a few months back i went to haiti for the first time.  one of the things that jumped out at me right away was just how much of an influence “disney” had there.  mickey was on pretty  much every street and corner and building.  now, i put disney in quotes because i don’t think i saw one official disney product while i was there.  they were all hand painted.  all of them used to attract kids to a school, church, or day care.  have a few disney loving kids back home i tried to snap as many images as i could as our buss flew down the roads.  here are a few that came out in focus.  enjoy.

some of the artist did better than others.  here was a less than stellar mickey.  along with a bit of looney toons cross promotion.

everyone know disney and jesus christ go hand in hand.

it’s heartbreaking to live in a world were there can be such extreme poverty in one city and be able to board a plane, fly 2 hours and be in disney world.  it’s something that our family wrestles with almost on a daily basis.

i don’t know how to end this post.

you want to see 59 images from my trip to haiti right?  i thought so.

leaving my wife and kids for the week was by far the hardest part.  the longest i had been away from them up to this point was 3 days.  it was a long 8 days for me and a longer 8 days for danielle.  HUGE shout out to her for allowing me to go and taking her parenting to another level while i was gone.

this is what a sunrise looks like in haiti.  it’s kinda cool.

our church partnered with an organization called praying pelican.  they have groups coming and going all the time and this was our swanky school bus that we rode around in.

we arrived late saturday night and so we missed the “early” church service.  we ended up going to the late one at 9:30am. :)  this was the church we attended and one of the kids’ sunday school classes.

there were steps coming down from one of the classrooms and right on the other side of them was this.  the theme of beauty right next to trash was something that kept appearing the whole week we were there.

having a camera around your neck makes you pretty popular with kids and less so with grown ups.  the boys all posed on their own for their shots.

i found this on one of the bulletin boards at the church.

for most of the week, we spent our days moving rocks and shoveling dirt to help build a church.  this tent is where they meet now and the building should be done in about a year.

here i am being a baller at an orphanage.  i crushed the 10 & 12 year old kids.  i got mad skillz.

there were so many adorable kids everywhere you looked.  here are just a few of them.

boom.  just like that.  i didn’t pose them.

i loved seeing their faces when they saw their pictures on the back of my camera.

check out the toy car this kid made.  it’s both awesome and heartbreaking all at once.

again, haiti is both beautiful and sad all at once.  gorgeous coast line filled with tent houses that have tarps for roofs.

trash piles along the city road.

many of the houses had broken bottles along the walls for security.  keeps people from jumping over.  pretty cool idea.

i went to one orphanage/school that had this for a basketball goal.  for comparison we have 4 basketball goals with backboards, rims and nets at our house.

these three kids were walking a long long way to bring some water back home.

they have these things called “tap tap”s there. you jump on when you want to, tap when you want to get off, and then pay.  this was a nice one.  most of them are really small pickups.

saw two tires buried in random locations.  figured they were worth photographing.

that tiny white dot is a man doing a bit of farming.

our last day we went to this beach.  how awesome is this coast line.

and this is along the shore.
again, haiti was an amazing experience and my heart breaks for the people there.  they live in a gorgeous country and have been dealt an incredibly hard hand.  it’s both the most beautiful place i’ve ever been to as well as the saddest place i have ever visited.  i can’t wait to go back.

So I’ve accumulated a bit of extra gear of the years. Some of this I’m selling because I don’t use it, some because I have upgraded. Some because I want to collect a pile of cash to buy other stuff. :) It’s all in great working condition and I have had zero trouble with any of the gear.

Also, I know some of my past couples are super into photography.  If I have ever photographed you then you can knock 10% off the price of any of these items.  If it’s listed it’s available.  Once it sells, I’ll remove it from this post.  If you are interested in purchasing any of this hit me up here: alexmphotography at g mail dot com.

5D Mark 2 (w/grip) $1,700 SOLD

Canon 24mm 1.4L $900 SOLD

Canon Speedlite 580EX $300 SOLD

Canon Speedlite 580EX II $400 (Quantity 1 $400 each) 1 HAS SOLD

I will sell these separately, but I must warn you, they have been together since day one and will probably sulk if you separate them from each other. :) (They are taking the separation pretty well all things considered.)

CyberSync Set: 1 Transmitter 3 Receivers $225 SOLD

AlienBee 1600: $300 SOLD

iPad 2 16GB Wi-Fi: $300 SOLD

So I’m trying to expand my photographingness horizons by forcing myself to snap at least one photo a day.  I’m also trying to NOT have it contain people.  Below is my effort for January.  I’m a little hit & miss on the people rule, but hey, my kids are cute.  Anyway, if you wanna play along I’d love to see/hear your results.  Leave a little shout out in the comments about how it’s coming along.