hafa adai !

For those of you that don’t already Know, I have left Kwajalein and now reside in Guam. It was a great 2.5 years in Kwaj. I left many good friends that I will miss. I will miss working with my friends at C&DM, all of the Great RMI friends I made, and I will miss working for USAKA. The only for sure thing in Kwaj is that everyone except the natives must eventually leave. I’ll find another time in this blog to reminisce, and to share more of the experiences of Kwajalein and the atoll. For now I’ll just tell you it was tough. Part of me was really looking forward to a bigger city and all the things we did not have on kwaj, but another part of me knew that the bonds of friendship I made there are of a special non-replaceable kind. But for a wanderer and photographer, leaving places is something I must do. For I am … a wanderer and a photographer.
Here in Guam I started working with a great group of people at GUAMCELL. More about all of that at a later date. Today I was treated to a parade. It is liberation day on Guam. Allot of the islands in the pacific celebrate liberation day. A day to remember WWII.
I do admit these events are fun. One thing that happens to me in instant recognition. When you walk into a crowd, any crowd with a Nikon D3 and a 70-200 2.8 lens, people do funny things. Like one person shouted “take my picture” so I did. Then he said “I’m going to be famous”. I chuckled to myself … So much for anomiminity.
Instead of spacing the photos out in the blog and trying to fill in text I’m going to just give you the Liberation Day Parade. It has been a long day, a long week and time for bed.

And to all … a Good Night

a sad day for drag racing

World champion drag racer Scott Kalitta died in a tragic fireball Saturday in Englishtown, New Jersey. Having shot drag racing for 5 years the news saddened me. An old friend and fellow track photographer Patrick Glenn sent me an e-mail to tell me the news. My best shots of Scott were in 2004 at the Mile High Nationals in Denver Colorado, before he switched to funny cars. He was driving the Jesse James car in those days. He was awarded the “Driver” trophy, for skill and sportsmanship. Everyone involved with the sport knows it is dangerous, yet the average fan does not know just how many precautions are taken. The cars have extensive safety equipment and design. The drivers check the track and conditions and make judgments as to the safety of any given day or track. Safety is such a major concern that in the 5 years I shot at Bandimere Speedway, there was not even a major crash, let alone a fatality. So when a driver is killed it is a shock. I asked Patrick what happened, then I watched the tape myself. Patrick said “The right side retaining wall continues on down track and then curves around behind the sand trap. To me, that doesn’t seem real safe!!!” I would say that is an extreme understatement. While it is not a good thing to have an engine explode at 300 mph, and while nitro flames can be fatal in themselves, (one dangerous thing is they can be invisible when they are the hottest, and you can usually only be in them for a few seconds and live, even with a mask and fire suit) it looked to me as if the car was holding it’s own until it hit the wall after the sand pit. The chutes deployed, but they were useless with the flames. So Scott hit the sand at close to 300 mph. The sand uses the same idea you see on a run-away truck ramp. It is meant to stop the vehicle in a worst case scenario. Well in this case the sand didn’t slow the car down much at all, so there was a hard impact and a second huge explosion as Scott’s car hit the retaining wall at the end of the short sand trap. Would Scott be alive today if the sand had worked? Tough question. With the intense heat and the possibility of breathing nitro flames coupled with the g-force of stopping that quickly and the deterioration of the frame … maybe not. But crap, everyone hates the maybe’s. No mater what happened though, Drag racing has lost a great driver, and it was an honor to stand a few feet away from a true champion and capture that with a camera. R.I.P. Scott.

Of Honor and Rememberance

Memorial Day on Kwaj is pretty much like any other memorial day in CONUS, except maybe a little scaled back. We have no big parades, but we do have a band, and even Pipes and Drums. And a sweet rendition of “Amazing Grace”. For most is is just like home with a day off to relax or do chores. I think it is pretty amazing itself to hear the Pipes out here in the Pacific on an island, but it is my third year of the ceremony and although I’m used to it I look forward to it. Yes we have boy scouts here, and girl scouts. Which brings back memories of the fun I had as a scout in troupe 21, back in Colorado Springs. Oh, those were the days. Learning to camp and hike, survival skills and some great snowball fights. Here I’m sure it is a dream come true for a scout. Fishing, swimming and diving, all in a foreign country and culture. The stories they will tell, when they are my age!

The guest speaker gave a great speech reminding us of the price that is being paid even as I write this blog. He singled out two soldiers, and told their story … lest anyone forget. It is all a little more personal when you get to know the whole story of men and women who are called, who serve, and who give their all. It is the right thing to do to honor those who serve others.

Yes the speech was passionate and interesting, but try as he might the speaker did not hold everyone’s attention.

Thats all I have for now….

Of Birds, Flowers and Close Encounters

One of the cool things about travel is the down time in between vision quests when you can edit and re-think the last couple of thousand shots. Tonight was one of those times. I found a few shots to work on, and look at my work in a little different way. I found a bird resting momentarily near the shore. Actually we were traveling by car and I had the shutter speed set at about 1000 as I do out of habit and the need to shoot on the fly as it were. I saw the bird and raised the camera and fired. This technique I learned traveling with a friend who refused to stop for anything when traveling, his mind fixed on the destination. I once threatened to write a book on how to do travel photography at 65 mph, you know how to anticipate telephone poles, fence posts and the like. Before I got too far along on that book I switched directions deciding to write a survival book on how to sleep in a Jeep Cherokee in 20 below weather. Anyway it was great fun, and we both survived and even remain close friends. Speaking of friends — Jane — Here is another red thing for you. To explain — I love to shoot flowers as much as people, but I never remember the names of the darn things, and if I do remember the name I could not spell it to save my life. So as a joke I started calling flowers red things and yellow things and so on. It kinda stuck with me over the years — so there you are. Next I stumbled on a WWII Zero found in the old airport on Yap. I’m not a WWII buff, but here in the Pacific you would be amazed at the artifacts. Bunkers, unexploded ordinance (exo), ship wrecks, and downed planes dot the land and seascape. To the left is a Zero that had a way too close encounter with some very large bullets. I imagine this particular plane did not crash but rather suffered it’s fate from a strafing run. Yap islands during the war were a place that U.S. planes returning from other missions would drop any bombs or bullets they had left on board to further damage the enemy. Working in direct tropical sunlight is a difficult task for a photographer, so I experimented with infrared. The look is unusual enough that I like it better than a strait edit.

Back in Black

Living for 15 days on the islands of Yap and experiencing their desire to keep the past alive also sparked a desire for me to return to my roots as well, at least photographically. For a few years in the 1980’s I traveled everywhere with my trusty Wista 4×5 view camera shooting nothing but black and white. One summer I even traced Ansel Adams footsteps in the southwest. Not to copy the master, but to see what he was seeing. That helped my vision allot. Photography must start and end with seeing. The image maker seeing the light values and the contrast, and the viewer seeing the vision of the photographer, and a world that is unique to that vision. I am so used to seeing photographically I sometimes find it difficult to explain to a driver or guide why 11:00 AM is not the time of day I wish to visit almost any location. I’m looking for that dreamy late evening light, or the deep contrast of early morning or late afternoon. Here in the tropics those “golden” hours are not easily found. Other considerations often take precedence over my wishes for perfect light. Boats must be launched and return according to the tides in order not to become stranded (as Brian and I found ourselves one evening). In the evening flies magically go away just at the time that makes photography imposable without flash (Oh Dark Thirty) and that is when most activities are planned. So as a photographer you find yourself having to learn to work with what you have, not with what you would like to have. If you have followed my posts of Yap you have seen a lot of images of the “Traditional Village” This was a rare magical time photographically. We started the tour at 4:30 PM – perfect – then beautiful clouds formed and we endured a rain shower. A combination of soft cloud diffused light and late afternoon light caused the light to dance through the jungle making the oiled skin of the people shine. The people talk of magic, the magic of a special tuna fish hook, the magic of finding their way thousands of miles without modern navigational tools. I believe in magic. And during two late afternoons in Yap I saw the magic of the people unique in the pacific.

Yap in Retrospect

Home again on Kwajalein for a week gives me time to reflect on the adventure of Yap. It also gives me a chance to view my blog on a real monitor and see just how I did with the laptop as far as image editing. I didn’t do too bad, but I wanted a new look, so I’m changing my blog host. I like the Look of WordPress.

Yap is an amazing place, in retrospect, I know of no other place that is able to choose just how modern technology will affect their daily lives. They are able to make intelligent choices as to just what they will embrace of the “modern” world, and how much they will keep of their traditional culture. Hence WiFi and grass skirts coexist side by side. One can only admire a people for keeping the ability to make these kinds of choices in a world where the steamroller of technology is flattening all the rest of us into one smooth look alike society. The trip did remind me why I came to this part of the world in the first place. A passion and a dream are funny things. I gave up all I had in CONUS for a 16×16 room to live in and an opportunity to photograph things rarely photographed by a professional. I have found after almost 3 years friends and family no longer answer e-mails, giving me up for lost, but yet the dream continues. Alone and undaunted I will peruse my dream as passionately as the people of Yap protect their traditional culture.
I am indebted to Brian and Brie Greene for making allot of the images possible, and for their friendship and support. I will return to Yap for yet another obvious reason. 15 days is not enough time for a photographer. You just barley get to know where to go for images and just start to understand the people and then you must leave. So I will return. The images are here: http://www.leecraker.com/find.html
I did put a warning on the folders. I felt it prudent to do so while I am living on Kwaj, not wanting to offend anyone who would be shocked by some of the photographs of women without tops and only grass skirts.