Two Faces of Transcarpathia

Leica Photo Contest

LUND--The Leica photo contest rules are deceptively simple. Eight to 12 photos in a photo essay, on the rather up-to-interpretation theme of "Man in relation to his environment" at least one of which needs to have been taken in the last year. Well, for me, that left out all my Central America stuff so entered 12 shots I had taken at the Transcarpathian Regional Mental Hospital. It was that or the ones from the Roma camp and for better or worse decided on the mental hospital. This was the first year for digital submissions. I see a lot up that are very good and also a lot that are pretty heavily manipulated. All I will say for mine is that they were shot with a Leica M6 ttl on Kodak 400CN and scanned with a Nikon Coolscan V with some help from my friend here in Sweden the photographer Justin Brown. As for PhotoShopping nothing was done other than what can do in a darkroom--contrast adjustment mainly and a modicum of dodging and burning. Regardless, please go look at Leica Photo Contest

In the Carpathian Home for Disabled Children

LUND--Jennifer Lawrence, a nurse from Ohio whom I met on the SARA trip to Ukraine last summer, just sent me several CDs of her photos from the trip. This is one she took of me at work while visiting a home for mentally disabled children in the Carpathian mountains. The other is, more or less (there are three similar frames) the photo I was taking when she took this.

The Children Of The Mangroves Short Film

Current Projects

LUND--Last year I was hired by Film i Skåne/Cine Skåne a Swedish organization whose mission it is to promote independent cinema. The group organizes film festivals and contests, provides some funding for projects and works with area cinemas to show films that might otherwise have trouble getting shown. They hired me to make a series of short films for their website on seven area independent theatres. The films can be seen at Film i Skåne. It was a fascinating and fun project. Over the space of a few months I went to each theatre with Film i Skåne's Carolina Falk and we interviewed the owners and directors of each cinema, which varied from a small space in a museum of Swedish cinema in Kristianstad, located in what was Sweden's first film studio, to a large theatre in a modern museum, to theatres run by private individuals who simply love movies. During the project I met students, film directors, filmmakers who had just begun and ones who had been working for years and many, many interesting folks who simply love the magic of the silver screen.

I also recently re-edited a short version of The Children of the Mangroves with a lot of help from my American friend Matt Kuchta whose ideas made it, in my opinion anyway, a much better film (you can watch it in the above post). I re-edited it for the Pixel film contest but, unfortunately, they were unable to use it as it was shot on the American NTSC standard and I was unable to convert it to the European PAL in time since I got the submission in right on deadline. Still, I am quite happy with the re-edit and hope in the near future to return to El Salvador to take more footage of the currileros.

I am now deep in the editing process of the SARA Ukraine footage. I am anticipating a series of linked short films documenting the different medical and social programs SARA is involved with in Transcarpathia--from the orthopedic surgery and dentistry work to the mental hospital and home for disabled children up in the mountains to the Roma camp where that population is isolated from the general life of the city.

From Editing El Salvador