A letter from Fiji...

where in the world are we?

Sadly the title is not a competition with rich prizes, so for everyone except Wilson who has already recognised it the answer is we spent 4 nights last week in... Suva! For the rest of the world Suva is the capital of Fiji, and is around 3 hours drive south of Nadi (where the international airport it).

Our stay in Suva is remarkable for the fact that although we have now lived in Fiji for 3 1/2 years I have never spent more than 2 hours at a time there, generally driving in, going to the apple service place and "cost-u-less", grabbing a quick coffee at Bulaccino Raiwaqa, and heading home, taking the obligatory photo of Korovou (here and here) on the way out. What this means is that everything I know and believe about Suva pretty much comes from blogs:- Paradise not found, Oceanic, Awesome Cake, and Lunch in Suva... Yes that's right, I went to Suva expecting hoards of intelligent witty folks who make erudite comments while dining in quirky restaurants, even though I was wary of muggers and hepatitis (yes thanks for that Albie). 

The first thing we discovered while trying to get to the school convention (which is the reason we were in Suva) is that Laucala Beach is not in Nausori. Yes that's right the two are not even close. Don't ask. We still got to our destination in time by some miracle... Second in Suva they have lovely water front housing...NOT! The above image just fascinates me, these are squatter houses built illegally as far as I can gather from the locals (feel free to chime in) over some pipes by the river. But it's looks quite picturesque no? This is just down from the KFC which marked our turnoff. Why didn't someone just say "turn right at the KFC"?!!!!!?!

While the kids were in convention, which was by the way extremely good, and will feature in another post (yes, still not sticking to the chronological thing, sorry Lee; also I will still post about Udu, trip home etc); I sneaked away a few times for a bit of tiki-touring. Suva downtown is fascinating, a real mix of old colonial buildings and new shiny ones, including the big-box style MHCC which even has escalators! I looked up "lunch in Suva" for dining ideas, and would have offered my services to go and dine with them and take photos, however I sensed that having an overweight 40+ year old kaivalagi with a huge camera tagging along would have completely and utterly blown their street cred... instead I simply read and appreciated the run down on the hibiscus festival food (as we were staying just up the hill)...

The idea to photograph the contrasts in downtown Suva is not actually mine, Neil Stollznow was the one who originally started taking these sorts of images showing the old colonial Suva contrasting with the new high rises. But I had to continue the tradition, even though I didn't feel inclined to wander too far incase I never found my car again. Note that the streets are quieter than usual- it's after 5pm, so everyone's heading off home... 

 

To finish I will shamelessly post something er... lifted from one of the above blogs, her reaction (aieeeee it burns!) reminds me of me eating with the other parents at Vivrass MH foodcourt (and nearly snorting water out my nose); though I did have to buy it myself. Someone please syndicate this guy immediately! We need to see more cartoons like these...

Na Vale ni Veitaba

As always when we've been away in NZ I'm behind the 8-ball. One of the reasons for that is that often I will either go somewhere with no internet, or I drop the macbook in for some sort of tweak or work for a week while I'm over (as I did this time). Then I always get back here and chase my tail for a few weeks and the first thing to go is the blogging.

I am absolutely loving the photos from Udu and will share a few soon. As I was saying we were heading for a destination I wasn't familiar with, I just went with it and enjoyed the view. One of the things that surprised me was my improvement in understanding Fijian. Lets not overstate this, really it's just the progression from only understanding "Bula" and "Vinaka" to having maybe 10 words more I can understand (even if not pronounce); but in Labasa (which I loved; big, busy and clean) I spotted this shop (photo above) while I was waiting for Eileen and I could actually translate the sign: the house of photography! I knew this because one time Isoa greeted me "Bula Dauveitaba!" (Hi Photographer! well I hope that's what it is...) and I of course replied respectfully ;) "Bula mBosso"... 

Anyway the trip took us across Vanua Levu, and out to the east coast where we caught a boat at Wainigadru (I can't pronouce this one either, it's as bad for a Kaivalagi as trying to say Nagado...: g is a "ng" sound and there's an n tucked in before the d that you can't see...)... here's a sneak peek...

Aunty Lena and I went and had a look at the village pool while Eileen organised us some goods and transport, then we boarded and went on our way.... (that's the Wainigadru shop above, and some copra is on the roof above the sign on the other building)... to be continued...

So I'll have to stop now and get back to actual photography work... I will show more soon, infact I'm toying with a comparison of the Dunedin farmers market (in New Zealand) with the Labasa market (where we stopped briefly on the way home). But for the rest of the afternoon it's head down over computer, and the valeniveitaba? today for me that's right here at the computer and printer ...in my lounge!

Deepest Darkest Labasa

I've been on a trip with friends to Udu in the north. Don't know where that is? well actually I didn't know where that was either! Even as I was travelling there. But I did know we were firstly flying to Labasa, on the other big island in Fiji: Vanua Levu. Pretty much everything I know about Vanua Levu is from here of course...

Well Labasa was a surprise! It's really neat, clean, prosperous, sort of like the little hick country town in the back blocks with a big income from the surrounding districts. I really liked it, and of course I have LOTS of photos to get round to sharing. 

But for today just two from the airport. I have a new camera (thanks P&V for the help, and Miriam of course), and a new instruction book to read as well. So I tried out shooting black and white in camera. The good thing about a black and white jpeg is that you just reduce the size and it's ready to blog, yay (not that I'm claiming they're perfect of course). So here we are: Labasa in black and white...

 

 

I liked the contrast between the two cultures here (and of course the obvious relationship between the people in the moment). The girl from England is free to travel alone, wear a sleeveless top (though she's certainly not really wearing anything skimpy or tight) and talk unchaperoned to the guy from Vorovoro where she's just been staying... a note: she made a point of telling me how great it is there too, so it must have been another great experience from the friendly north, just like those I will share... in later posts... And if I write vina a va a levu it's not because the "k" has jammed on my keyboard... more to come...

nb: I also had a lovely photo of 2 kids peeping out the window waiting for the plane... but it occurred to me it's no longer cool to post pics of kids without permission eh?

It's a bit dark isn't it?

I wrote this post, then lost it... which of course meant it was another 3-4 days before I could be bothered having another go. So this time I won't waffle and will keep it short and sweet. and throw in a couple of clips...

So we had earth hour again, like last year, and again it was a lot of fun. There is always some worry that it will clash with the Hong Kong Sevens, as it did; however this year the radio stations stressed that it was all about turning off lights (and the TV could stay on). I was never sure about this light bulb business, despite the fact that Treasure changed all it's light bulbs to the eco friendly ones several years ago, but it made sense after watching this clip (below). Sadly it also exposed some short givings in NZ's prime minister...oh man! I voted for him! But then again what is a "blue-green" to do? basically I want to vote for someone who lowers taxes except for polluters...

Anyway so I popped some of the photos from earth hour, taken in candle light, into the above story board (thanks to "dress it up" for the action) for Katrina to post on the Treasure Blog... and the GM said "er it's a bit dark isn't it?' (hulloooooo? it was dark?). I told him it's nothing the D700 won't fix...

In the meantime here's one more related video. enjoy. remember on the slower connections press play, then press pause and wait for it to load. Then you can watch straight through...

where the wild things are...

{Is this my best side?}

Those who have been to the island where we live know it is a nature reserve and full of wild endangered animals. Lately the two parrots have been down by our place eating the tavola nuts, and we've been taking photos. It's not like they're playing hard to get, they yell when they arrive "rarrrrrk! rarrrrrk!' then strike many varied poses showing us their various profiles. 

  

{or is this my best side?}

{would you stop posing and eat your dinner?}

These are of course the Fijian Kaka parrot, but we also have the endangered bird known as the "Bici" which is a banded rail bird, and threatened on the mainland by the introduced mongoose. AK and I went out to take photos as she had an art assignment. It was a good thing I didn't have to hand mine in as I used the 85mm f/1.4 wiiiiiiiiiide open.... and you didn't get to see a lot of bird...

Some of the other wildlife here on the island include the endangered Hawkesbill turtles which nest here (so cool!) and the iguanas. John and Danielle and their guests wanted to have a look at them on their wedding day, especially Danielle's mum who loves wild creatures (Danielle is thinking I'm going to put a photo of her Dad here ...but I restrained myself): isn't this just the nicest mother and daughter and  iguana photo ever?

and here's one of the turtles...

Those last pics were pretty much straight out of camera (and it's on the laptop, hope the light is sort of ok), and of course there's lots more from the wedding to come, some amazing beautiful sun and rain shots (I really really like them), but we'll finish with one more sighting of wild things... not on the island luckily...

I think maybe Debra needs this sign for the boat...

Yes, I think I might email it to her...

Finally I know you are all now wondering how AK's bici photos turned out... well they were great! She used the D70 on sports mode with the 70-300mm lens and sat quietly and waited for the birds to get curious and walk up to her. Here's one she then tried out the topaz filter on to taste. Her taste. It's wild and I like it! Goodnight!

Times they are a changing...

Or should that be the more things change the more they say the same?! Who was it said that anyway?

Anyway apologies for having lost my blogging mojo, yet again... I continue to struggle with my portfolio review for my website, or rather to put it in plain english I currently hate all my work and am having a small crisis of confidence (a big one would take too much energy and I need to save that for the wii fit). But things keep on happening, so letters home must be written!

The country of course has been hard hit by the floods and the consequent loss of tourism business. Even out here has been quieter, though not last week when we entirely stopped participating in the recession and had the resort so full we nearly ended up with guests in "bure 67" (Amy's room). But prior to that it had been quiet. Actually AJ asked why John Travolta didn't stay here on his trip to Fiji? Well we were already full of course!

For AJ's birthday in March (which coincided with Prophet Mohammed's Day, a public holiday over here) we went back to the Hard Rock Cafe in Port Denerau. Amy had a lovely time, her presents were JUST FABULOUS (!) and we made party favours with really funky little coffee cups from one of those chinese shops in Lautoka filled with little goodies (I don't favour lolly bags, so very little sweet stuff in them). The kitchen at Treasure Island created the sweetest little two story cake with love heart shapes, just so cool, Vula and Bogi are very clever...

{story board action from Dress it up Photo}

The only damper was the Hard Rock itself. Previously birthdays there have been lively special affairs with staff singing and having fun with the kids. This time the waitress couldn't even get someone to help us sing happy birthday! I have never ever in all my time in Fiji seen that... Don't get me wrong, we had a great fun time. But all the HRC provided for that was a place to sit and food to ear (albeit yummy food). Here's my opinion. I know that times are tough. But don't drop the special points of difference that cost little and make the experience for your customers. 

Amy's birthday went on for several weeks as she got more gifts, including having breakfast at Bulaccino (she won the January lucky draw)- that's the half size pancakes in the first picture; and a mother and daughter 3 hour spa pamper (mmmmm! thanks Senikai!!!). In fact it had really just wound up with a very cute present from Veronica, and during that time things had really picked up economically with more visitors, shops reopening and then... things changed again over here...

Most of you will know that Fiji has not been a democracy since Dec 2006, when a military c0up overthrew (is that a word?) the government. Well in the words of another blogger Fiji's interim government managed to ingeniously overthrow itself. I won't go over those events as I can post links to explain the whole shebang far better than I can, and I have no opinion beyond assuring our visitors it's still safe to come over. But my other favourite blogger quote was Wilson saying 

"In the meantime, Bainimarama has assured the public that there will be no "disruption to law and order". I quickly banished thoughts of looting the local shopping mall during the imaginary riots." 

Really despite the Fijians ability to laugh and joke it isn't any joking matter. The long awaited devaluation has lowered the Fiji dollar 20%, which will affect food costs as so much of it is imported, including wheat as the cartoon below shows... and fuel of course....though it will make it more reasonable for tourists to holiday here as they get more bang for their buck.

This of course isn't a recent cartoon. But it goes well with a comment from the letter to the editor here lately: food for thought:

Economic solutions

IT is common knowledge that Fiji is part of the global economic crisis. To solve this problem, we need to take some steps that will benefit the government and the public. Here are some ways in which Fiji's economy can be boosted:

Buy locally grown vegetables and products (e.g. butter, milk, garments, footwear instead of buying imported ones.

Export more products, that is, garments, tuna, kava, cassava.

Boost tourism industry through: a) organising art festivals or cultural events which will advertise Fiji's handicrafts, local dances. b) promoting eco-tourism through setting up endangered birds and animal parks in various towns across the country, and encouraging tourists to take tasks such as hiking or mountain climbing. 

Recycle plastic bags, bottles, papers and even food waste for de-composing so locals can buy local mad manure for growing vegetables in their own backyard. 

Plastic bags should be eliminated and reusable bags should come in place.

Encourage farmers to do more cash farming.

Encourage production of more local products and vegetables.

Try to improve human resources management.

Many people are getting unemployed because of this governmental factor and crisis while they can take jobs that improve standard of living and increase productivity. 

Any unemployed person can work as a street sweeper, rubbish collector, delivery boy, craftsman, artist, baby sitter, poultry farmer, private tutor, handyman, or carpenter to name a few.

I hope the public will make some changes in the economy so all of us benefit.

ANA MARIA ASIOLI
Suva

In the meantime as always life goes on as normal out here, the sun is shining, the sea is clear and full of fish, the people laugh and the cost of flour isn't yet stopping us from eating delicious Bulaccino pancakes; even if democracy is seemingly a first world luxury I still feel as safe standing at the money machine as in any city in NZ (ok safer than Rotorua, but then that's a whole other story)... Like the rest of the world we watch American Idol (on "Bollywood Xtra' channel!!) which frankly amazes us less than some of the sensationalised travel warnings we have read... though why does Adam where that black nail polish? The kids suggested he's a happy Emo? is there such a thing? Or does that make him simply a goth?

 

Next up: Earth hour photos... but first better get back to the task at hand (the dreaded website)(nb I have had a work permit for over a week now, yay! I'll post about that soon too)...

Some days...

...it's harder to get to school than others...(yes, those slightly odd outfits are the school sports uniform, not Fiji fashion). Some days the boats are out for servicing (surprisingly the boat really was out for servicing, it wasn't a euphemism for "broke down")... but luckily we could catch one from another resort. It took on a bit of water. But that's ok, we had bought our own voice activated bilge pump...

...we call him Osea... Some days you can't find a taxi back to where your car's parked after catching the other resort's boat... so you catch a "carrier" (as seen in the first photo)...

But it was all worthwhile, because it was swimming sports day, and the kids had a ball- well except maybe Alice whose tennis game was cancelled when it started raining, she found watching the others swim a bit boring. But I didn't, it was great! The kids are not the best swimmers, but no matter where they came they hopped out with big happy grins on their faces. And it was super well run, no waiting between races or hours and hours and hour sitting in the sun and heat, infact just after two we were relaxing with flat whites at Vuda... niiiiiiiiice... (Dot did we tell you Feroz is there now?)

Here's Tom's moment of glory. M is actually an incredible swimmer and had won all her races... but this race is different, this race is the "subskate" (also M is probably now worn out from winning so many races). Tom says his secret is "going underwater".

...and yes, he won. One event was a real crowd pleaser. Swimming with the darkened goggles on. It's actually really hard to swim straight when you can't see, apparently; I have swum in circles in several triathlons with normal goggles on, so I can understand that!  

After a long day travelling it's always nice to be home on the island too, especially when there are returnees here. Here's Alice with her good friend H, they've been facepainting, and I thought it might not be fair if we didn't post a photo of her too....

... what do you mean not that photo? too late, it's published (but we can always edit)! hmmm different skin tones (one inside, one outside) that I can't be bothered adjusting either. Because I'm going to finish now and find our candles and kero lamp for earth hour...before the lights go out!

as promised....

Well I promised a few posts ago to share a video clip I really enjoyed, and finally I'm getting around to doing that. It really spoke to me, and to have someone like Zack Arias admit to occasional loss of confidence really made me feel better about my own self flagellation... anyway why keep talking, have a look for yourself. If you're on a slower connection like me then press play, then press pause. Let it load for a while, then it'll play straight through.Or if it really won't play very well watch the original here...

Pretty cool huh! Also very timely for me, as I'm working on building a photography website, is his website critiques which of course confirmed I'm not quite on the right track!! OK but probably what I'm doing is appropriate for the market here.... But do have a look at the critiques, they are not only really informative, but Zack and Meg are really funny! I'm talking about Zacks wife Meg there of course, not me (Over here Meg and I would call each other "yaca" (yah-thah") which means namesake, to save confusion...). 

One of the points Zack made was that when he opened some of the sites (he used different words of course) he couldn't tell what they did, what sort of photographer they were, so how was someone going to know whether or not they should hire them? This question of what sort of photographer came up a few months ago for me. I have oddly for some reason thought that like many of my fellow mwac's (mom with a camera) that I was a child and family photographer. I offered to take some shots of this family for practice (and thank heavens not for a hefty fee) but when we got out there it suddenly occured to me that despite fine fine training from QCCC I actually hadn't taken a family photo in a long time, so why on earth did I think I was a child and family photographer?! And I knew I was no Tara Whitney... But it was good practice...

So similar issues come up building a website though it's interesting to see a style and type of photography emerging despite myself. Sometimes I can see such a distinct improvement, and other times I discover stuff I like so much from a few years back that despite the lack of technical know how I had then I wonder in despair if I've actually gone backwards! 

Talking of technical know how this cracked me up...

 

This is Richard from the fabulous Red Leaf taking a workshop at the recent Beyond get together. Desiree who took this inspired shot says to tell all of you they (redleaf and their photography, textures or workshops) are well worth checking out...

Finally I found the first photo of this post deep in the archives, and it has the most wonderful grain! It's from the D70 and I've looked at the exif data, but I'm still at a loss as to how I achieved that... This is basically sooc (straight out of the camera) with no work done, it was shot as a jpeg., though my save for web has altered the grain a little (never mind for these purposes). What I did have to do was take out all the spots from all the muck on the sensor! oh my word! No wonder I liked the 50mm f/1.8 lens so much back then, I'm sure going below an aperture of 2.8 was the only way to hide those damn things!! 

Best go now, coming up soon will be pretty scenic pictures of Fiji and the kids. Because we haven't had enough of those lately and it will give a break from all this navel gazing...

...and some more

So as you can guess I'm sitting at the computer with photoshop open and having the usual crisis of confidence. Zack Arias described it beautifully in a clip I am going to embed in the next post, but in the meantime I'll just say (again) how hard it is to look hard and objectively at your own work as I've had to do lately (in the process of building a new website)... What am I getting around to? Well I thought it might be nice to take a break and post some photos I really love. No, not because of any great skill on my part, simply because it was the most stylish and lovely wedding (the sort where frankly it's pretty hard for a photographer to fail) of two really nice people. Did I mention that Lisa sent me pineapple lumps and beautiful organic coffee? Really I should have paid them... here's some more...

{leaving the chapel}

yes, everyone was crying, actually Chad was crying too. But I won't post those... beautiful emotion...ok, I was crying too, I'm terrible like that. A wedding should be as good as a blockbuster movie no? I think it's a real privilege when people allow me to be their wedding photographer...

OK I'll stop now... no, one more, just to show the beautiful reception set up between the pool and the sea, influenced by Lisa's design skills...

Congratulations again Chad and Lisa, what a beautiful day...

(PS a note on the last photo... I took along my 8 year old to act as a voice operated light stand while I did some shots of the reception set up. It didn't work as well as it should have. In this photo I had to crop/clone him out. He has walked into the frame with the sb800 and pointed it at his own face which really ISN"T big enough or white enough to act as a reflector! the terrible thing was I didn't notice this until I downloaded these shots...but there's enough and they're fine)

  

Why we didn't buy pressies...

for everyone when we went to NZ recently.... 

Prouds department store in Nadi after the water went down (you can see the watermark up on the escalator in the full size version).

This furniture store lost all of its stock when the flood washed it out the windows. But I like the irony of the sign "sorry we are closed"  (in case you hadn't noticed?!)...

Taking a break from the clean-up...

and back down to it...

Over at the river Bulaccino was already cleaned up and open for business. The kids were still leaping off the bridge which was really not so smart, as various debris including sofas were floating past... So I took two photos and then went in (I didn't want them to start playing for the camera)! It was the 19th of January, and we hadn't left the island since the 29th of December! so it was great to catch up with some friends (including the one waving in this photo)...instead of present shopping for our trip home...

Nadi luckily bounces back incredibly fast, and there's no reason at all not to continue to visit Fiji as normal... and yes, this was no excuse for not taking presents home... some of the best shopping in Fiji is tucked away safe and sound... in the departure lounge of the Nadi International Airport!!

PS: A big hi to Aunty Lee: more photos of the kids soon...

PPS: D200 with the 17-55mm lens for versatility, topaz adjust filter used here too...