and the site can be viewed on iPhones and iPads

The taste of things to come can been seen @ martinkawalski.500px.com

Theresa.

I met Therese on my second morning in Cartagena, like many Cartagenans she was socializing with her friends and family just outside her house.

]]> http://www.martinkawalski.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=161 1 http://www.martinkawalski.com/blog/?p=156 http://www.martinkawalski.com/blog/?p=156#comments Sun, 23 Jan 2011 04:09:14 +0000 maarten http://www.martinkawalski.com/blog/?p=156 I’m typing this post in Bogota, having just returned from the remarkable city of Cartagena. Rather than snapping pictures of once beautiful colonial  architecture I decided to focus on Cartagenans themselves. I’d wander the narrow streets of Getsemani (Cartagena’s Old Town poor section) and talk to various, random people. The very first thing that struck me was the incredible hospitality and openness. Not a single person refused to talk to me or tell the stories of their lives in Cartagena. They seemed to derive genuine pleasure from sharing their stories. I will post some of them here.

Despite Colombia’s bad reputation when it comes to safety  I never felt insecure in Cartagena. That said, I was advised by most of the people I talked to not to venture outside the old city walls.

I finally found the time and energy to experiment a little bit with an underwater footage from my leica d-lux4. This short clip has been edited from over 3 hours of raw video shot around Sipadan and Mabul in Malaysia.

D-lux4 was protected by a 10Bar uw housing, which did a pretty good job – the camera is still intact and working.

The unusual underwater guide from Martin Kawalski on Vimeo.

In order to preserve pristine waters and coral ecosystem a tightly enforced (which, is frankly quite surprising for Malaysia) 120 divers per day limit  has been set. I only had limited time in the area (one cannot stay on the Sipadan island itself as it is a UNESCO protected site) and already logged 3 dives in an underwater paradise. Since the permits are usually booked months ahead my chances of getting another try a taking my dream underwater picture were as thin as 1mm lycra wetsuit .

With only 2 days left I was wandering aimlessly in maze of wooden houses built hastily  in the shallow coastal water.  None of the dive resorts on the Mabul island (this where most of the Sipadan visitors stay) had any permits and even if they did they guarded them closely and sold only to their guests…

Ever since I started diving one particular sight has always been eluding me – a perfect barracuda vortex. A phenomenon, where thousands of sliver bodied, bullet-like barracudas form a gigantic swirl resembling nothing but an eye of an underwater cyclone!

Children’s laughter and slightly accented English bring me back from daydreaming. “Uncle Chang? Uncle Chang” I see the quizzical looks of two Malay boys aged probably between 5 and 7. I answered “guys, you probably confused me with someone else, I’m Martin, not uncle Chang”.  Eruption of more laughter.

“No, no, no!! you no! Mr. you want see Uncle Chang ??! ” Having absolutely no idea who uncle Chang was, I let myself be led to that mysterious individual. Uncle Chang turned out to be a local entrepreneur, who runs a super small local dive shop manned entirely by local populations. Nothing like a big and fancy resorts, which draw crowds and serve one-size-fits-all dive packages.  What was missing in equipment and frills was more than made up for in a relaxed and easy going atmosphere.  I stayed for beer.

Not surprisingly, Uncle Chang was a) extremely knowledgeable  b) irritated by the constant influx of divers swarming in “his” waters.  Yet, still I told him about my dream picture and so far no luck in taking it.  Chang smiled. “You will never get it with many people. Come tomorrow. 5 am, my place”.

Intrigued I could hardly sleep that night. With the first rays of rising sun I sprinted across the island to Chang’s shop. “Grab those tanks and we’ll be ready to go, kid” I heard instead of expected “good morning”.  Within minutes we were on our way towards Sipadan. By the time we arrived and readied the gear the sun was already high. Chang gave me a slip of paper with a Swedish name written on it. Jannike Anders, aged 44.  ”She’s a friend of mine, and she’s sick. Today you are Jannike”. Being a 29-year old male it might be tad difficult to pass for a Swedish blond, middle aged woman, no?

“Stay with the tanks, and put that big hat on. Guard won’t recognize your from the distance” said Chang grinning with a smile so wide as to reveal slightly yellowish teeth.

I quickly popped my small leica d-lux4 into its underwater housing… 40 meters below thousands of glistering torpedos were waiting.

Shortly, there is no movie. All that gear hauling was for nothing.

Or maybe not…

My friend Pix, pretending to be a canon street vendor. Today cheaper than tomorrow.

2x 5dMK2 and  EOS30 (i guess)

Clearly, it’s a  promo campaign for their new line of headlamps called Tikka^2.  I’m a big fan of their gear. It is rugged, reliable and robust and light at the same time. Having said all these positive things I must admit to using not one but headlamps made by their competitors – Black Diamond , while taking the contest picture.

In general, photographing frozen waterfalls at night is super tricky. My 5dmk2 was more than struggling with AF, light bouncing off the icicles in all directions was fooling the camera constantly. Additionally, I couldn’t adjust the light from the strobe the way I wanted. In the end I settled for just tiny headlamps (1 watt each) and a high ISO (1250) which was later processed in Ninja Noise.

oh, and please vote for my submission. If I get enough vote I might just get one of those new Tikka^2 headlamps!

http://concours.tikka2.com/photo.php?id=87e6087b4825950fd15cf40c40d5e1fd