Wildflower Home link.

Joy and I were lucky to be able to volunteer at Wildflower Home east of Chiang Mai in Thailand this February. For two weeks, we ran a camera project with the resident women, along with the director, assistant director, the cook and a couple other eager women. We were delighted to receive a digital P+S camera donation from the Salvation Army just before we left, along with a few old digital cameras from colleagues, and were able to take 14 cameras to donate to the foundation. It was quite a hoot having to memorize how to work all these cameras, though luckily some were duplicates! I’m sure Wildflower must have wondered what they’d gotten themselves in for when we spent hours the first day grappling to learn them!

This trip, btw, I decided to go with my new Canon G11 instead of hauling along all my gear. I have really gotten tired of the weight, lol, having hauled it to Africa and Bali and Japan and Cuba and Mexico etc. However, I can firmly say that was a great big mistake! Not only was the G11 not working well (it would change settings in Manual, and wouldn’t zoom in video mode…argh), but also the little bit o’ lag time drove me around the twist and caused me to miss EVERY FREAKING SHOT. I didn’t realize how absolutely dependant I am on having the very best equipment, but lord, I am, I am. Never again will I go overseas without. Instead I will try and do without some lenses.

Wildflower Home helps women in crisis, providing food and shelter for up to a year. You can read some of the women’s moving stories at the Wildflower website. They have some land north of Chiang Mai about 45 minutes. They’ve built a fully functioning farm, growing vegetables, raising livestock and manufacturing mud blocks to be used in building, so the women get practical experience along with daily educational sessions…Thai lessons, since many of the women are refugees from nearby Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar, and English lessons to name just two, along with help from lawyers about human rights and immigration. (Speaking of language, since many of the women were learning Thai as a second language, our interpreter had her hands more than full.  Some concepts were not translatable, but she was awesome.)  The women also participate in making crafts such as elephant pants and purses and jewelry, which they sell at Chiang Mai markets.

Each woman had exclusive use of a camera of-her-own for the duration of the course, and learned about such basics as how to put in and extract memory cards and how to recharge batteries. Then it was on to learning about light and composition…how to make use of textures and lines, the rule of thirds, filling their frames, getting down on a child’s level, and so on. Joy and I were very touched by the women’s great happiness at learning how to make photographs of their little ones and lives–I think it must have been a really great break from the usual stresses of living in crisis. All of us know just how much we cherish our photos, and these women did too. We were so fortunate to have the services of an enthusiastic and able translator, Supaporn Sumpet, from ProThailand.

We met in a stilted hut during the blistering hours of the day.  The warm season had arrived early, and even with a fan, we were dripping.  Architect Michael Thaibinh, who with his wife, Elizabeth Lachowsky Thaibinh, founded Wildflower Home, has designed the new site buildings out of mud bricks; these keep their occupants warm when it’s cold, and cool when its warm. The new building going up has a bottle-walled spiral meditation room–the orange “room” on the top will be a site-wide water purification system.

At the end of the course, along with a diploma, Joy and I gave the women each a small gift of cash so that they could purchase prints if they wanted (or buy diapers, since their babies go without most of the time). You can see some of the women’s own photographs at the ProThailand/David Jackson Facebook page. Hopefully I can also post some of them here, but right now, I’m having compatibility issues.

Joy is a Vancouver doctor, so she also gave an informative talk on reproduction and birth control. Many of the women had never seen illustrations of their reproductive organs and did not understand the mechanics of conception. I know they found this fascinating and useful (and let’s just say some cucumbers were put to good use!). Joy also was able to dispel some myths, such as that using diapers or carrying babies on hips does not cause babies’ legs to bow, and that it isn’t necessary to tug legs straight. It also doesn’t change the shape of a baby’s nose to pull it out to the shape you want it to be.

What really surprised and delighted Joy and I was the women’s facility with their cameras. Although shooting mostly in “Auto” they were able to make very good images, even, sometimes, causing our mouths to drop in true awe at the moments caught.

This month, we are collecting comments for the Vancouver organization Pacific Post Partum Support Society.  Each comment you leave on any blog post garners the organization $1, up to a monthly total of $200.

These are my images, with a couple that others took with my camera that include me.  A note for the photo geek:  these are by and large sooc:

I’m delighted to tell everyone that following the launch of our new portrait site at www.janeeatonhamiltonphotography.com/portraits, we have now officially rolled out our new travel site at www.janeeatonhamiltonphotography.com/travel. It’ll go live sometime this week. What a bundle of work it was to put together! And now, beyond the showcasing of our favorite travel images, we have added the coolest site for fulfillment.

So all those times I’m overseas and more or less unreachable, you can still go ahead and order the prints or the rights-license you require without even involving the studio. Even if you need a signed giclée, you can go ahead and order it, and the studio will fulfill it when I’m back on terra firma. Make no mistake about who is getting paid here…just as with Pictage, our continuing site for portrait and wedding clients, your funds come right back to us (minus, of course, a cut). Just as with Pictage, we determine our own prices.

The other news is that the studio shut down last Friday December 8 for the holidays. Well, not holidays so much as happy days working in the Bahamas and then in Cuba. We’ll be shooting in Nassau for Christmas, and Havana for New Years. Can’t beat that with a stick, I say! I can’t wait to raise a glass at the Hotel Nacional, and I’ll be toasting all of my clients, those I met this year, and those to come next year. You brought me many pleasures, and I appreciate the chance to have come into your lives.

Oh, and while I’m thinking about it…we are only doing 15 weddings per year these days, first come, first served, and only working with clients who fall in love with our photography–for whom hiring us is a special dream come true. We’re almost filled up for 2007, so if you’re in a hurry, do send an email even though we’re away; we’ll do our best to pick up periodically. If not, check in again mid-January and if your date is still free, we can facilitate getting you finalized. Sorry for the inconvenience.

While we’re gone, both the house and studio are being warmed by colleagues and friends, as usual, and we’ll be thinking of them huddling around the strobes/fireplace while we throw off clothes ’cause we’re too hot. We’ll try hard to blog from location (you know, rubbing it in), but reception could be spotty. If not, we’re back mid-January and will catch back up then. Happy holidays to everyone, with hopes that 2007 will see some resolution of world conflicts and a big lightening of loads for the burdened.

Jane