You Hit a Page that No Longer Exists
You certainly have the spirit of exploration. Why don't you continue on your way here. Click around, find your way, or, better yet, get lost again.
I photograph with a large format Toyo AX. This is an old-style traditional print film camera, which can be compared to photographing with a 500 megapixel digital camera. Because of the expense of the lenses associated with this format, I have only two lenses. Large format photography, to the dismay of many, continues to yield superior results and control than their digital counterparts.
I shoot with a 75mm Schneider f4.5. I meter with a handheld spot meter and always photograph with low-speed, low-grain film. My system is housed in a water resistant dry sack in a day pack. I use a lightweight mountaineer tripod by Gitzo with a very stable tripod head, made by Manfrotto.
Because my system is entirely mechanical, I can shoot in extremely hot or cold temperatures, any time of the day.
Some of my notes are part of larger themes, and all of them I plan to continue to pursue. Let me explain.
"The Oregon Testament" is about the native history of Oregon. After discovering a small Native American site, I try to uncover Oregon's past by traveling, talking to people, and gathering information on the road, rather than reading books.
"Travels with an Imaginary Fromagier" articles follow around the theme of traveling in pursuit of artisanal cheeses, and the histories of the people and communities that make distinctive cheese. Since cheese is produced nearly everywhere, this theme jumps from region to region.
"Rise Up Sweet Island" is my most comprehensive theme project. It is over 400 pages of travelogue, evidence, documents and research into the story of Great Guana Cay, a small island in a fight against a golf course developer in the Bahamas. The dramatic fight, documented in full only by Notes from the Road, has made a tremendous positive impact on mangrove and coral reef protection in the Bahamas. This section is unique in that I use my own photographs in collaboration with dozens of other photographers, who have helped me record this event by air, by sea and by land.
"Botanical History of the Antilles" is an ongoing theme about the history of two main segments of the Caribbean, the Lesser Antilles and the Greater Antilles, as if I was writing the history of the islands for a future population of plants.
The Lost Sons of Afghanistan and A Musuem for Kabul are two related articles I wrote on Afghanistan in 2001. I was writing about Afghanistan before 9/11, and in a letter to the editor to the L.A. Times in May 2001, I questioned why the U.S. Administration was giving money to the taliban, when they should be supporting their opposition, as a bulwark against terrorism. In lieu of my own photographs, I was given access to the original slides of the country's first archaeologist.
In the first half of 2001, I was involved in the efforts to bring attention to the existence of a growing terrorist force in Afghanistan, and to promote the United Front (Northern Alliance), which many saw as its antidote. to In May 2001, I wrote this letter to the editor in the Los Angeles Times
Robert Scheer's commentary ("Bush's Faustian Deal With the Taliban," May 22) has keen insight into an administration whose policies are driven by simple-minded domestic policy. But what is good policy on Afghanistan? European governments seem to be giving their support to the U.N.-recognized United Front, which is multiethnic, pro-women's rights, pro-democracy, pro-tolerance and pro- relations with the world.
Is President Bush so blind he can't see that Ahmed Shah Massoud and the United Front are the last front against the Taliban, terrorism and the further decline of Afghanistan? America is the United Front's ally, but Bush's ally seems to be the Taliban.
Erik Gauger
Redondo Beach
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