Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/09/17

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Subject: [Leica] Watches... Shooting in the Jungle...
From: "Birkey" <dbirkey@uio.telconet.net>
Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2000 21:48:25 -0500

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