Monday-Humanitarian mission becomes more urgent

Continued rains swelled the river past dangerous levels destroying the Pisaq bridge and stranding us in Coya. The water level reached the power station and shut it down, right in the middle of an operation. The generator was kicked on,but Guido and I went to Calca to get more gas and batteries for the clinic.

We got back and found out the government clinics were closed, so that meant Clinica Kausay Wasi was now the only hospital in the region functioning. No sooner had we gotten back, we found out a truck full of people tumbled down a hillside, killing one and injuring 20. We were no longer a medical team helping kids, we were an ER providing first line care.

Patients rolled in hours after the crash, one man with a life threatening fractured femur and another with a crushed hip. That man screamed out in pain as the doctors attended to him, while his pregnant wife, who luckily was in another vehicle on their way to her scheduled maternity exam, watched helplessly. A woman with her scalp torn off and fractured ribs shook uncontrollably, and a another endured the torture of having her lips and gums sewed in the lobby after being sewed up in the lobby. The serious ones were then sent to a vehicle exchange point at a footbridge to get them to Cuzco. We later found out that they got there, but waited hours, if ever, to be seen from the last report. The way government hospitals work, if you have money, you get seen. If not, maybe never.

Some of us took off to see what the Vilcanota(Urubamba) River was doing. People were digging up soil to fortify the levy protecting their homes from the river, which was above the home level already.

It was amazing to see these doctors drop their mission and switch to a mode not in their playbook. The clinic had an able staff, but the onslaught of medical expertise at hand to help these unfortunate people made a real difference. Today, lives weren’t simply changed, lives were saved by their presence here. Heck, even I got to pitch in. When the lights went off, there was nothing in the OR to see by, so I brought in the Light Panel Micro Pro Photo Supply loaned me last minute to illuminate the room, aiding a critical procedure until the generator started.

The Qechuea word of the day is Oohspoli- thank you.

Sunday-the floods begin

I’ve been trying to wake early to catch the sunrise with these magnificent terraced mountains around us, but its been an act of futility, as each morning has been met with rain showers. Now, this IS the rainy season, so I shouldn’t be too surprised, but what is typically a sunny day, followed by afternoon clouds and evening drizzle, has become an onslaught of showers that threaten the entire region. Since the sky was closed this Sunday morning, I photographed the town plaza which included a 300 year old Catholic church.

At the clinic, two children from the Cuzco orphanage were late. The road to Cuzco was blocked by a landslide and threatened all travel to and from Coya. I got a taxi driver and drove to see the blockage, and the rain-swelled river that carves the Sacred Valley of the Inca. My driver, { } took me to the mud hut community his father and cousins live in in the hills f on the way to Pisaq to get a better view of the river, which was threatening to cut us off from the main route to Cuzco entirely.

A strong river flows down from the mountain into the main river cutting now in between his father’s home and a another. His young cousins were fascinated with my cameras and what I was shooting up their hill, offering me endless advice.

We took off to Pisaq and saw the water already nearly cresting the banks in town, already flooding many houses and businesses.

On the way back, we maneuvered around rockslides that swallowed the highway. In Calca, homes were being evacuated. I photographed two boys wading the dangerous river to retrieve home items. In the next day, that house would be gone.

Saturday

With everyone, including myself finally caught up with sleep (I went to bed at 8:15pm! A record!) the team hit the day with a whopping 8 surgeries.

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Maria Elena is a 23 year old girl who marked a critical benchmark for all the previous missions of this team’s long record. She went in for a hip replacement, a delicate surgery under normal circumstances, where infection can easily kill, and surgeons often wear environment suits to perform it. But here in Coya, the doctors had to operate with what minimal supplies they had–and forego the desired sterilization process, which unfortunately meant me NOT being in the OR. I set up a remote camera that I could control with Pocket Wizards, but had problems with interference on the frequency. I finally had to rely on a wired remote cord that would shoot video clips at regular intervals. I got the footage, but a camera bump, and lousy life battery on the 7D killed the camera before the orthotic was placed.

–Kiara is a 4 year-old girl born with a club foot. She had had a previous surgery to normalize it somewhat, but today’s surgery would give her pretty much a correct looking foot, and most importantly, one that she can use normally. It’s amazing to me watching the surgery. The first cuts you can distinctly see the intricate contents of the foot, and make sense of the architecture of bone, vein muscle, etc. But after 30 minutes, to me, after rearranging, flushing the tissue, it becomes indiscernible, and the true talent of a surgeon is realized as toneless matter can only be deciphered by them.

–Roger is a sweet, happy nine month-old born with 12 toes and fingers, and got surgery to remove the extra four. In just a matter of hours, he is happy and and bubbly, like nothing ever happened. Babies are absolutely amazing.

I miss my Stella.

Friday

Finally got some real sleep. Under the 40lbs of alpaca blankets, I almost never got up. Despite the time difference, I managed to get up at 5:30am to a misty morning. Martha, my host, made bread and jam with coffee.

I was off and running to the clinic.

Organized Chaos. If I wondered whether I would be twiddling my fingers waiting for something to shoot, I would be hard pressed to find another career choice. The clinic was packed with parents and children who, in some cases, travelled for days to get here to receive a small piece of miracle from the One Child at a Time team.

The first surgery was a young girl named Elena who was born with fused fingers and really none of them formed past the first joint. She did have thumbs, however, and the team decided to un-fuse the first and second fingers so she could actually grasp things with it.

She might be able to now grasp food, perhaps hold a pen and draw as she manages to do here in this photo,

and maybe, if she is a little bored one day–

twiddle.

Catching up-Peru bound

Because of the travel and nonstop work and flooding, my blogs are delayed, so pardon the rambling, I will do my best!

I think the hardest part of planning a trip is the actual packing and departure. I have three bags to pack, four if you count the bag I gave to Capitol City to pack medical supplies. But let’s get back to the three I am pulling my hair out about.

My Lowepro backpack will take on my clothes, shoes, and necessities. I think it’s a 170 cu inch bag, so I have ten days of clothes (think synthetics that I plan to re-wear a few times.) Thick hiking boots, ( I am wearing my Nike Free’s for the looonngg plane ride.) My camera equipment belt pack with blister pods, a shotgun butte style steady camera rig for smoother handheld video, my tripod and video head, my nylon sleep sack, Aussie hat, flashlight, Leatherman, monopod, and an assortment of whatever else I already forgot and probably didn’t need but it seemed important to take along at the time.

My rolling camera bag with two cameras, my 300mm lens, 70-200mm, 16-35mm, 50 1.2 lens, 15mm fisheye, 24-70mm and two flashes, radio remotes, infrared remote, two camera strobes, and my laptop, with several power bars.

and finally my shoulder camera bag that has a video microlight, a book on Peruvian history, water bottle with ultraviolet light bug killer, hand sanitizer, toothpaste, and iphone.

Geez, now that I write this, I wish I had just brought an old Nikon FM2 and a few lenses and called it good!

The plan was to go to sleep at 8pm to get a good amount of shuteye before my friend Ron picked me up at 2:30am to go to the airport, but you know that never happened. I pack, repack, vacuum pack stuff and it still doesn’t fit right. I trimmed the clothes down even more, decided that shotgun mike just hasn’t got room, and there must be one more set of instructions for Jenn to follow regarding using the new oatmeal maker or something before I forget. So all in all, I get to bed at 11:15pm, and run inventories through my head (darn, gotta remember to pack ibuprofen just in case!) and probably drift off to sleep at around 12:30!

Yes, the set up to the travel I would say is the real pain!

Met the team at the airport with the huge throng of bags. The plan was to get early, check everything in straight to Cuzco and relax, but when we got there at 3am for the 6am flight, the computers are down, and there isn’t a soul at Delta! Turns out, they don’t come in until 4:30! Journalism 101–hurry up and wait.

When we finally do start check-in, we found out the second checked bag is now and extra $30. Okay, no problem, just have to readjust my finances to absorb that unexpected amount. Thanks Delta, always fun flying the unfriendly skies with you!

I figure the best chance to sleep on the plane is to snarf down some biscuits and country gravy. Airplane food, the stuff of champions! Too bad my eating experience would only go downhill from there.

Pineapple juice, Lima, and lessons learned

We arrived in Lima, Peru just after midnight. We did the zombie walk through customs and of course, my bags of attractive camera gear immediately red flags me to the bag search. Fortunately, everything cleared out, so we walked en masse into the common area that was...unexpected.

Ever since 9/11, airports in the U.S. don’t allow people past a certain point waiting for loved ones to come in. But even when they did, I don’t remember a flight I ever came in on that had what amounted to a small city population crammed in at the security checkpoint like what we walked into. As we walked through, some people would scream and bust out of the line, running to family members on our flight, impacting them with kisses and hugs and tears of joy. I didn’t have time to bust my gear out of my bags as we were coming through, and I was warned repeatedly that bags in the Lima Airport have a curious way of disappearing, even when practically attache to you, so opening my cases in 1000 plus people wasn’t the wisest thing to do, so the only photo I have is burned into my brain.

As we found a safe spot, we met up with our interpreter, Lauren, a 23 year old nutritional advisor from New York who met Dr. Shaw a few years ago in Ecuador, and has tagged along on his missions ever since. We formed a wagon train of bags and fortified ourselves behind them to reduce the chance of the bags growing Peruvian legs and marching off. We broke off in teams to scrounge around for food, massages, phone calls, or just walk the jet lag off.

Our flight was delayed from 5am to 9:40am, and as a result, we were given food vouchers to Dunkin Donuts or Mama Morenas. Some of us felt adventurous and tried Mama since doughnuts didn’t really suit the rumbling belly. Umm..if you ever have the choice–go doughnuts. We got dry and a little suspicious pork sandwiches and stale bread, but that was nothing to the juice. We were told they were from cartons, so Todd and I got Pineapple, and some others got orange juice. Well, one person who finished the orange juice discovered squirming maggots, which incited some squirming from the rest of us. I had taken a few sips of mine and sweated the agony to come. I knew better than to do the juice, but it just sounded so good! Most of us slumped into heaps on top of the softest bags we had and made the best of it. If you have a half body-sized bag, I highly suggest the pose with hands tucked under your back and legs Indian-style laying down, its not that uncomfortable!

We got our flight to Cuzco, and for some reason, I and five other team members scored first class seats. The comfortable, cushy seats eased our minds of the infected juice. Luckily, traveling with a medical team has it’s benefits. Namely, Bactrim. We started a regimen immediately, which didn’t help my nerves when my belly finally started rumbling when we landed in Cuzco.

We departed the plane, and met Guido del Prado, founder of the Kausey Wasi Clinica in Coya. he arranged for several vans to take us and our stuff to Coya. We drove through the tightly packed, ancient looking city that served as the home base of the Inca for hundreds of years before Pizarro devastated the area, and the people. We passed terraced mountainsides lush with a tropical green, and ancient ruins. Coya lies several thousand feet down from 11,000 Cuzco at entrance to the Sacred Valley of the Inca, a beautiful, amazing place.

Rumbling stomach aside, we dropped off our bags at the team’s hotel and we footed it over to the clinic. Hundreds of parents and children patiently waited for us and we jumped right into triage. Some of the people walked days and days to get a chance to be helped by Dr. Shaw’s medical team, up and down mountains that would be an unimaginable journey for Americans to contemplate.

Thank God for the video on my cameras, or I wouldn’t have been able to recount at think on this first day, we were ALL beyond zombie-ism

Sandy, Guido’s wife and an Oregonian, took me over across the courtyard to Martha’s place while I am staying. Martha kind of reminds me of Chachi’s mom in Joannie Loves Chachi. The outside of her home is part of the wall of structures that make up the courtyard. She has a store selling soda and necessities. The inner courtyard has guest rooms on one side, and her home on the other. The rooms are quaint, red and peach walls with a double bed, little nightstand and wood beams more like tree limbs.

The shower is a shower head with an electrical wire sticking out of it connected to a circuit breaker. You turn the circuit breaker and pray it doesn’t get wet!

It was a little to sophisticated for me to figure out, so I settled for a cold shower.

Counting down to Peru

My gut is ache-y. Not nervous (unless I look at the bank account!) I think its the Typhoid pills I am taking. It's a side effect to watch for, but my gut feels like a rave is going on and I wasn't invited. Ugh.

I met with the medical team as a whole for the first time last Saturday and I am getting pretty excited. I have a carry on bag full of medical supplies, lending a hand in letting one of my carry-ons be a mule for bandages and braces. I have my other carryon packed with clothes and essentials (well, 70% completed anyway) and thanks to my friend Rob at Pro Photo Supply in Portland, a ThinkTank Security International bag for my camera gear–along with loaned out lenses, cards, video heads and the like as well, THANKS PRO PHOTO!!!

Sadly, the Kickstarter program ended up a waste of time. It let me get the word out in a stylish fashion, but I was well short of the financial goal. Slowly, my backers are sending their pledges directly to me, thanks again!

As the week rolls down, I will become more regular with updates. I spoke with a newscaster with FOX 12 here in Portland, and he wants to do a story on us when we get back, so already, I have a rapid editing session planned for the still work for that.

Now its back home, to see if my border collie who ate a pan of brownies I made for Jenn or I will win the most upset stomach award tonight! Either way, I get the porcelain trophy!

Maria is getting a new hip. Sure, we all probably know someone who has hip replacement surgery, your grandfather, grandmother, the occasional pro athlete who took too many hits on the field, but Maria is only 23 years-old.

It’s not apparent how she lost the use of her right hip, an accident or perhaps a viral infection of some kind, but in the tiny village in Peru where she lives, she never got to play soccer with her friends, or even help her family in chores.

Just trying to relieve herself is a difficult and humiliating experience.

Maria is the oldest of 50-60 children that will be treated by the medical team led by Dr. David Shaw and his team of 18 surgeons, orthotic and prosthetic specialists, physical therapists, and nurses through the One Child at a Time and Capital City Medical Teams mission to Cuzco, Peru that I have been invited to document. I am privileged to accompany them as they help these kids, perhaps 300 in all, with a range of need like corrective surgery for club feet, limb augmentation, prosthetic fitting, and crutch and brace fittings. New chances for lives to be changed.

AmeriCares is providing the hip orthotic manufactured by Zimmer and instruments that will be needed for the procedure. It's really amazing to see how an operation like this comes together from all over the country to help those in need. I'm getting excited.

More to come.

The digital age and fundraising

I found out a few weeks ago that I was invited to document a medical expedition to Peru. A team of 19 doctors, surgeons, prosthetists, nurses and occupational and physical therapists are heading to the Sacred Valley of the Incas near Cuzco, Peru to help children with various orthotic and prosthetic needs. This humanitarian mission is an
incredible undertaking and I am very privileged to be invited along. They expect to help 300-400 children and and perform up to 60 surgeries during the expedition.

But, the trip takes place in five weeks, and that doesn't leave much time to raise funds.

I promised my wife I wouldn't hammer out our meager savings, especially so soon after the birth of our daughter, Stella, so I had to get creative in figuring out how to make this terrific opportunity happen.

A photographer on the forum site www.sportsshooter.com suggested a Website called kickstarter.com. This site provides the portal for people to get their passions in front of the faces and keystroking fingers of an audience interested in being a part of a realized dream, no matter how profound or outrageous. The key to the projects is that everyone gets something out of it. The dreamer gets his dream, and the investors get whatever return they are promised. In my case, depending on the amount, you can get your own photo montage, a soft cover book, or a hard cover coffee table book, or more.

I am pretty excited to try this out. Over the next few weeks, I am going to add more to my listing, hoping to get the trip covered. Already, I have about 10% of the trip up front here on kickstarter.com, and a Pro Photo Supply has generously offered to loan me equipment for the documentary. I'd say this is off to a pretty good kickstart!

A big salute to the veterans today!

Harry Trimble-Army Air Corps photo recon pilot in Luxembourg

I come from a military family. My great-great-grandfather Wiley Trimble was a confederate soldier. My dad still has his 1861 Confederate Navy Colt, my uncle has his saber. My great-grandfather Richard was calvary during the First World War. My grandfather Harry "Boppa" Trimble flew photo recon in World War II, Korea, and oversaw missions in Vietnam. He also received the Soldier's Medal for bravery when he pulled a test pilot out of a burning cockpit at Edwards Air Force Base. It's the highest honor awarded during peacetime.

My other grandfather Norm served in the Army in WW II and my uncle Les was a seaman in the Navy and survived a kamikaze attack o

n his boat. He doesn't talk about it. My uncle Keith narrowly escaped the USS Hornet when it was sunk at the Battle of Santa Cruz in 1942.

Granville Dressel, Navy Seaman on the U.S.S Franklin

My wife's grandfather Granville served on the USS Franklin, an aircraft carrier that was kamikazied in the gulf of Tokyo while carrying the famed Black Sheep Squadron. He was blown unconscious into the water where he floated for almost a day before being rescued. He passed away just last year, after finally telling his family his harrowing tale. My uncle Jack was an Air Force navigator during Vietnam. His F-4 Phantom was shot down towards the end of the war and he was a POW for several months before he was freed. My cousin Eric, Jack's son, served in the Air Force in Iraq.

Ray Selvyn of Yuma kisses his wife, Olivia, goodbye before heading to Afghanistan.

One of my closest friends, Carlos Chavez, is a veteran of Desert Storm. I have met and photographed several vets of this latest war, some of them are struggling, some of them are homeless.

Larry Deturenee, a veteran of the War in Iraq, sets up a sleep pad at St. Andrews Lutheran Church in Vancouver, WA March 30, 2008. It's the last night to sleep there for the homeless program. The next day Larry was on the streets.

Today we honor you all. Your risks, your sacrifices in body, mind, family, faith, and peace, are remembered here today. Thank you for your service.

I am a pixel Ghoul

What better word to describe me? I just launched my first art gallery showing this past week called "Gravelights." at the Northbank gallery in Vancouver, WA. The project came about from a trip to New England to visit my wife's family in Vermont. We went to Salem, Mass first explore around and when I saw the main graveyards in town, some of the oldest in the United States, I got inspired to play around with long exposures and painting with flashlights and colored strobes.

So after I talked my very reluctant wife to sneak into the cemetery during the Witching Hour (12am-3am, hey, ya gotta do it right in Salem y'know!) I came up with some funky, way-out-of-my-typical-style of shooting stuff!

One of my inspirations was Professor Savage, my archeology professor at ASU. He did his work on symbology on tombstones especially in the 1600s to the early 1800s. The imagery on the tombstones went from a gothic, skull with raven wings look to more angelic, cherub like symbology that demonstrated the changing attitude of the afterlife during that period.

These were just the tombstones he worked on and it was pretty cool to be out there, and be the ones that go bump in the night!

But, of all the photos I did, the ghostly lights Jenn and I created for the photos, there was one photo I didn't generate the "Spectre." This one I was doing a long exposure as a group of tourist walked by on a candle-lit tour of Salem. The wall behind them was evenly lit and I got about 5 frames. But, this frame was the only one that had the white floating form in it! Don't know what it is, but its the real deal! Enjoy!