farmers club in the tree nursery in the rain

Now I am back from Dowa and Neno. I made photos for the Clinton Foundation. It is an agro forestry project. Farmers in Malawi grow trees, the trees fix carbon from the air. The farmers sell their carbon credits in the west. So the global environment improves and the farmer in Malawi makes money. On top of that: in Neno they grow grafted mango trees, so they produce high quality mangoes for sale.
The first day we had bad luck with the weather: first very strong rain, where I could get some photos of soil erosion. Otherwise it was not possible to do much. After that a drizzle. I could work in that, with someone holding an umbrella over my head to keep the camera dry. This limited my movements a little. But the real problem was that all subjects looked wet and miserable. Not the way to promote their carbon credits!
On the way back a river crossing was flooded. We found a way around it, which took about a half hour extra.
Fortunately the next two days were fine, dry and even a half hour of sunlight through the clouds. That worked well, and I got all

flooded river crossing

mango stones are dried on a mango leaf before they are planted.

photos done. Interesting experience with an interesting project!

farmer and District Magistrate Marsen Nyambi

Christmas holiday

We are back from Christmas Holiday. We went to Nyala Park in Chikhwawa, which is always nice. Staying over at the Sports Club. It was really nice to view these young giraffes.
After Nyala Park we went to Mulanje Mountain. Always beautiful landscapes.
We were staying at the CCAP Guest House in Likhubula.

Yesterday I photographed a beauty salon: Perfect Nails. Very interesting: beautiful place, you can't go wrong in such an interior. It ws together with Penny Orsmond of Notion Creations doing the styling. We have done quite a bit of work together, so we know each others work very well. That helps things go quick and smoothly.
Perfect Nails has a coffee bar at the entrance (good cappuccino I can testify!) and all rooms are styled by the owner Leigh, who did a great job.
 Left: Penny working on the photo of the sauna.

Back in good old Blantyre. The bus had a little delay yesterday, otherwise the trip was good. Now catching up with the regular work, and up for the holidays!

Right now I am back in Lusaka, after three days in Nothern Zambia to photograph large scale agriculture. That was two flights in small aircraft from Lusaka. Centre pivots for irrigation, coffee planting, tractors, that type of work. Interesting. Tomorrow I'll fly back to Malawi.

Wednesday and Friday I made photos for the calendar of the NBS Bank. Thursday the opening of a Cashbuild Store. This is a South African company providing construction materials. They are serious about corporate resposibility: they donated construction materials to seven schools, and organised an arts and performance competition. The performances were done at the opening of the store in Limbe. Very nice!

 A while ago I made advertising photos for a campaign by Alternative Marketing for Old Mutual Insurances. They have begun to appear on billboards and newspaper ads. Nice to see my work used that way!