Some pics from the last few days...

Cutest Kid Award

This little guy was at one of the medical clinics we drove to yesterday. I tried to get his attention as he walked by (sometimes I look like a large tree to little kids because of my height and the fact that people in Asian countries tend to be smaller in size). I gave him the little "speeze" sound and he never looked up and then his mom saw me with the camera and yelled to him "photo" and he looked up instantly and started smiling like a professional. I have a series of great shots, but this one highlights his big round eyes. The white in front is part of the gum he was chewing and not just his front teeth.

The USNS Mercy is to the left of the moutain range. I beleive this is a morning shot.

This is my filmmaking buddy Malcolm. We are attending last nights closing ceremonies for Timor Leste. They had shrimp, roast beef, egg rolls, the Pacific Fleet band and a big cake cutting ceremony.

This is the after party party. I fotgot to mention that beer and wine was served at the ceremonies :-). This was a group that met for a sing and dance get together under the flight deck. What a hoot! Three guitars and "Brown Eyed Girl" sung multiply times, but my favorites were "Family Tradition" by Hank Williams jr., "Johnny Be Good" and JR Cash songs (although Brown Eyed Girl is always good). In this shot there are Navy guys playing the guitars, Aussie gal doing the dancin' (with some in the background), Canadians clapping in the green shirts and some civilians in street clothes. They also had a small group of people dancing behind them (more people came and went as the two hour session ebed and flowed). I decided to take pictures of the shindig because it was such a neat setting and another reason was to playfully blackmail the person we report to from the Navy (and no I will not point him out with the guitar). At first I was shooting directly with the flash unit into the crowd and then decided to bounce the flash off the ceiling. I cranked the iso up to 1600 and let the motion affect the picture. I love the way it adds to the static shot. Can you just hear the music with everyone singing out:
"Do you remember when we used to sing, Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da"

Not to confuse you with life seeming to be one big party, here are a couple of shots for the work I am actually doing on the ship. This is a girl getting transfered from surgery to a recovery bed. She had surgery on her leg and they needed to keep them straight so she was transfered using the sheets. I was following a nurse named Candy on the far left from Project Hope.

This is Diane in the kids ward from Project Hope. A mom and son get dinner and some instructions. He is in for cleft palette surgery. Over 70 were performed by Operation Smile.


A Kids class from Florida or California made these cards for the sailors. Pretty cool to have them posted everywhere with encouraging messages. A group of people on the ship wrote return letters. Pretty important to support the troops. It makes a difference!


Do you remember these two people? They were the ones I followed in the military truck to the helicopter site for transport to the ship. The son had his operation and was doing fine. If you go to a clinic and meet people, when they see you on the ship they give you a big smile and wave. What a journey for this family and a very happy ending.


Night time on the ship with a 30 second shutter release. The streak on the left in the water is a small boat going by that patrols the area 24 hours a day while we are in port (two of them are out and about). The sun had set about 30 minutes before and I used my small tripod to record some pretty cool night stuff.

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Need to head off to bed; it is very late (1:30am) and I have 6:00am wake up. We are heading to Australia and are entering the bigger water now as I can feel the ship rocking. They say it can get rough and we had to make sure everything was secure around us before going to bed.

Enjoy the pics and I would love to hear your comments!