wow! that's a freakishly big python you are selling!

The last time I ventured out to Bac Ha with some friends I took them to see the Sunday Market that Bac Ha is famous for. If you've never been, you really should check it out! Cool place. Well, as we were entering the market I saw a really odd looking meat for sale, which turned out to be python meat! Seeing how large the skin of the snake was I inquired with the lady selling the meat as to where she had killed it. Her answer was a relaxed, "At home." At home I thought to myself? Finding a snake this big "at home" would be a sure fire way to make it my home no more. Had I been her I would have answered, "At my former home. I've moved now!". Yes, this would make more sense.

Is that cat vomit? A treatise on today's airplane food

It used to be that flying Thai Airways was a pleasurable experience. I'd get shrimp curry in economy class, along with incredible service that has kept me coming back for the past 11 years. This morning was an unfortunate reminder of how much the quality of that experience has been going down. Just a few years back I would have received scrambled eggs and hash brown potatoes on a morning flight. This morning, however, a croissant was placed before me that was filled with something that resembled cat vomit! This probably doesn't speak well of me, but I went ahead and tried it. Yep, it tasted like it looked! Yuck! It really made me wonder what some poor cat must have had to eat last night, and what would have possessed him or her to share it with all of the passengers on my flight. A hair ball? A rat? It's just hard to know. In any case, I feel sorry for that poor cat, and for all of us that had to endure it's vomit this morning. Thai Airways, if you are reading this, please charge me the extra couple of bucks that it costs to provide eggs and potatoes on my next flight. Cat vomit just doesn't do it for me!

LOOK3 YOURSPACE

One of my photos got accepted to the LOOK3 YOURSPACE festival of photography. You can check out the festival photos below:


LOOK3 YourSpace Online - Images by Festival of the Photograph

in the bag

I always like to ask other photographers what gear they pack when they travel. I guess there's the hope that someone will have discovered something that would improve my kit. Other people have asked me the same, so I'll go ahead and share here what I take with me. On most trips I pack my Canon 1D Mark II, 16-35 f/2.8 L, 24-70 f/2.8 L, 70-200 f/2.8 L and 1.4 x extender. A Tiffen cicular polarizer and Haze filter is packed for each of these. The 70-200 is by far my favorite lens, and sees the most use. My plan is to eventually add a full frame body like the 5D Mark II so that I can run two lenses at once. There's simply too much dust and rain in the field to change lenses all of the time. Having full frame would also allow me to maximize use of the 16-35. Were money not an object I'd probably add a 1Ds Mark IV when it comes out.

On trips under a week long I pack an 80 GB Epson P-5000. That way I don't have to lug a computer around. CF card wise I bring all I've got, which is about 12 GB worth. I also throw in a squeezable air blower, 2-3 lens wipes, the visible dust pro kit for cleaning off dust and a rain cover for my backpack. Three camera batteries come along as well, plus between two and four packs of double a batteries for my 580ex flash. I mention the flash late in this post because I don't use it unless I have to. Natural light photograpy has always been my favorite, and from what I can tell the people I'm photographing prefer not to have a flash going off all of the time. I'd really like to add an 85 f/1.2 L to the kit for low light situtations. Many village homes are dark, and so it's difficult to shoot without a flash at f/2.8. For now I'm stuck with the flash, an off camera shoe cord and an omnibounce difuser.

The non-photographic items I take are a pad and pen to record location names, two mini-mag flashlights, a snack (e.g. nuts) to keep my energy levels up, water for hydration, bandaids and a jacket. All of this of-course weighs a ton when it's put together in a bag. However I typically use all of it on each trip. Since weight is an issue though I use a gitzo travellers monopod, and leave the tripod at home.

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions. I always enjoy talking about photography.

kicking off my blog

Blogs are quite strange to me. I've yet to figure out why so many people write about their pets, favorite toilet paper or many personal things that I consider... Well, personal. So, I'll try to avoid such silliness in this blog. I do have a great appreciation for food though, so you'll probably hear about interesting meals I have eaten from time to time. I'm in Chiang Mai, Thailand at present, so calling the blog eatstickyrice just makes sense. We eat a lot of it around here! Just this week I had a really wonderful meal of bamboo curry and sticky rice. Yummy!

In addition to cooking and eating, my primary hobby is photography. So, I'll likely share about that a lot here too. My current photo project is uploading a few thousand photos from Laos and Vietnam to my photoshelter site: http://pa.photoshelter.com/c/rickwaggoner