The Harnas Wild Life Foundation

A few days before Albert and the others went back home, we went to the Harnas Wildlife Foundation. It’s about an hour and a half drive away from Gobabis.

Harnas is a wildlife park where you can go on a safari trip by 4wd and on foot and watch lions, cheetas, crocodiles et cetera. But the Harnas Wild Life Foundation is more than just a park where you can watch wildlife. Here they help injured and orphaned animals grow up and they prepare them to go back into the wild again. If you are lucky you can even cuddle baby lions, cheetas and leopards if they’re around.

In our case we were able to get really close to two cheetas. An old cheeta fella named Goeters and a young female cheeta named Duma. Goeters has been around here since the beginning of the Harnas Wild Life Foundation project (26 years) and is basically as tame and friendly as a housecat, just a whole lot bigger! We also played with a young giraffe. Be carefull though, because he tends to kick every once in a while when he’s in a real playfull mood (there are signs warning for this in the park). The giraffe walks freely next to the bungaloo houses, so enjoy your breakfast with a giraffe breathing down your neck or stealing your food

Another nice thing to know is that Albert and Judith have been coming here for quite some years now, and they love Goeters so much that they even named their own dog in Holland after the cheeta. When Albert explained this to the owner of Harnas, she really appreciated to hear this.

Have a look at the pictures below, they’ll give you some idea of what you can see in Harnas. And for the record… I totally fell in love with this cheeta Duma  (as you will see in some of the pictures).

The last two pictures (with me, Judith and ‘our’ giraffe) are made by Emma Bloemhof. And the pictures of me and Duma were made by Judith.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

welcome to Africa!

So here we are, Namibia! Departed from Holland with Albert Scheffer, his daughter Judith Scheffer, and Albert his collegues Thea Seinen, Date de Vries and and my fellow grad student Jelmer de Jong we drove for 6 hours to Europes largest airport which is placed in Frankfurt, Germany. From there we took a 10 hour flight to Windhoek Airport in Namibia.

But our journey didn’t end there. From the aiport we drove in two cars and drove another 2 hours to Gobabis, the place where Jelmer and me are shooting our film.

Along the way we came across a wildebeest and a gazelle running along with us next to the car and a small group of baboons crossed the road about 50 meters ahead of us. Welcome to Africa!

The way into Botswana

Instead of staying in Gobabis and relaxing a little (something a normal person would do), Date had invited us back in Holland for a trip into Botswana to the Okavango Delta. This was something I personally didn’t want to miss for the world, so we decided to go. We left our film equipment and other unnecessary luggage at hotel ‘Die Dam’ where Albert, Thea and Judith were staying, and we went for another 10 hour trip, this time by car, to the Okavango Delta, in the middle of Botswana.

At the border stop we had to fill in forms, forms and more forms. When we had crossed the border we had to fill in more forms again. On the positive side, we did get some nice stamps in our pasports. But 9 hours later or so, things went a bit bad when we arrived in Maum (pronounced as ma-oom).

We did not have enough fuel, our bank and credit cards didn’t work anywhere in town (we tried about 6 different ones) and we still had to pay for the fuel where we had so desperately looked for earlier. Before we were able to find a place where our cards actually did work, it was allready dark and we had no way of finding our way around properly, ever since road signs don’t have lights here (we were pretty much in the middle of nowhere, after all), and road signs are even hard to find during the day around here! Apart from that, at night people walk on the streets, the roads have big holes in them and wild animals from dogs up to hyenas come out – especially at night. So drive carefully ‘cause you won’t see them easily.

We were tired, did not have enough food and water with us (I never went on a trip this unprepaired before, but it was quite an adventure) but in the end we made it to the Backpackers Lodge just outside of Maun at the start of the Okavango Delta. Unfortunately they didn’t have a place to sleep for us, but what they did have in stock was a great dinner in this atmospheric location in the middle nowhere surrounded by the weirdest wild animal noises  that I have ever heard in my life (truly amazing!).

After dinner and a huge healthy fruit shake later, we felt sort of reborn and thanks to a manager at the Backpackers Lodge we were able to find a place to sleep at Audi Camp for the upcoming nights, just a few minute drive away. We were also able to book a ‘Mokoro trip’ for the next day there – this was the reason we came to the Okavango Delta, after all.

The Mokoro Trip

A mokoro – or in plural a mekoro – is a shallow-draft canoe traditionally hewn out from ebony wood or a sausage-tree log. We were able to take a tour through the Okavango Delta with one of these traditional canoes. You are so close to the water level that you really start to feel one with nature. It’s relaxing but also chalenging somehow because after all, you’re in the wild and in the river where crocodiles, hippo’s and other animals rule.

To get to the actual riverbank of the Okavango Delta you have to go by 4 wheel drive, otherwise you’ll be stuck for sure. Big puddles of mud and overthrown roads by riverfloodings will block your way if you don’t have have 4 wheel drive because some are deep and have quite dangerous rapids in them. Also the roads (as for as you can call them that) itselfs are graveled roads and impossible to drive on with a normal car. After this adventurous trip we ended up at a quiet area at the river bank. We were guided by a man and woman who were polars for the canoes. They push the mokoro forward with their sticks. After about an hour in the mokoro we continued further on foot to spot some wild life. No lions, leoperds and cheetas unfortunately, but we did see giraffes, zebras and eliphants. Have a look at a small collection of the pictures at the end of this blog!

Village life

The day after our Mokoro trip we had to go back to Gobabis. Date had work to do there and obviously so did we! But on our way back we stopped at several villages along the way. We had plenty of time for that so why not make the best of it? When I say village, i basically mean 5 till about 10 ‘houses’.

These villages of wood are still pretty untouched by western life, but you can feel the change. They wear more western clothes instead of traditional ones, and they now use money like everybody else to buy their food, allthought traditional way of life (hunting et cetera) still goes on. Have a look at some of the pictures at the end of the blog.

Sandune safari

After Botswana we went back to Gobabis and got to know the place a little better, and each other. Albert is so well known in town by almost everyone (he’s been coming and going here since 1991 for his job) so obviously Albert knows the in’s and out’s of Gobabis by heart. I’ll be writing a seperate blog about that later, though.

By the end of the week Date de Vries had to go back home, his work here was done, and he wanted to finalize his stay with a last safari on the day of his departure back to Holland. And for this departure we went to Sandune, about a 30 minute drive away from Gobabis. Have a look at the pictures below. The day after Date left, two other people came. Another collegue of Albert, Anke de Vries and her daughter Emma.

Thank you!

Today all the Dutches that were with us have left. I would like to use this blog to thank each and every one of them for making us feel home away from home and for introducing us to all these amazing places such as the Okavango Delta and Harnas (Harnas will be coming in a blog post soon and it will be filled with lions and cheetas et ceterea) restaurants and for letting us meet with so many interesting new people for the last 2,5 weeks. Now Jelmer and me are on our own, but we had a great introduction that will help us greatly in making our film.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

In 2008 I studied and lived in Turkey for about 8 months. I was a participant of the Erasmus Student Network (ESN), an exchange program that gives students the oppurtunity to study in a foreign country. I chose to do this in Eskisehir (Eski = Old, Sehir = city), Turkey.

In Eskisehir I studied at the Anadolu University at the Cinema & Television department. During my studies there I made several films and photography projects, learned a little bit of Turkish language and about it’s history and travelled the entire country and some of it’s middle eastern neighbours, many photo’s I have taken on this great journey can be found in my portfolio up till today (allthough I am currently making a new selection of pictures).

Apart from all that, during my study, me and some other Erasmus students were asked to be interviewed for a Turkish TV channel at the University about the Erasmus program and our experiences with it. ‘Why did I choose Turkey?’ ‘What are the biggest differences between the university in Turkey and the one I study in at Holland?’ And a whole lot more questions like that.

I was never able to actually (re)watch the interview myself either online or on TV, but my dad came across the following article from the ‘Anadolu Haber’ a Turkish newspaper from the Anadolu University.

Basically what the article says is that I had been in Istanbul a year earlier -  before I went there for Erasmus – and fell in love with the city and it’s people (this is true ).

It also says that I talked about two Turkish Students (Pinar and Fikeriye) who went for Erasmus in Holland at my faculty from Turkey and when I became friends with them. I decided to study in Turkey myself for a couple of months. The article goes on about how ‘special’ it was for me and then continues with the questions about our cultural diversities and stuff like, all very interesting!

Anyway, I just wanted to share this with you, I found it quite nice to see this article.

And for the ones who can read Turkish, enjoy

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

On the 23rd of january a photography exhibition about the great city of Istanbul opened up in ‘De Kunsthal’ in Rotterdam. It’s called ‘Onmoetingen langs de Bosporus’ which basically means ‘Meetings along the Bosphorus’.

Photographer Nicole Segers travelled the bosphorus river up and down by some of the ferryboats on the river for about a year, starting in 2007. She took pictures of all the people she met along the way in one of the oldest cities in the world that links west and east, old and new, and Europe with Asia.

I’ll be visiting this exhibition next week to gain some new inspiration. I’ve been in Istanbul many times and I’ve taken many pictures of it. To me, the city never dissapoints. On each street corner there is something new to discover. From all the places I’ve seen in the world, there is no place that calls me back more then Istanbul does.

You can read about the exhibition in the link below (in Dutch). I also added some photos from Istanbul that I made myself in this post. So don’t confuse them with the pictures from exhibition in Rotterdam. Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy them!

Link: Kunsthal website

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

I was able to work in the intire process of this  production (which by the way was a commercial for Angola, I’ll try and upload it once it has been aired on TV) from making the photos during the scouting for filmset locations up to the casting of the players and finally the Post Production. The casting and scouting allready took several weeks of work. The Post Production company was actually very interesting as well. In fact; it’s the first one in Portugal and nowadays they do basicly everything that’s possible in Post. From 35mm film up to the digital RED and from colorgrading to high standard 3D modelling and animations. I especially enjoyed the colorgrading part in Post on the commercial they did. Learned a lot from it!

I also do some editing myself at Check The Gate. So far I did a making off and some showreels for Check The Gate itself. Some of those showreels contain commercials they did in the past but a showreel where special film techniques are shown are not rare either. More soon!

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Also, Jose told me today that – if the short documentaries about Portugal are a ‘go’ – I can direct one or two myself. I’ll be involved in the whole film production process in any case for the other ones as well. more information and updates soon!

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Desiderius Erasmus

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (also known as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam) was born on the 27th of october in 1466. He was a was a Dutch Renaissance humanist and Catholic Christian theologian (and much, much more..). And he was way ahead of his time when it came to opinions about war, women rights and for example Christianity. He is by far the most famous person of the city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands and during his studies he went all over Europe to gain more knowledge and to learn more about cultural diversities. He wanted more people to do the same because it was such a life changing situation for him.

And in 1987 the Erasmus Scholarship programme was born. In a way, as a legacy to Erasmus himself. The programme offers students within the European Union, but also some future EU canditates (such as Turkey and Switzerland) to go abroad and study in a different university than the one in their own country. It is now also possible to do an internship abroad.

I was an Erasmus student in Eskisehir, Turkey for one semester. I was there for 7 months in total. I studied Cinema & Television at the Anadolu University (one of the biggest campuses in the world) and my time in Turkey was simply unforgettable. You get to meet so many people from all over the world (not only Europe, because there are obviously more scholarship programmes) and you get to learn about their culture and visa versa.

The beauty of the Erasmus programme for me personally is that you will be Erasmus forever, even when you’ve gone home, you’ll always be Erasmus. The people you meet during your Erasmus time – both local and international – become your friends and some of those friends become best friends. In other words: you visit them and they visit you.

Basicly, that is what Desiderius Erasmus wanted to achieve and in the end he did! A very good friend of mine who I met during my Erasmus time once said that ‘Erasmus was the lesson of her life’. She didn’t mean the studying part on another university in particulair, but mostly she meant that getting to know so many new people and learning about each others cultural diversities and obviously about the country you are living in is just one big eye-opener. A life changer.  And once you have removed the prejudices you might have had about a certain country all the little pieces fall into place and you start to understand what Erasmus was talking about hundreds of years ago.

So for all future Erasmus students who read this and maybe even more for the ones who are not quite sure yet weather to go or not; GO! Go and meet with international and local people. Get to know the country you will live in and you will love it after some time, I’m sure. Go and have the time of your life.

I am now, fot the ones who don’t know this yet by the way, Erasmus for the second time. back in turkey I was studying and now I am doing an internship. It’s a new and different situation for me in which I will keep you posted within my upcoming blogs (and some previous ones). The video below is a short TV programme I directed at the university in Turkey. I allready posted it before, but I’d like to put it here again. It will give you at least a little bit of a feeling of it might be when you Erasmus. I hope you enjoy watching it and I hope, for the ones that aren’t sure yet of having their own Erasmus experience, might change their minds and simply go after watching it.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Nonethelless, I was surprised about the video because I actually still like (allthough the voice would have been better in English instead of Dutch) and I’m planning on capturing all the raw material again and edit a better film out it. For the time being, I hope you enjoy watching this one

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Sergej Prokudin-Gorsky was born in 1863 in Murdom, a little town 300 km east from Moscow. After his parents moved to St Petersburg, Sergej started working on chemical science. He studied under Dimitri Mendelejev. Sergej continued his research at the University in Berlin en Paris and he was able to put several patents on the color photography and the projection of colorfilm.

In 1907 Prokudin-Gorsky worked on a plan where he wanted to document the Industrial times of  the Russian Empire. With his optimal color projections he wanted to learn Russian scholars about the diversity and size of Russia. He got support from Tsar Nicolas the II. Between 1909 and 1912 and in 1915 he travelled throughout the Russian Empire. The ministery arranged transport for him and a train wagon which included a ‘dark room’ for his photography.

The pictures were an impressive image of Russia from before the soviet union. Produkin-Gorsky photographed medievil churches and monastries, bridges, canals and steamboats. At the beginning of the 20th century the Russia gained a fast economical development. De trade went up, cultural life did too. And everywhere in the Russian empire train tracks were built. In the Caucasus and Central-Asia Prokudin-Gorsky took pictures of Mosques, Islamic schools and religious leaders. He travelled to Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan. Apart from landscapes, he also took pictures of ‘normal’ people (this is what interest me personally the most) such as Austria-Hungarian POW prisoners in Karelia.

The collection of 2434 pictures in 14 albums gives a huge impressio of the industrial revolution in Tsarist Russia and especially on the etnic en religious diversity of the Russian empire.

After the revolution in 1917 and the murder on the Tsar family in 1918, he escaped with his complete collection to Norway and was able to settle in France later. In france he gave several speeches and lessons for a short while on invitation by the Russian community that settled here after the war.

Produkin-Gorksy died in 1944 and only 4 years after his death his children sold his entire collection for about 5000 dollars to the American Library of Congress. In 2003 they were able to convert the color layers digitally and today they are avaiable for free on the internet. Ever since the pictures are born again. Every now and then they pop up in the Russian press and especially on Russian websites and blogs.

Find out more about Produkin-Gorsky and watch his photos at www.produkin-gorsky.ru and www.loc.gov.exhibits/empire

Source:

Sneon & Snein, Holland

Saterday 11th of july, 2009 edition

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite