddy bears and notes.

Flowers, pictures, candles and children’s toys cover the lawn at University Medical Center, where Giffords and most of the others injured in the attack, were sent in the frantic moments after the barrage of gunshots.
People walked quietly through the field of flowers. Some were lighting candles, others stopped to pray, some hugged, some cried. Mournful music filled the air as a man played the violin for hours, improvising.
Later a small mariachi group performed. Giffords, a native Tucsonan, is a big fan of mariachi music. Hospital staff told the musicians their playing could be heard in the Congresswoman’s room. Just before dusk the mariachi trumpeter played the “Star Spangled Banner.” People stopped what they were doing to sing along with him as he played.
At sunset, members of Tucson’s Jewish community gathered for a religious service on the lawn.
There are more photos from Saturday in Tucson in my archive. Saturday’s photos are also available from ZUMA Press.