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Monday, March 26, 2012

Day 6 of Technical Exchange (Kampong Cham - Kampong Cham)

Finally! Today, I got to wake up at 7a, fall back asleep, then wake up again at 7:30a. I took my time, showered, then headed to breakfast at Destiny, where I had mixed nuts (cashews, peanuts, and almonds) with muesli, yogurt, and mixed fruit (bananas, ripe mangoes (the best part...'tis the season), apples, and pineapples). It was definitely worth the splurge. Ah! I'm hungry for it again just writing about it....

Today was slower, because we had to change our plans to take some photos for another PSI project which involved "entertainment workers" (EWs) or prostitutes. So, today, I started off my work day by going to two different brothels. I'm still unclear about the exact project PSI has in mind, but I'm fairly positive it has to do with promoting the use of contraceptives to EWs in order to mitigate the spread of HIV/AIDS. That's one of PSI's main sectors here. The other three are: Child Survival, Family Planning, and Malaria Prevention. Anyhow, back to the story, I was in a brothel. I walked into a barren wooden house with spaced out floorboards. There was a brown leather couch to the left that was completely torn apart. The left side of it had a giant hole filled with newspapers and various fabrics so that one might find some comfort when sitting down on it. One of the girls stood up, and walked over to her room, which simply had a mattress on the floor and pictures of various Cambodians with different hair styles on the wall (not really that far off from the norm). I took shots of her putting on make up and talking on the phonewith the obligatory product placement of "OK" brand condoms (which PSI manufactures and produces) in various places. After that, we walked back out and had her sit with another one of the girls on the couch. To be honest, some of my favorite shots are the ones that won't be used. Bunsak kept talking to the girls and making them laugh, and that was fantastic. Most people picture EWs with faces devoid of emotion, but these girls were sassy and had plenty of laughs when given the opportunity. The second place we went to was even darker than the first. I had to set my camera to 6400 ISO, which is extremely light sensitive (we had no tripod). It might lessen the quality of the image a little, but the lighting was perfect. I'm so glad we weren't forced to use a flash (I try to avoid it if I can). Anyhow, there were 5 or 6 red plastic chairs lined up in a row along the wall which I assume were meant for the girls to sit in when a client would come in a to "choose a girl". We had five girls sit down as if they were simply waiting for someone to come along, and these were the most striking images of the day. Each girl had a drastically different expression and pose. We ended up shooting two of the girls individually, one in her room (all the rooms had locks on them), and the other leaning against her door post. The last girl's room had no windows, and the only light was a small light bulb that gave off a low red-orange glow. All of the girls signed consent forms for PSI, (PSI attempted a photo shoot like this in the past but never had any consent forms/compensation in place at the time, so they've been cautious to use any of their past images) and we were on our way to continue our photo shoots for the IUD health education game.

We got three shots after this and then got lunch. After lunch we spent 2 hours looking around and found no one to photograph. We finally found a woman and her husband who seemed willing. We spent 30 minutes waiting for them to get ready and another 30 shooting. While getting ready to place her thumb on the consent form, the wife changed her mind and decided she did not want her image being used. It was absolutely her call, and I completely understand why she made it. So, 3 hours went by and nothing. We spent another 45 minutes driving around, and at that point, it was, well, pointless. So, we headed back to the hotel where we got back just a little after 5p.

I finally got the plug-in for Photoshop so that I can read/see/edit RAW files from the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. I've gone through about 20GB worth of images and still have more to go through. I'm trying to get it down to 50-75 images (from 2000 [this far]) for my folder of slightly edited and shrunk photos (all of the photographs were 23MP and approximately 60MB per file. I got it down to 40kb (pretty good, yeah?).

Okay. Phew! I've gotten through writing about 6 days of my tech exchange. Only two more days to go, and then it's off to Vietnam!!!

Talk to you soon,
Garrett

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