Except for the tinsel and a reduced staff load, however, you wouldn’t know it’s Christmas at work. Humanitarian life goes on. If anything, this week’s been a doozy. I got back Monday night from a brief visit to Dili, Timor Leste, to do some planning ahead of next year’s elections, and my week hasn’t really stopped since.

In the West African countries of Chad, Niger, Mali, Mauritania and Burkina Faso, there’s a growing food crisis. Really it’s just an extension of the chronic food insecurity and malnutrition that exists across much of the region. Fragile economies, unreliable rainfall, deteriorating soils, climate change, population pressure, feeding practices, access to clean water and health care- in brief, a whole host of reasons- all make rural populations highly vulnerable to any shocks in their livelihood production systems. While the indicators for the coming season across the region as a whole are not all bad, and while there isn’t the threat of widespread emergency or famine as in the Horn of Africa this year, but regardless millions of people (around 6 millions of them) in pockets in all five of those countries are going to struggle to feed themselves. The hunger season- traditionally beginning any time between February (in a bad year) and May and running until the harvest in September, has already begun in places, with some households out of food already, and some child deaths reported. Niger is still recovering from a difficult year in 2010, and 2012 is likely to see elevated rates of malnutrition and, realistically, the likelihood of significant numbers of child deaths if relief efforts are not stepped up.

The food security outlook for Sudan has been released this week by the USAID-sponsored Famine Early Warning System- the gospel when it comes to classifying global food shortages. It rates areas on a five-point scale (IPC- the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification)- No Food Insecurity, Stressed, Crisis, Emergency and Catastrophe. Large areas of western Sudan (Darfur) are forecast to be in Crisis (IPC level 3), while several areas- significantly those in ongoing conflict, particularly South Kordofan and Blue Nile- are anticipated to be at Emergency levels- levels similar to those seen across most of northern Kenya, Puntland and southern Somalia earlier this year.

And while on the subject of Sudan and conflict, tensions between Sudan and South Sudan (which earlier this year separated from Khartoum-led Sudan following a popular referendum) continue to escalate. Aerial bombardments of populations in disputed areas continue. Troop build-ups are reported. Pro-north militias in the south are allegedly forcibly recruiting southern Sudanese refugees in Khartoum and making them fight against the south. MSF reports large-scale displacements. While the food security outlook for South Sudan is less alarming than for Sudan, the combination of unpredictable population movement and the increasing indicators that large-scale conflict is likely are major concerns over the coming months.

If there’s good news to be found in sub-Saharan Africa right now, it is in the Horn of Africa, where rains have started to bring about an improvement in the drought and famine over the past couple of months. Grazing pasture is reported to be returning, which will support pastoralists, while wells are replenishing and food will soon be able to be grown in some areas. The UN has declassified some areas of Somalia from Famine (Catastrophe) to Emergency, and humanitarian support has been credited with having had a significant impact in this area. That said, huge portions of the Horn of Africa remain in very serious food crisis, and some populations still remain at Catastrophe (IPC Level 5) levels, particularly areas around Mogadishu and with high IDP populations. In addition, while the rains have improved some conditions, they have worsened others, making runways unusable by relief flights, bogging down overland trips which now take three days in place of one, and, most serious of all, spreading Acute Watery Diarrhoea (AWD) which has been credited with hundreds of deaths in recent weeks among Somali IDPs. We won’t talk about the security situation, which continues to simmer at the very most unstable end of the spectrum, with troops from Kenya and Ethiopia engaged in de facto unilateral action against al Shabab militants, who in turn appear to be strengthening ties with global terror networks like al Qaeda, and continue to destabilize the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the Africa Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). 3 Somali aid workers were killed in Somalia yesterday, motive as yet unreported.

Leaving the African continent, more than forty thousand people have been impacted by heavy rains in northern Sri Lanka this week. The districts of Kilinochchi, Mulaitivu and Jaffna have all been hit by moderate flooding, with the government calling on local NGOs to respond. The past eighteen months have seen northern Sri Lanka slowly being rebuilt in the wake of a thirty-year civil war that saw twenty thousand reportedly die in the early months of 2009 alone, and as such is an immensely fragile area. More heavy rain is forecast.

Heavy rain this week in the Philippines also triggered tragedy in Mindinao, in the southern Philippines, when flash floods tore through several areas during the night. A thousand dead have been recovered, and the government reports another thousand remain unaccounted for. The Philippines sees death and destruction on an annual basis at the hands of powerful storm systems, like Typhoon Ketsana in 2009 that caused extensive damage in Manila. This however remains one of the deadliest events in recent years.

Even closer to home, a storm system is building off the north coast of Australia and is due to make landfall on Boxing Day some hundred kilometres east of Darwin as a Category Two tropical cyclone, with the potential for damage. And yesterday, two large, shallow aftershocks struck Christchurch- where nearly 200 people lost their lives earlier this year and large portions of the city were destroyed- triggering fear and distressing memories for many folks living there.

Papua New Guinea’s government remains in a state of considerable uncertainty as two senior politicians- Sir Michael Somare and Peter O’Neill- face off over disputed leadership, with the threat of unrest and violence a major concern. President Laurent Kabila’s victory in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s polls has been confirmed by the courts, but criticized by international observers and denounced by political rivals. Police action in that country has lead to the deaths of over two dozen people in recent days, and the country remains under scrutiny to see whether further political violence will spiral out. Iraq has experienced a massive series of coordinated terror attacks in the wake of the US pullout of troops, with its government split along sectarian lines as Vice President al-Hashemi is accused of ties with terrorism and a looming threat of spiralling civil violence. Syria’s internal conflict has stepped up a notch, with a powerful and sophisticated car bomb targeting security forces and civilians in Damascus killing 44 people and injuring scores more. Drug-related violence continues in Mexico at a rate rivalling that of many civil wars, while concerns over insecurity in Afghanistan in the face of a US troop drawdown there in 2012 are increasing, given ongoing levels of insurgency across the country and a fragile, divided state government. A recent leak claims that Pakistan’s government fears a coup by the military is on the cards.

You could say things are busy right now.

I don’t write this to be a downer, or guilt you out, or anything else. Christmas is a time for celebration, for remembering those people and values in your life that are important, for those of us with faith to celebrate what we believe to be a pivotal gift to human kind, and to be close to the ones you love. For me, however, the values of being a humanitarian- remembering those people who are in need in a wide range of ways- is central to reflecting on this season which can be so materialistic, shallow and self-focused. It’s an opportunity for me to take a look around, take a breath, get some perspective, and reflect on what I can do to make the world around me a better place- starting with my family and working outwards from there.

Friend, fellow humanitarian & social media-ite @richendag, who works for INGO World Vision, posted this letter that the Grade 2 daughter of one of their supporters wrote in class for Santa Claus a couple of weeks ago.

If that’s a little unclear, it reads:

Dear Santa,

This year I have tried hard in school, helped mum clean the house tidy, and made new friends. All I really would like is the Kenya people to have a home and something to eat and drink please. Right now they are probably eating dirt. Thank you. Love from Lauren.

Nuff said really. She gets it. You go, Lauren.

Tonight, M. asked if Santa Claus was going to be visiting all the kids in the world, even the ones in places I go and visit when I travel for work. We had to tell her that no, Santa doesn’t visit all the kids in the world, that there are some kids who miss out at Christmas. At bed time, she reflected sadly that it wasn’t right that Santa didn’t visit some of the sick kids. With luck, she’s on her way to getting it too.

Merry Christmas all of you, and rich blessings to friends, family and loved ones for 2012.

Flowers and photography.

Let’s face it: A total cliche.

But such a tempting one. They stand still. You can take as long as you like to frame them up to get the shot you want. They’re generally not far from your front door, so you don’t have to travel far. They’ve got interesting and attractive shapes. And they’re so colourful. So it’s hard to overcome the drive.

It’s hard to be original with flower photography, of course. Namely because there’s such a plethora of photographers with macro lenses lining up at the nearest flower-bed. It’s all been done. Abstracts. Extreme close-ups. Shallow depth-of-field. Basically, if you’ve got the right kit and the patience, you too can take a technically excellent but artistically unremarkable flower photograph.

Forgive my little spin of sarcasm. There are some beautiful flower photos out there. Hunt around on flickr, for one, and you can find some exceptional examples. Or, of course, National Geographic. They’re just hard to find amidst all the other hack photographers (like me) happy-snapping their way around the botanical gardens.

My handful of offerings below are nothing special or unique. I’m guilty of all the above criticisms. Not an original image in the set. But, one way or another, they’re pictures of flowers I find somehow visually satisfying. Perhaps it’s the way in which early-morning contrast throws background into near-darkness, leaving the subject framed in sunlight. Maybe it’s the way repeating shapes and colours slowly fade out of sharpness with a wide aperture. It could be the delicate splash of intense colour against an otherwise plain background, or the satisfying hit of fractal biology writ large across the frame. I guess that somewhere in our make-up- whether it’s the legacy of an evolution that once saw us sharing a common ancestor with bees, or some gift of a Creator who wants us to enjoy the beauty of the universe- flowers just work for us.

So I hope you enjoy these ones.

Earlier in the year (yeah, it’s taken me this long to get around to posting these), A. and I went on a little trip down the Great Ocean Road. Just past Anglesea is an attractive rocky spine of a headland, at low tide surrounded by sandy flats. The rocks themselves have been weathered by salt, wind and water, and are riddled with holes and dimples, full of character.

While I was framing some beach shots, A. climbed up behind the outcrop and found herself a little window in the rock to peer down at me. The location appealed to me, so I let her pose while I fired off a bunch of frames. I was really pleased with the outcome.

There’s a number of things I really like about this shoot (aside from the fact that I happen to like photographs of my lovely wife ). First off, I find the interplay between organic and inorganic really appealing- hard, lifeless rock versus fluid, living being. And yet despite this contrast, A. fits really well into the hole, and the shape of it seems to compliment her form in it.

I was using my 16-35mm wide-angle lens, usually a no-no for portraiture, as it tends to distort features unnaturally (especially up-close, where it can make noses bloom and hairlines recede). However in this instance, I kept really close to the rock but not so close to my subject, A., who stayed in the middle distance (which for that lens is about 5-10 feet away). The effect was to keep A. fairly well proportioned, but blow the rock right out, filling the frame, stretching it and (at closest range) blurring it. Oddly, this actually gave the impression of movement through the image, and making the frozen twists and boils of the rock appear fluid, another nice contrast. With A.’s hair catching a sniff of sea breeze, it gave an overall impression of motion and dynamism to an otherwise static scene- almost like a breaking wave frozen in time.

This next shot I like for the sheer fun of it. Again the wide-angle lens has played its role here, overemphasising what’s close to the glass and throwing all else into the distance. A.’s hand and arm are large, almost claw-like as she crawls out of the rock, and she seems disproportionately large compared to the rest of the scene. At the end of the day it’s just a fun image, brought to life by the distorting effect of the wide glass.

This next one I enjoy for the way the rock hole seems to mold to A.’s shape, framing her in a sliver of burning white. The different elements- blue sky, hard rock, fierce backlight, and A. herself, all contrast and yet work together to hold the image in a way I find very satisfying. You can see some lens fall-off in the bottom left corner, further developed by the shallow depth of field, which is a bit of a shame, but doesn’t rob the overall effect in my view.

And this last one would have to be my favourite of the bunch. In part because it’s just a lovely shot of my favourite person. But I also like how natural it feels, very comfortable and unstaged. I’m also very chuffed with the lighting and how it all came together. Shooting portraits contre-jour (into the light) is usually a challenging proposition unless you’re good at using fill-flash (something I’m still learning). The camera tends to overcompensate for the light behind the subject, darkening the face/body of the person you’re shooting, often to oblivion. Because the backlight was only a small portion of the frame here (A. and the rock both served to block most of it out) there was enough light on A. to keep her well lit and visible, with only minor tweaking in post-processing. The result, she looks like she’s emerging out of the sunlight, while the way her hair blows out to white and the frame of the sky behind her has a halo-like effect [avoid angelic references here].  All up, one of my favourite photos in recent times. But then I confess the subject leaves me a little biased…

As always, thanks for swinging by, and hope you enjoyed.

Ciao,

-MA

Another collection of photos from a recent ballooning trip over Victoria’s gorgeous wine-growing Yarra Valley one early spring morning.

Perhaps the most gorgeous aspect of the trip was the mist at dawn, and how it interplayed with the landscape as the sun rose, transforming the landscape and changing the mood as it changed.

From the ground, the pattern of the mist is harder to discern, but from 3,000 feet, it’s beautiful to watch it steaming off waterways in the cool morning air, spreading like a threadbare cotton blanket over the ground, or catching long shadows from the sun low on the horizon.

As we first took off, we passed over a small flooded waterway. The sun was still below the horizon, and we were low enough that the mist still wrapped us. I took a first shot of the mist running off the water (below), and as we skimmed along its surface, snapped the image at the top of this post of reeds reflected in the still surface. Still low, I shot a third image of  a tree at the water’s edge (beneath), again enjoying the utter stillness of the water’s surface as the balloon breezed over.

As we gained height, the waterways gleamed silver against a dark green backdrop, while mist clumped over low, damp areas.

As the sun first began to rise, it sent low shafts of light across the valley, catching treetops and lighting the topside of the mist while depressions remained in shadow. These next three images show the interplay of light and shadow, of mist, tree and water. You can see the mist boiling off the top of the rivers and ponds, much warmer than the cold air sitting atop them, like steam off a cauldron.

As the sun rose further, the mist began to burn off, swirling in those pockets of sheltered vale where the air was still and the sun’s reach weaker. The patterns left in the air look like currents in a slothfully meandering stream.

In this shot, you can see the local airfield as the mist slowly burns away.

Sometimes, as in the below image, the relationship between warm water and cool air was obvious, reminiscent of boiling lakes in Rotorua or Yellowstone, circles and puffs among the striations of ploughed fields.

Poplars slice upwards through the fug and sunlight streaks between the boughs, casting long shadows across the top of the mist.

As we come back down and the sunlight grows stronger, it seeps through to illuminate the ground, where strong colours struggle through the bleaching mist. Here, rows of vines and orchard trees greet our descending balloon, and a few minutes later we’re through the mist and back on terra firma, watching the last tendrils of fog burn off to a blue sky.

The title’s not quite true. I started my journey as a photographer a little earlier than this. In fact, the tiddy little point-and-shoot I was given at about age 10 gave me my first real taste of photographic exploration. That, and growing up with my parents’ slide-shows of Afghanistan and Bangladesh in the 1970s.

And my real foray into photography started when I was 20 and got myself a cheesy little waterproof Minolta APS camera- one of those ones where you could flick a button and the photo went from being Normal to Widescreen to Panoramic. It sounded cool, but in fact it was a horrible gimmick that simply gave instructions to the printer to crop the same negative proportionally- so that a Panoramic image gave the same quality as if you’d taken your regular negative, blown it up, and trimmed off the top and bottom into a wide rectangle. Plus the actual film quality was low, too, so you ended up with poor images across the board.

My adventures with this camera included hiking and scree-skiing in the Canadian Rockies, and subsequently, trips to Turkana district in Kenya, the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and the Thailand-Myanmar border region. I saw lots of beautiful things, tried my darnedest to capture them- and failed quite comprehensively.

My father, however, did have the grace to observe that what I was seeing with my eye was far beyond the capacity of the camera to actually capture, so on the back of that, my grandfather dug out his old Canon T-70, a streamlined 35mm SLR from the early 1980s. He hadn’t touched the thing for the better part of 10 years, and we weren’t even that sure how well it would work, but there was a roll of film in the back, and replacing the batteries, I went off and did some shooting around his farm in the Lake District.

With that first roll of film (that had been sitting there since about 1990), I went for a walk around sunset and caught a show of the sun going down behind a tree at the bottom of the property. The sun was just dipping beyond the crag on the horizon. The tree itself had lost a main bough in a windstorm the year before, and had a curious emptiness about it, framing the sun. I took my shots, wound off the film, and dropped it in to get developed.

The image I got back was the one at the top of this post. In fact, I took three shots of that tree and the setting sun. I don’t know whether it was some trick of the old film, or whether the developer had a creative bent, but all three images came back beautifully coloured, with warm hues and thick saturated tones. I was thrilled. In fact, looking back, I wonder if those shots hadn’t worked so well, whether I would have retained the same drive to go and take more, or whether I wouldn’t have seen the camera as just a glorified version of my earlier apparatuses and given up.

Regardless, from then on, I went out of my way to practice my photography whenever I could. The T-70 was light enough that I could cart it around. I had two lenses with it- a wider zoom lens that ran from 35-70mm, and a telephoto zoom lens out to 300mm. I already understood shutter-speed and ISO, and went on to teach myself how to balance them with aperture to make the most of available light, how to shoot contre-jour, how to use filters (I got myself a ream of cokin gels which I would slot over the lens for all manner of kooky effects), and how to match subjects with appropriate lenses. Among much more.

I shot a lot. In hindsight, it’s a wonder anybody got into photography before digital came along. This was in 2002, just as digital cameras were starting to spread across the market, but I had a notion to teach myself photography on an analogue SLR first, to get the skills down, before jumping onto digital. The cost was prohibitive. On a trip to New Zealand at the end of 2002, I shot 25 rolls of film- all of which had to be purchased, and all of which had to be subsequently developed. And needless to say, a goodly chunk of those (as with any photo shoot) weren’t that great. But that’s all part of the learning process. And luckily, a few worked.

Early on in the piece, I was very into contre-jour photography- that is, shooting against the light. I liked the drama of capturing the sun, the contrast of silhouettes, the colours of dusk and dawn. The second shot of this piece I took down on the south coast of England (I was living in the UK at the time). The dramatic rock formations of the coastline made for an interesting foreground shape, while the wisp of cirrus cloud obscured the sun just enough to allow me to shoot against it without annihilating the film. The polarizer added a surreal hue that overall makes the photo look like it was shot at night-time, and the way the sun lights the cloud-wisp makes it look more like a falling star than a sunny afternoon. I enjoyed the effect.

The last photo here I took back on my grandparents’ farm a few months after I first got the camera. It was winter, and the sun was setting early, probably not long past four in the afternoon. They were grazing sheep in the paddock, and standing by the gate at the bottom of the home acre with my 300mm zoom, I caught sight of one woolly wonder atop a rise in the field. A little positioning put her directly between the sun and I, and I shot. The sharp focus (lucky) coupled with the fast shutter speed (courtesy of the streaming light) gave the silhouette such crisp detail- right down to the blades of grass beneath the hooves, and the locks of wool hanging from the beast’s flank. I was well chuffed.

I took loads more photos during this time, but exploring some of my old scanned archives, these are a couple I thought I’d pull out and share.

Laters.

Sometimes, less is more. I don’t have too much to say about these photos, other than to let you know they were taken on a recent early-morning balloon flight over the stunning Yarra Valley, outside Melbourne. If you get the chance to balloon here, do it! We obviously had perfect weather that morning- wisps of mist beneath a blue sky and a gorgeous clear sunrise. Overwhelmingly beautiful.

I shot this time lapse video from our place yesterday as a severe thunderstorm system moved across Melbourne. It was shot at an interval of 12 seconds, over a four-hour period. About 20 seconds into the movie you can see where the cold front moves across the sky from left to right. As it does, it condenses water from the warm, muggy air that’d been sitting over us for several days, forming a very dynamic band of cloud that looks like the underside of a breaking wave. Even in real-time it was one of the most dramatic cloud formations I’ve ever watched, moving and developing extremely quickly. A very exciting evening.

A. and I recently took an early-morning scenic balloon flight over the Yarra Valley, a picturesque area on the outskirts of Melbourne known for its wines, local produce, and attractive rolling farmland. And, of course, I took my camera.

There was lots of interesting stuff to photograph. However one of my favourite subjects was to capture the bursts of flame coming from the (rather large) gas burners above our heads, that kept the massive balloon in the sky.

The shots were taken opening the aperture up and letting the camera automatically compensate for the bright light the flame-bursts produced. This meant the images were captured at a good faster shutter-speed, effectively freezing the flames in all sorts of wonderful forms.

Here’s a smattering, for your viewing pleasure.

For those who don’t know what Time-Lapse photography is, time lapse involves taking repeated images over a regular time-interval, then stringing those images together to make a moving picture which runs at high speed. Pretty much anyone who’s ever watched a nature documentary will have seen time-lapse at work. Those really cool shots of sweeping landscapes with fluffy clouds building and sweeping across the horizon looking like waves on a sea-shore: That’s time-lapse.

And you can do that with your camera and some simple software, and it’s a lot of fun.

Some digital compact cameras have a time-lapse function built-in. My Canon Powershot G9, for example, does. It’s a bit restrictive, in that the camera only has two default time-settings (2-second interval and 10-second interval). And it’s on a Powershot G9. Which, while pretty decent for a compact, doesn’t produce the most high-quality images. In fact it exports at 640×480, which isn’t that exciting at all.

The real fun is in using a nifty piece of optics. Like a Canon EOS 5D and some top-range Canon glassware, so you can get some really nice images coming off the sensor. So, using a Canon TC80N3 remote control, I decided to give it a go.

There’s a few different things to think about setting up a shoot for time-lapse. The obvious one, is time. It can take a while, depending on what you want to shoot. You start by thinking about the output. If you’re wanting to create a movie, how long do you want it to be? Remember that if you’re looking at playing it back, you’re probably wanting to run it at about 20 frames per second to get a nice smooth playback. That means, for every second of playback, you’ll need at least 20 shots (more if you want to increase the fps rate). A movie less than 5 seconds long is a bit on the short side. So you’ll be needing somewhere in the vicinity of at least 100 frames, even for a little movie.

From there, and linked to that, you need to consider your interval rate. It can be whatever you want it to be, from 1 second to 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds. For this, you need to consider a) what you’re wanting to shoot, and b) practicality. For example, capturing motion on a busy street, you will probably want a fairly short interval. One or two seconds between images will let you capture lots of bustle and motion. You’re capturing objects that will move across your frame in a few seconds- probably no more than 10. So if you extend your interval rate to longer than ten seconds, the person or vehicle who appears in the first frame, will have vanished by the second. If you want to track their motion across the frame, you want a shorter interval. However if you like the idea of having people randomly pop up and disappear, you can also get some fun effects that way, though maybe a bit more chaotic.

Other objects you might want to consider a shorter interval for are things like waves, and other smaller subjects that move quickly.

By contrast, if shooting landscapes and clouds, longer intervals may work better. The incremental change in the shape of a cloud from one second to the next is fairly minimal, so if you shoot cloud formations on a one-second interval, you’ll end up with a LOT of footage to go through to see the changes happening- either needing a redundantly-high fps rate, or quite a slow, uninteresting movie. Shooting every 10 seconds, 30 seconds, or even minute (probably dependant on wind-speed or convection on the day) will capture incremental changes more clearly. Likewise, changes in light over a patch of scenery or landscape, as the clouds’ shadows move or shafts or sunlight come through, is equally dramatic and occurs on a similar timescale.

Remember that the shorter the interval, the ‘slower’ the image will appear to move on playback, while the longer the interval, the more there will appear to be a fast-forward effect going on.

And so, coming back to time, depending on what you want to shoot, how long you want your movie to be, and what interval you’re going to use, you’ll have to budget time accordingly. If you want to capture bustle on a street, five minutes’ worth of shooting at a 2-second interval will net you 150 frames, which you can play back at 20fps to give you 7 1/2 seconds of movie. Capturing clouds building over a city skyline on a sunny afternoon, you may want to use a 20-second interval, so to get the same 150 frames for a 7 1/2 second movie, you’ll need an hour and a quarter. Simple maths. But getting time-lapse is a pretty time-consuming business!

Another thing to consider is your shooting location. A couple of things to think about here. First off, and this is a challenge I’ve faced every time I’ve shot, make sure your camera and tripod (yes, you need a tripod unless you want your time-lapse to have that handycam shake) are in a sheltered location. Sheltered, primarily, from wind.

This is problematic, because time-lapse is generally (not exclusively) an outdoor process. And so is wind. But also, some of the most enjoyable time-lapse subjects include things that move, particularly, clouds. And for clouds to move, you usually need wind. So there’s often a bit of a clash of interests here. Because when wind hits your tripod and the camera shakes, so does your time-lapse video, ruining the effect. You’ll see if you look at a couple of mine.

Ways to deal with this:

a) Use a heavy tripod (if you have one)

b) Try and put yourself in a sheltered location

Neither one foolproof, so you’ll have to do the best you can, but be prepared to come back another day if the wind is stiff and your camera’s rocking around, because it’ll probably ruin your output.

Another piece to consider here is anything else that might make your camera shake over time. If you’re in a busy area, is someone likely to knock into your tripod? Can you protect it? And vibrations from passing vehicles can also be captured- particularly on bridges and overpasses- ideal shooting vantages otherwise.

Finally, when thinking about placement, think about the passage of the sun. If you’re doing a shoot that’s going to last 3 hours, how will the sun transit across the sky? What will this do to your image? Will the sun move into your lens, and do you want this? Will it create flare, and do you want this as well? How will it affect your settings, and do you want to have your camera set on an automatic exposure setting so that it adjusts to changes in light, or do you want it fixed so that as light changes, drama may increase?

Different sorts of things to think about compared to your normal run-of-the-mill photoshoot.

At any rate, I’m pretty new to the whole time-lapse thing, but I hope to put more movies up soon. These will have to do in the meantime- and you can see some of the lessons I’m learning through them. I might make some comments on some of them at some stage, from a learning perspective, and try and find more time to actually do some more shooting!

Finally, to see some of the gorgeous things that cleverer people than I have done with time-lapse photography, see these two links, one of the Southern Ocean sky at night from southern Australia, and the other of a stand of trees in Norway changing with the seasons over the course of a year.

Timelapse Movies:

1. View of Halls Gap from a nearby shoulder of the Grampians. VIC, Australia.

2. Windmills near Ararat, country VIC.

3. Bustling street in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

4. Silverband Falls, Grampians National Park, VIC. This one is composed of long-exposure (2-second long) frames to give the water a silky appearance and blur out people, too.

5. View from our bedroom window over several hours one spring afternoon/evening. Melbourne.

That Harakat al-Shabab al-Mujahideen (HSM) was behind any of the attacks is dubious. The insurgency group is the latest iteration of hardline Islamicist militia fighters who have held sway in various forms over parts of southern Somalia since the ousting of then-President Siad Biarre in 1991. Since 2006 and the ousting of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) it has been the dominant unifying armed group in opposition to the western-backed and inherently fragile Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which holds tenuous control over most of Mogadishu, and little else. For much of the last few years it has engaged in warfare with the TFG and allied forces, including Somali clans, the Africa Union peacekeeping mission AMISOM, and the Ethiopian military. Its recent draw-back from some Mogadishu suburbs was heralded as a military ‘defeat’ for the group, but analysts observed that it more likely marked a transition from more conventional warfare tactics, which were unsustainable, to more assymetric tactics better suited to the group’s less formal military structure. A number of attacks over the last few weeks bear this out, including a massive truck-bomb explosion in central Mogadishu, and an assault on AMISOM troops that left as many as 60 Burundian soldiers dead.

Al Shabab, which aligns itself with al Qaeda’s global mission- and recently hosted an aid mission by alleged al Qaeda operatives- is reported to raise up to USD 100 million a year, according to a recent UN report- largely by taxing shipping through the port of Kismayo, extortion, and other endeavours. While kidnapping expatriates for ransom has become big business in Somalia, as in other war-affected regions such as western Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan, it is hard to see what al Shabab would have to gain by kidnapping foreign tourists and aid workers. The going price for a hostage is measured in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps a bit over a million in, give or take, so against an annual income of a hundred million, it’s quite slim pickings. Slim pickings, for a lot of extra work- hostage abductions are costly and risky ventures. Hostages die easily (at which point they become largely worthless), and have to be fed, sheltered, transported and given medical attention. They also generate a lot of attention. Media attention, to be sure- and in some cases, such as the early abductions in the Iraq war, this was a major motivation for targeting expatriates- but this is less the case now. It also garners the attention of special forces rescue operations, rival groups, and military forces, which are usually less welcome.

Kidnap-for-ransom activities tend to be favoured by smaller groups, who are generally prepared to weather the high risks of the operation for the high payoff should it work out. For larger organizations, the cash return is simply not worth the political and military fallout they’re likely to engender- though they may play some supporting role in the operation, such as facilitating handovers between groups, or acting as intermediaries. As hostage-taking becomes more of an industry, it’s also increasingly being run by organizations specialising in this type of endeavour. Securing a ransom requires an element of trust. If you’re an established player in the market, with a track record of returning your hostage once the ransom is paid, you’re far more likely to get paid the next time you snatch someone and there’s an established go-between, and some confidence you’ll follow through on your promises. If you’re just some qat-jived hick with a gun, people are going to be more wary.

Excellent map from WhiteAfrican.com

Various pirate groups operate with a large degree of impunity up and down the Somali coastline, taking advantage of stateless anarchy to run operating bases and set up holding areas for ships and hostages alike. It’s a huge business, and pockets of Somalia have economies largely dependant on it. The combination of a failed economy, the lack of any state support, and even overfishing that has reduced the profit margins of Somalia’s fishing industry have all contributed to the rise of piracy over the past decade. World governments and shipping companies, frustrated by the trend, have increasingly protected their vessels travelling through Somali waters, with the British government the latest to authorize armed guards on ships. Analysts observing this trend warned that with the infrastructure already in place supporting piracy operations, and the dependency of the local economy, the likelihood was for these gangs to look for easier targets- particularly, inland. While increase in activity by Puntland authorities is trying to tackle this, the authorities are not strong enough to crush it.

The most recent abduction of foreigners- an American and a Dane from the Danish Demining Group taken from Galkacyo last week- evidenced this. Snatched from deep within Puntland- there is very little al Shabab operational capacity here- they were taken coastward to an area known as a pirate holding zone. A few days after the abduction, rival pirate gangs even fought a battle over the possession of the hostages, who remained fortunately unharmed following the incident. There was no way to pin this one on al Shabab.

In fact, the groundswell of opinion suggesting al Shabab were behind the abductions from northern Kenya is waning, too. Interestingly, when al Shabab took control of the pirate haven of Kismayo a couple of years back, piracy operations were largely displaced to other, non-Shabab-controlled areas further north and in Puntland, where the most activity is now seen. Most global sources quote Kenya’s initial claim with some doubt, also referencing al Shabab’s denial that it had anything to do with the abductions (this from a group not shy to admit to its activities). What they don’t seem to pick up on quite as often is that Kenya pretty much withdrew its claims that the invasion was as a result of the kidnapping. Kenya’s own military have admitted that they’d been planning the invasion for months, and that the kidnapping was just a convenient springboard to launch their operations, succinctly explained in this New York Times article:

When Kenya sent troops storming across Somalia’s border on Oct. 16, government officials initially said that they were chasing kidnappers who had recently abducted four Westerners inside Kenya, two from beachside bungalows, and that Kenya had to defend its tourism industry.

But on Wednesday, Alfred Mutua, the Kenyan government’s chief spokesman, revised this rationale, saying the kidnappings were more of a “good launchpad.”

A nation using an inflammitary topic to galvanize its people in support of a foreign invasion, then later changing tack? Where have we heard this before?

So where is the international outcry? Where the governments calling for an immediate withdrawl of Kenyan troops, the public protests decrying an illegal occupation, or the papers full of headlines claiming the invasion to be unjust (as opposed to just incompetent, which a few manage)?

Well, in fact the overwhelming western response seems to be one of tacit, if quiet, approval.

In the early days of the response, rumours abounded of French and US involvement. The former nation’s navy allegedly provided naval artillery support and rumoured aerial support. It subsequently denied any involvement to date, but did say it would provide support to the operation. Meanwhile, murmurs of US drone strikes strategically timed to support the Kenyan invasion also surfaced. A number were even reported in somewhat neutrality-questionable sources in Iran and Pakistan. The US denied that it had launched any strikes recently, or that it was supporting the Kenyan operation other than through an “overt way through the Kenya navy, army and air force“. It even went so far as to claim it had no knowledge at all of the Kenyan invasion- a statement difficult to believe, given Kenya’s status as an ally in the Global War on Terror and the US’s well-established clandestine intelligence presence in Somalia and the region.

Prior to the Kenyan military invasion- the nation’s first- it took a different tack. Much of north eastern Kenya is ethnically Somali, the border long and hard to patrol in a remote area of desert. Dadaab refugee camp has played host to over a hundred thousand refugees since the early 1990s (around half a million today), with more hosted in communities. There is also a large Somali population in Nairobi. The risk of insurgency activity and domestic terrorism has been a priority in Kenya’s domestic and foreign security policy for many years, but specifically since the 1998 embassy bombing that killed two hundred Kenyans and injured a thousand more. That attack, linked to al Qaeda operatives, also had ties to Somalia and al Shabab, with one of the operation’s ringleaders killed at a checkpoint earlier this year. One of its key defensive strategies therefore was to fund allied militias along the border to fight a proxy war and create a buffer between Kenya and al Shabab. That operation did not reap much success, but did manage to fund and arm a number of bloody warlords. The current strategy looks to be a new incarnation of the same drive: to create a buffer.

The plan is horribly flawed. Kenya’s military, while trained and equipped, has little experience of combat operations. The initial invasion force appears to include some 3,000 soldiers, a woefully small number to hold any territory. The aim of the invasion appears to be to take the towns of Afmadow and Kismayo, but to what end is not entirely clear. Does Kenya hope that, once displaced, Kenya-friendly Somali clan leaders will fill the leadership vacuum? Does it anticipate that TFG and AMISOM forces will rush in at their tails to take control? Given the Somali government’s somewhat frosty reception to the invasion (though note the backpedalling here), it’s unlikely Kenya has any aims of actually annexing the region and governing directly. But then, with 3,000 troops, it couldn’t hope to. If there’s a lesson well illustrated in Afghanistan and Iraq, it’s that huge numbers of troops are required to control relatively small areas of territory when insurgents are in operation- that, and pitching conventional troops against organizations skilled in asymmetric warfare does not lead to a quick, easy or decisive victory. And if there’s a lesson well illustrated in Somalia, it’s that power vacuums don’t lead to good leaders stepping in and taking charge, just years of anarchy. A lesson the Ethiopian invasion of 2006 wrote with much blood.

Kenya’s motivations, to shore up its borders and provide some economic security, are obvious. But why does the West seem so slow to condemn Kenya for invading its neighbour- certainly in breach of international agreements, and possibly in breach of international law as well, following the bombing of a relief camp? Well, sitting at this level, we don’t know the finer ins and outs of the diplomacy happening behind the scenes. It’s possible- probable, even- that some envoys are working for a way to enable Kenya to beat a face-saving withdrawl. But, quite frankly, it’s too late for that. Al Shabab has already called for large-scale terror attacks on Nairobi and has said the Kenyan populace will suffer for the actions of its government. A withdrawl will only fuel a notion of victory for the insurgents, and likely embolden them, not diffuse their anger. The chances of a major terrorist attack being attempted in Nairobi over the next few months are pretty high.

The West, however, appears to be playing the same risky game that Kenya did a few years ago, albeit one step removed. Allow a proxy force to go in and do the dirty work. With the significant weakening of al Qaeda Central’s strategic capability since the killing of bin Laden and a number of other key operatives, increasing focus has been placed on al Shabab territory as a breeding ground for al Qaeda operatives and operational capacity, among other festive hotspots such as Yemen. The US’s operational presence in Somalia is increasingly well attested-to, but it is none the less a small and somewhat clandestine operation, primarily involving intelligence support, training, and surgical drone strikes. The likelihood of the US gaining any domestic support for even a relatively small operation (such as the recently-announced Special Operations force to help  in the hunt for the LRA’s Joseph Kony) is minimal, with the wounds inflicted by the 1993 Battle of the Black Sea (of Black Hawk Down fame) still smarting. But having an allied force putting its troops on the front line in occupying al Shabab is a perfectly acceptable solution.

It’s hard to know exactly what conversations are going on behind the scenes. Kenya was quick to announce US and French support for the invasion, only to have to withdraw it after both nations denied the action. Still, it seems unlikely that the Kenyans would come out and speak confidently and officially of such support if it hadn’t been inferred at some point in the conversation. Nor does it seem believable that intelligence services knew nothing of the military manouevre that led to the invasion proper. Much more probable is that western governments are perfectly happy for Kenyan troops to fight and die against a perceived enemy in the GWOT, will offer their support and approval behind closed doors, but will maintain a veneer of plausible deniability to limit both domestic backlash and the risk of increased targeted agitation by extremists who can now vent their rage against the more local and accessible Kenyans who are the immediate aggressor. Keep them busy close to their own home fronts, and they’re far less likely to be able to launch attacks further afield.

And never mind the 750,000 Somalis at risk of death from famine, who will certainly be further isolated by this new phase of warfare.