Archives: 2009 May

Archive for May, 2009

May 21, 2009

Some love from the “A” Channel

This morning my new friend Kurt Stoodley called into his Ottawa morning show on the “A” Channel from here in El Salvador. While he reported on our trip, a selection of photos that I’ve taken so far aired as the visuals! I’m pretty excited to see the clip.

Above is a photo of a little boy named Mario that I took while visiting a family with Kurt and the rest of the gang. Mario and his family (like many families that we have met) are really struggling. It’s been an emotional yet hopeful trip. It’s been truly amazing to see how much the WV staff here care about helping families press forward to create a future for the children and the communities alike.

POSTED BY Alyssa AT 5:07 am || No Comments »
POSTED IN News, Photojournalism, Travel

May 19, 2009

Landed and Safe

Well my friends. I landed in El Salvador on Sunday and have settled in quite well. Yesterday was quite a busy day. We went to the town of Armenia (I KNOW right?) and met two families that World Vision is helping. I shot this photo on the way out of the rainy hills yesterday afternoon.

POSTED BY Alyssa AT 1:55 pm || 4 Comments »
POSTED IN Photojournalism, Travel

May 5, 2009

Just do your thing, Baby

Alyssa says: Ha ha where do I start on this one? I’ve had a scan of the photo of me (left) for a while waiting for inspiration to blog about it. What better inspiration than to find this photo of my friend Dar (right) on facebook? When I was a baby I LOVED photo albums. I was obsessed. I would steal them, hide in the corner and look at them over and over again. Also I am wearing aspen barrettes and a crisp white shirt (a typical outfit of 26 year old Alyssa). Dar for obvious reasons is one of my favourite people to photograph (especially in leisure wear basking in the sun). Look at the little starlet striking a pose. It amuses me to no end to see us both in diapers (and at our respective childhood coffee tables) doing what we like best. All this makes me think that very little has changed in 25 years - and that is oddly comforting.

Dar says: My mother sent me this photo and it kinda broke my heart (in a good way). I seemed appropriately oblivious to my dorkiness, proud of it even (which is how my mother raised me, socks n’ sandals, and all), doing what Alyssa refers to as a “flourish”. Damn right. I said to Alyssa, only moments ago, how I wished these two babies could have been friends way back then. The baby on the right clearly needs an audience, and the baby on the left wants to fill those damn photo albums with something she made herself. One day, they will both get what they want, and even be so lucky as to do it together.

Not a whole lot has changed today, as I am relaxing in the sun (in questionable attire) while Alyssa is organizing, organizing, organizing her pictures like a maniac. I do not offer help, only random moments of ridiculous behaviour to try and make her laugh.

POSTED BY Alyssa AT 9:41 pm || 2 Comments »
POSTED IN Personal

May 5, 2009

Brazilian Dreams

I spent only a little over a week in Fortaleza Brazil but strangely I dream of it often. My memories of the landscape, the smells, textures and people are very clear. Often it takes me a few months (years!) to revisit the photographs from a country, but I happen to be sorting through all of my photographs for my new portfolio site. I stumbled across these images and they reminded me of my dreams so I thought I would share them. The first and third are images of the Atlantic ocean and the middle a shot is of one of the favelas bordering Fortaleza’s city dump.