Don’t Look Now

Working on a travel piece about Medellin for a mag. These are few pics I like from the first two days. Its a great city to photograph in. Much more to come.

p.s. Medellin is the best kept secret in Latin America. Without a doubt, one of the best places I have ever visited in my life. Its overflowing with culture and art, it got the perfect climate, its modern and clean, its stunningly set in a gorgeous valley, and the locals are the friendliest folks I’ve ever met anywhere.

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A young girl plays on the beach in Veracruz, a small fishing village ten minutes outside Panama City.

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Brazil is the biggest producer of soy in the world.

The farmers cut into the forest for soy and cattle.

Cleared jungle for cattle pasture. Demand for red meat continues to skyrocket.

Charred forest ready to convert to farmland.

These are some stills from my photo camera from a story I am working on about the global food and energy crisis, which actually a video piece. I took very few stills, but here they are. With HD, I can do frame grabs, which is the plan in the next few days.

In an nutshell, many are accusing Brazil of burning down the Amazon to convert it into high yield farmland to grow more food, animal feed, and crops for biodiesel and ethanol production. Begs the question about what is the environmental price we are willing to pay in order to have enough food and energy crops for the world. A complex and controversial issue.

The video is in the editing phase right now, and will post soon. Enjoy..

Note: I cropped to 16:9 aspect so I can put it in FCP. Some people like to add motion to the photos and move around it, but not me. I like it cropped how I want…

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Brazilian journalist and friend Ana Bianca Marin was in town for a few days. We took a day trip up the coast. Ana dreams of buying a French sailboat and seeing the world. I saw her looking out to sea, dreaming….

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Fuerte San Lorenzo, the ruins of a 16th Century Spanish fort on the Caribbean coast of Panama.

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—A few photos for a spec piece I may do about deforestation in Panama.

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I went on a hike with my photog buddy Ruben Parra for a little photo trek. Nice change to just play with light and shadow and whatnot….

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Music video shoot.

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Construction workers and students took to the streets in violent clashes against the police to protest the killing of a construction worker by the police in Panama City, Panama on Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008.

So because this was an AP assignment, my best stuff goes to them. These are my “seconds”, but you can get a taste of the chaos from these.

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Typical Panamanian move. Make a hustle wherever you can. During Carnival, this place charges different prices for using their bathrrom and going, well, number one, number two, or the whole enchilada. Hahahaha….

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Went to Carnival in Panama this year. Basically, Carnival is four days of parties, parades, drinking, art, folkloric music and traditonal dancing. Think Burning Man meets Daytona Beach.

BUT!…during the day, each town in Panama have ‘culecos’, or big street parties, which makes our spring break look like a church trip. Its basically a giant water fight, with industrial water tankers, dj’s, half naked girls, and hard alcohol. Oh yeah, and its packed with 10,000 drunk people by 8am every day. My Canon 5D, replete with garbage bag and rubberband protector, barely made it out alive.

I only took my camera out in Penenome, as I was shooting something for the AP. As I can’t post those photos, here are some other shots.

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Greetings from Panama! I visited Veracruz, a small beach town just outside of Panama City with my friend Tito Herrera the other day. These are just some snapshots of the visit.

Tito is a great Panamanian photojournalist, and I’ve been so glad to make friends with him. There is a tight knit group of shooters here in Panama, and a lot of talent to boot. Things look good….

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