Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/09/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]After being away from the LUG for a trip to the jungle for a couple of days.... let me just say... I'd rather be bitten by a Conga ant than read anymore about watches... although I did learn a thing or two about navigation that was worthwhile... Conga ant bites are best described as hot tweezers pinching your skin with a twisting motion for 3 or 4 hours... So... I spent two nights and parts of three days in a Waoroni village in the middle of the Ecuadorian jungle... It was the worst photographic situation I have ever photographed..... just about everything took place in a large version of a traditional Waoroni hut in the woods.... It was about 30 feet long; no windows and the only real light came from one of the open ends.... But since it was surrounded by jungle and trees and it was overcast or raining the whole time..... there wasn't much light to begin with. At the brightest time the exposure in the middle was around 1/8th at f/2 with 800 ASA.... And then the shadows were so bad I threw away all hopes of shooting available light there. It was also the cooking hut which would have been better if there had been much of a flame.... but they seem to prefer using embers and smoke to cook things and ash is floating around all of the time.... Does help keep the bugs away though... No electricity.... one or two candles were the available light during the evening .... any hope for shooting without flash was quickly dashed.... I hate using flash... I really hate using flash when you can't see what you are shooting and when you use flash in a near totally dark situation.... well it's pretty disruptive and you don't gain a lot of friends... Of course for the Waoroni it was sort of a new experience and everyone goes ooo and then they giggle after each shot... So I didn't use the Leica much for available light except for things happening at the end of the hut. I ended up using a "fill" flash to try to bring the exposure inside the hut to roughly the level outside.... I'm really praying things will turn out right. The highlight of the trip was my time with Cogi, Duwi and Dabu... They are the really the last generation of what was a truly brutal tribe locked in an endless cycle of revenge killings that mostly ended after the spearing of 5 missionaries in 1956. Cogi gave me my Waoroni name; Cowae which is a small pipe thrush. As we would walk through the jungle he would say "Cowae" and then point to a tree, plant or vine and tell me it's name in Wao and I'd try to repeat it.... fail miserably and he'd repeat it until I got it to an acceptable point. Cogi speaks very little Spanish and my Waoroni language ability beyond the names of a few birds animals and plants consists of the phrase "waoponi" which is best translated as cool.. or it looks very nice. It's amazing how many times you can use that phrase... The other highlight was a spearing demonstration of lambchops (our supper) that we brought in the plane... According to the rest of the village, it was not near as exciting as the pig spearing the day before since he chased it down the runway.... but it was certainly a cultural experience none the less. Anyhow.... Among the Waoroni.... knowing what time it is...... is absolutely meaningless... it is the time spent with people that matters. Duane Birkey HCJB World Radio,Quito Ecuador Duane's Photographs of Ecuador http://duane_birkey.tripod.com