Thursday, January 31, 2008

This is where I live


Homeless Count


The City of Lynchburg decided that they were going to attempt to count the homeless people that inhabit the city. While we didn't actually run into any homeless people out in the city we did stumble upon an abandoned encampment. During this assignment I realized that Lynchburg, Va. doesn't seem to have a homeless problem. Yeah Lynchburg!!

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Raff invades Guatemala















I just got back from a ten day trip to Guatemala. I visited a friend who has been living in Santiago Atitlan, a pueblo on lake Atitlan that is populated by Mayan decedents, for the past year. We traveled to Santiago from Antigua via a private microbus through the winding mountain roads. Juan, our driver was great, and slowed down a points to help me get better photos. Santiago is incredible. Its more off the beaten path than the other lake side towns.

A Trusty Sidekick










You can take the dog out of the street but you can't take the street out of the dog. Birdie is a former street dog who prefers eating trash over dog food, loves to roll in dead things and can be one mean bitch towards other dogs. While at the market one day Birdie disappeared for a few minutes and reappeared wearing half of a plastic shopping bag and smelling of dead fish. Megan gave her a bath because she smelled so bad that the locals were kicking at her on the street.



San Pedro..OLE!!!









I had a couple days to entertain myself so I packed up a backpack and took a 45 minute boat ride to San Pedro. I brought Megan's dog, Birdie, with me for company although I think she thought I was stealing her. San Pedro is a travelers town on the lake. The best thing about it is that its cheap and people are really friendly. I found a room for about $8 a night that had a hammock outside of my door and met a friendly Finn lander, Sylvia, who can play a mean game of poker.

Too hot to handle....almost









I know this is going to sound strange but I'd never seen a volcano let alone an active one. In my mind a volcano is a mythological thing that doesn't exist today...kinda like unicorns. But for about $7 you can not only see an active volcano but stand a few feet away from the lava. The day before I left Guatemala I had the experience of hiking up Pacaya an active volcano. If this were done in the USA there is no way that you could get that close to lava but in Guatemala tourist are on their own. While this is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life it was also somewhat scary. One wrong move and you could end up falling in a lava cave. Trust me it was worth the risk.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Ode to the D3











I'm not really a techi photographer but I do love shooting with the new Nikon D3. Here are some shoots from basketball this weekend.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

PHOTOS OF THE YEAR BABY!!!!

Click on image below to see slide show

For those of you who don't know...photographers grant themselves the right to have there egos tickled a bit at the end of every year by publishing their fav photos from the past year. My paper did it last Sunday so here is link to the slide show on out website. I'm also gonna give a little shout out to Chet and Jill...so check out their work too. It's good.