Yo. It’s been a long time. There have been plenty of pictures but not a lot of time. Plus, the internet connection here in Laos is slow and sketchy. Anyway, here are a few pictures I took today of Eli. The background looks white, but it’s actually the yellow west-facing wall of our house.

For my birthday, we decided to take a day off from work and explore the festivities going on downtown. I’m still not sure what the big festival was about but it was definitely worth seeing. The best part for the kids were the rides. I loved all the colors.

When Orawin and Karsten invited me to their home in Bangkok, I didn’t know what to expect. But it was clear after a few moments what a loving, beautiful family they are. He is from Denmark and his parents were in Bangkok visiting, so I had the chance to photograph some extended family. Their little girl was so sweet and fast! She had just learned to walk the day before and I could barely keep up with her. Here are a couple of my favorite shots.

Proponents of Attachment Parenting would be pretty happy in Laos. I saw a lot of babies and they were always riding on their moms, dads or older siblings in a sling/wrap.

At a village not far from the Vietnam border in Bolikhamsai, I met this woman. We were near her house, talking with on of the PRAM students about her newly-built chicken coop. This older lady was squatting a few yards away, chattering and making friendly jokes. I approached her with my camera and she didn’t seem scared, so I took a few initial pictures like this:

After a bit, she said, “What are you taking those pictures for? If it’s for something important, let me go get some pretty clothes on.” So she climbed up the ladder to her one-room 10×10 house-on-stilts and came back down two minutes later dressed like this:

Apparently she is the medicine woman in her village and this is her “doctor uniform” as she called it. She was so playful and funny. After I got a few serious shots, she started doing a little dance.

Then she invited me into her house to see her instruments, one of which was an AK-47. Our group was leaving and I only had time to snap this shot (though I had some burning questions about her “instruments”):

We went on a little Sunday drive a couple miles past our house, heading out of the city. It’s almost time to harvest the rice and the fields are turning from bright green to yellow. It was a beautiful drive (I guess “ride” would be more accurate since we were on a motorcycle).

David is in Laos and I am by myself. But tomorrow he is coming back home and we are happy.

So, I’ve never entered any kind of contest before, but in honor of my cousin who battled breast cancer and won, here is my I Heart Faces submission. The person in the photo happens to be my beautiful younger sister and her baby.

Yay! I had the chance to do another newborn session here in Thailand. Photography sessions here are definitely more challenging, but I feel like it helps me grow. For instance, I have all these ideas of things I’d like to do, but am completely unable to because I don’t have access to the material or props required, I have no dedicated tools like reflectors (pop-out ones would be awesome but I don’t have any), and even if I did have them I am very limited in what I can bring to a session since we don’t have a car.

So I stuffed my backpack full of fabrics I bought in Bangkok and my camera and two lenses and that was it. At one point I ended up using the white pages of a textbook at their house as a reflector and it worked fine. Also, I had no idea what the light would be like and to be honest, most Thai houses do not have a lot of light coming in because the idea is to keep the light out since it’s blazing hot all the time. Anyway, it has been fun for me to adapt to the challenges and see what I can get out of what I’m given.

Meet Mote and Bow, the proud parents of a new daughter, Eva. More pictures coming soon…