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Uncontacted Tribes: First Video

6 Feb

You may remember the images that appeared a couple years ago of one of the last uncontacted tribes. Deep in the Amazon of Brazil, photos were taken from an airplane of the tribe recently discovered. Their brightly painted bodies amidst the jungle appeared in news sources around the world. Now the first video has been released of that very same tribe. On February 4, 2011, the amazing video was released.

More can be read about them here: http://www.uncontactedtribes.org

Uncontacted or lost tribes are not entirely new. There are different variations of such tribes in remote areas around the globe. Currently, Brazil leads the world with as many as 67 uncontacted tribes according to a 2007 report.

Remote islands in the Andaman Sea host at least 2 tribes known as the Sentinelese. They have apparently violently avoided contact attempts by the Indian government, and have since been left alone. Recent helicopter surveys suggest their population at 250, and they are believed to have lived there for 60000 years.

The last uncontacted aboriginal people in Australia, Mexico, and the United States are believed to have made contact in the 20th century, as late as 1984 in Australia. While such tribes are believed to exist in New Guinea, Peru, Ecuador, Columbia, Bolivia, Suriname, Paraguay, Guyana, French Guiana, and Venezuela as well.

It is clear that watching this video, and seeing these images stirs a unique fascination among us. Maybe its the idea that a people can live without ever seeing or witnessing the civilized world for so long. In the heavily developed world, its hard to imagine that this is even possible. Or maybe it’s because we think we have explored everything, we know everything, there is no new discoveries left in the world. Stories like this tempt our minds to question what we know.

Joshua Tree Experience

7 Jan

 

This week I had the opportunity to finally goto Joshua Tree National Park, while visiting my mother down in Palm Springs. Having been to California numerous times before I had never been to the Coachella Valley, so I was eager to explore the desert surroundings, and the famous Joshua Tree. Not just because its featured in a favorite episode of Entourage of mine..

Theres 3 access points into the park, the west Joshua Tree entrance, the north 29 Palms entrance, and the Cottonwood entrance at the very south end of the park. We drove up the 62 to the west Joshua Tree entrance, it took us about 45 minutes from Palm Springs, but was well worth the drive. The park itself is massive, with some very well maintained but limited roads through it. We checked out the Keys lookout, where you could look into the Coachella Valley, picking out Palm Springs, Indio, the mountains, the I-10, and even the Salton Sea far to the south-east.

We then hiked up Ryan mountain, a 3 mile in and out hike up the mountain. Southern California desert is very interesting in January, you can be hiking in the heat of the midday sun, and encounter frosty snow-covered sections of the trail on the backside of the mountains. Either way, making for an incredible experience as we pushed up to the top of Ryan mountain for extensive views of the park. We then drove through the park to the southern Cottonwood entrance for a rip up the I-10 back to Palm Springs.

One of the most interesting aspects of Joshua Tree is the changes you experience in the terrain and the flora and fauna with each ridge you pass over. The iconic Joshua trees giving the park its name spanning much of the higher elevations on the Mojave Desert, and the Cholla Cactus gardens blanketing some of the lower elevations. A dried up wash in the shade will host tall Junipers, while areas 20 feet away in the sun hosts a different flora altogether. With the help of a car, you can witness the scenery changing drastically as you descend down from the higher elevations on an ever winding road.

When I have more time, I’d love to head back into the park and spend a couple of days, doing some more hikes, but for now it was a great introduction to the park itself. I took my camera along with me, so all the photos you see I took myself. Needless to say, my time there was everything I hoped it would be, it may be just piles of rocks, but at the same time so much more.

Winter Shoes Time Lapse

1 Jan

So this isnt exactly hot off the press, but I havent posted it yet. When my winter tires came in I was more than anxious to put them on, but being smart, I waited until we had a good first snowfall to try them out. This winter Im rocking the Gerneral Altimax Arctic’s, which when studded, and combined with quattro theres definetly no messing around in the winter wonderland in which I live for 8 months of the year. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Caution: Crack

The Art of Tilt-Shift

12 Oct

Tilt shift is a method of photography which can provide a new aspect to traditional photography that was previously imposibble. One of the most common effects that tilt-shift photography can accomplish, is the effect of miniatures. By altering the focus of an image you can present a very real subject with a miniature effect. This can be done either with the hardware itself, or through a method which is becoming more and more common today and that is done digitally in post production. I presented a video previously on the blog which had this effect, and it spurred me to elaborate more on the subject.

If you are unfamiliar with tilt-shift photography, the basic principle is that you can alter the plane of focus of the lens through phyiscally tilting or shifting a specially designed lens. Whichever method a photographer or artist chooses to create these effects, the results are truly amazing. And with that, I am including a couple of my favorite tilt-shift videos.

Shrimp+Cashews=Yum

10 Oct

After whipping up a delicious dish the other night, I thought I’d share what it was all about. This is a pretty quick dish which only takes about 15 mins to make.

Here is what I used in this stirfry:

Shrimp, Cashews, Celery, Romain Lettuce, Ginger, Garlic, Honey, Canola Oil, Soy Sauce, Ketchup, Chili Peppers, Rice.

First things first, I cut up all my veggies into decent portions, remember that if your cooking lettuce it shrinks alot, so dont break it up too small. I then thinly sliced up the ginger and pressed the garlic, and put them both in the pan with some oil. You can start to slowly simmer your ginger and garlic while you prepare the sauce.

For the sauce, I read online about the use of ketchup, so I gave it a try. But before starting, you can put your shrimp and cashews in the pan and let them start to warm up. As thats going, I put a little bit of ketchup in a bowl, added, soy sauce, honey, canola oil, some water, and some chili peppers. I mixed this all together with a little bit of cornstarch to thicken it up.

I was using precooked shrimp so I didnt need to wait long to start adding everything together. I added the lettuce and celery, and then poured all the sauce into the pan. Keep your heat on medium and keep stirring it all together, and after about 5 more minutes, your done!

Served it all over some rice, but you could also serve this over noodles if you like. Time to eat!

Home

7 Oct

I just finished watching a documentary called ‘Home’. It’s a film about our home, not the roof over your head but the planet you live in, earth. I sat in my dark living room learning about our planets extraordinary beginnings, and its progression through its own life. Then came humans, you and I, and as the music and images build tension, you start to lose faith in the role of mankind. The film paints a gloomy picture of the effects of humans on the planet, and it builds up to a climax where you think the film couldn’t get any more depressing. But luckily there is a turning point in this film, as the good things that mankind has done, and can do are outlined, leaving you with a spark of hope in a dreary mind.

Here is some of the good and the bad, according to the film:

Over 50% of the grain traded around the world is used as livestock feed or biofuels.

13 million hectares of forest disappear every year.

100L of water produces 1kg of potatoes, 4000L produces 1kg of rice, 13000L produced 1kg of beef.

Since 1950, fishing catches have increased from 18 million to 100 million metric tonnes per year.

The average global temperature in the last 15 years is the highest on record.

1 in 10 rivers in the world no longer reach their delta’s for months at a time due to heavy irrigation.

95% of soybeans produced in Brazil are used to feed livestock and poultry in Europe and Asia.

3/4 of the varieties of crop developed through mankind’s history have been wiped out.

Antarctica has immense natural resources which no country can use for themselves.

2% of the worlds territorial waters are protected, not much, but thats 2 times more than 10 years ago.

13% of the continents of the world are covered in natural parks.

South Korea restored 65% of its depleted forests through reforestation.

The U.S, China, India, Germany and Spain are the biggest investors in renewable energy.

Although the dialogue and text may be a little rough around the edges, the imagery is stunning, and the message is important and clear. We must change.

 

The Beauty of Time Lapse

29 Sep

I was recently introduced to 2 videos from 2 friends, and I thought they were so good that I was obligated to share them. One video documents Hong Kong, and was shown to me by a friend there, the other is of Mexico City, and was shown to me by a friend who is from there as well. They both deal alot with time lapse, which is quickly becoming a favorite technique of mine, and these works only further inspire me. I think they are well put together, much props to the creators who took so much time to do them, check them out below!

Both are on Vimeo, so check them out here: Hong Kong, Mexico City.

Canvas is In!

22 May

New canvas prints are in! These ones are 24×36 stretched and mounted, ready to hang. This time I tried super extending the edges fading to black, I think it turned out well. This set is from my latest trip to China, Nepal, India, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Check them out!

All is Full of Love

18 May

Rewind 11 years, its 1999, I remember watching MTV and seeing a very bizarre but beautiful music video. A white robot is lying on an operating table in a clean sterile room, robotic arms working delicately on her female body as she sings. Another female robot appears, both unfinished, but singing together as the mechanical arms piece them together. The 2 robots begin to kiss, and share a long intimate moment together as they continue to be worked on.

This was the video for “All is Full of Love” by Bjork, and it ended up winning numerous MTV awards, as well as a Grammy nomination, and is now permanently featured at the New York Museum of Modern Art. It’s a song that beckons us to look for love, a love which is all around us, a love that can hide in the most unusual places. And that video will always be strangely beautiful, even 11 years later…

BBQ Trout: The Easy Way

17 May

The health benefits of eating fish is not breaking news. White flesh fish contains less fat than any other animal protein, and oily fish is especially good for you as it contains that key component; omega-3 fatty acids, a nutrient which is essential for our health.

With that in mind, I thought it was a good time to do a blog about a recent bbq meal I did. I recently brought back a lake trout from the great slave lake when I was last in Yelloknife, Canada for work. And this fresh fish was just begging to be cooked up with a delicious meal.

Since it really feels like summer these days I thought what better way to cook it than on the BBQ, and so along with a friend, we prepared a fast tasty meal all on the BBQ again. Heres what we did:

For this meal I cooked the fish whole, head, tail you name it. I started out by gutting the fish, you do this by slicing the belly open from the anus up to the head, and removing the inside ‘unwanted’ parts. I then rinsed the fish inside and out with cold running water, dont forget this step. After the fish was rinsed, I prepared a double layer of tinfoil on the counter, and poured some olive oil on it, spreading it around evenly to accomadate the size of the fish. I then layed the trout down on the foil, and begin using olive oil to coat the inside of the fish and a little on the outside as well. Once oiled, fresh lemon slices were places evenly inside the cavity of the fish. Sprinkle parsley, salt, and pepper, and a squeeze of more lemon juice over the whole fish, and you my friend are pretty much done. Wrap the whole fish up with tinfoil and place in the fridge while you prepare the other components of your meal.

For us we decided to cook stuffed peppers, a really easy and tasty sidekick to any meal. For these I simply use half red peppers, and fill them with preseasoned goat cheese, setting them aside, we prepared our potatoes. Slicing up the potatoes, adding parsley, pepper, and onions we then sealed up the potatoes in foil as well. You should now have the BBQ warming up.

Place your potatoes on the grill first, these will take the longest. Next is the fish, pull it out of the fridge and carefully set it onto the grill. Cooking time for the fish all depends on the size and heat, I used medium heat and it took roughly 25 minutes to cook the trout.

Check your potatoes, and if they are close to being cooked, you can now put your stuffed peppers on the grill, simply lay them all on face up and let them cook until the cheese begins to melt. Start pulling all your food off the BBQ, and open up that fish, it should really be smelling good now. Serving the fish is easy, if cooked right the flesh will just fall off the bones, start dishing out peices of fish, potatoes, and your stuffed peppers, serve with a fresh garden salad and thats it, another tasty and healthy meal!

Make yourself a ceasar to go with, and eat out in the backyard, bliss…

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