The road was windy, unpaved and in a valley. Up on the cliff we observed people walking home from Sunday church, women in white shawls holding large umbrellas. Men in tattered baseball caps with finely sanded walking sticks. On their feet cheaply made Chinese plastic sandals.To the right was a craggy mountain with stunted trees growing out of it. I won't call it rain or drizzle but something was coming down. Kind of a thin white mist, an air of quietness and peacefulness pervaded the surroundings and us in our vehicles. Glancing out of the window coming up the road I spotted a teenage boy walking towards us. Over his shoulder he had a long stick, on his back it appeared he had a bag I really couldn't make out what he was carrying in his arms until he was next to the car. And there he was, a boy carrying a chicken, with not just a stick over his shoulder but a spear and tied to his back was a goatskin bag and a large metal kettle. All the makings of a proper Sunday dinner. Who could ask for a better, in the moment photographic experience.

Ethiopia, Abyssinia the birthplace of civilization has been my home for the past two weeks as myself and photo leader extraordinaire Jeremy Woodhouse sheparded ten photo enthusiasts through the remote Omo Valley. Guatemalan photo journalist Holly Wilmeth was part of our team and she mentored, cajoled, provided invaluable asisstance  and smiled her way through the trip.

To me the take-away from this most unique of photo expeditions can be summed up in the expressions; surreal, is this for real, it really isn't real but we can make it real. How do you describe your joy after camping in the rain for two nights and you get to a really well appointed hotel, charge into the shower praying for hot water and out of the shower head comes a blast of freezing water. Yes, the knob is red and says hot and you know that the sun was shining all day and the solar system should be working. After much time getting frost bitten I turned the red one off and the cold blue one on and suddenly a blast of scalding water hit my skin and turned me red. Not wanting the next guest to think unkindly of the hotel I pried off of the knobs and rearranged them to the reality of the water temperature that would hopefully come down.