Papua New Guinea

[ozimax]

Hello folks:

Just returned yesterday form two weeks in PNG. After having a great time trawling through Dave's Antarctic photo series last night, posting images from PNG seems crazy. But here goes.

Travelling as a white foreigner ("Dim Dim") is always a laugh. The locals all rush out of their villages to see the spectacle of a truck load of DIm Dim's. With no entertainment to speak of, they have to make their own. You wave at everyone, and everyone waves back. I must say that it is very hard to take photos from a lurching, gear box crunching ute, with the crazy driver swerving to miss the ever present pot holes in the Aus-Aid funded roads. The road is there one day, washed away the next. Highway speed is 50-60kmh, but we averaged around 15-20kmh. It took us two and a half hours to drive the 56 kms from Alotua to East Cape. Compared to Lae, these roads are sensational! I vow never to complain about NSW roads again.



Normanby Island village life is quite different to that of the mainland. It is a lot safer on the islands. I love working with kids and have done so for almost 30 years, in many Baptist churches around the world. Kids in PNG are no exception. They love to play volleyball, rugby, in fact, any sport. The gift of a football to these kids means a lot to them. Most of them smiled at me - I don't think they'd ever seen such an ugly face!

The funniest thing was taking photos of the kids, then letting them view the photo on the camera screen. Their reactions were hilarious.



This little fella just couldn't get used to the white skin.



This young village boy almost managed a smile, but not quite.

[gstark]

Oz,

The last three of these are very engaging images. Great eye contact, and absolutely wonderful subject matter. I think that the smile on the face of the gentleman in #2 sums up everything about these images.

Are you able to get copies of the images back to your subjects in these sorts of circumstances? I would imagine that that would love to see a hard copy of them.

Just returned yesterday form two weeks in PNG. After having a great time trawling through Dave's Antarctic photo series last night, posting images from PNG seems crazy.

I think that the contrast between the images is fantastic. I love it.

I must say that it is very hard to take photos from a lurching, gear box crunching ute,

I told you to stick with Nikon!

It took us two and a half hours to drive the 56 kms from Alotua to East Cape.

No different to the daily grind on Victoria Rd.

[ozimax]

Are you able to get copies of the images back to your subjects in these sorts of circumstances? I would imagine that that would love to see a hard copy of them.

Funny you say that Gary. Before I left I printed off about 200 6x4 prints, mainly of Australian animals etc, laminated them and then gave them to the villagers. The kids carried them around all day! I may actually print some of these and send them back, but there's no guarantee that they will get there. PNG is totally corrupt from the top down, and getting mail to the islands without it being pinched is very difficult indeed.

There are, generally speaking, no services on Normanby Island, no power, no air transport, no communications. Everything comes by sea via "banana boats". These vessels are treacherously unstable, and the sea conditions make for interesting journeys. Our team was transported by a 26' aluminium boat, with front cabin, and it took us 6-7 hours to get there from the mainland. The banana boats take approx 24 hrs or longer, being a 500km round trip. BTW, all the photos were taken with a Canon G10.

[chrisk]

dont ask me why but i really like #1 for some reason.