THE WORLD THROUGH MY LENS

This page features my own comments and stories behind the photos. That’s partly self-indulgent and partly informative.

If you are considering booking a wedding or portrait session with me, it will be helpful to to look at my travel/documentary photography. Not only will you get a sense of my style in general, but you will get a sense for how I tell a story with images. You’ll get a sense of how I would tell your story.

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness..” –Mark Twain

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” ~Maya Angelou

COSTA RICA

“PROPHET”

Carmen de Guadelupe, Costa Rica. I passed this homeless man every day on the way to class in Costa Rica. It took some convincing before he let me take his picture: he was quite suspicious of my motives at first. This shot gets a lot of comments.

“LEJOS”

A little girl in Alejuela, an area of San Jose that had become a haven for displaced Nicaraguan immigrants. Out of 3 million people there are almost 1 million Nicaraguan immigrants. The look in this girl’s eyes reflected the “far-away” look I saw in the eyes of so many. Even while grateful for new opportunities, every immigrant I talked to found themselves often thinking of home.

San Juan, Peru.  Probably my favorite shot yet.

GUATEMALA

“PHAETON”

Antigua, Guatemala. On the suggestion of a friend, I often title my documentary shots with the names of well-known figures from Greek and Roman mythology. It highlights the iconic nature I want to communicate about the subjects I’ve chosen. This boy’s impish grin earned him the title “PHAETON” and this is one of the shots of which I’m most proud.

“PIETA”

Antigua, Guatemala. Semana Santa ceremony.  I love this title.

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness…broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

–Mark Twain

Someone asked me recently, “Why are you so fascinated with other countries?” and I had to stop myself from answering, “Why are you NOT?”  I’m endlessly fascinated with how someone can have had a life so different from mine and yet we can share so much. When you travel, it’s easy for all the cultural trappings and distractions to fall away, leaving only your shared humanity as the focus. I love the way that photography (and painting) make that moment iconic, and allow you to share it with others.

A blog post from my best friend expresses some of my thoughts better than I could: I’ve re-posted, with her permission.

09 JANUARY 2009

an Ucayali sketch.

There were nights where we’d sit and sing to Ben’s guitar for hours. Black, deep nights so thick I couldn’t do anything but feel through them, grope with some sense more than sight.
We sat and sang on the simple wood benches of the small, open pavilion, despite the constant slapping and scratching at mosquitoes. By day, the pavilion served as their town meeting-place or hall. Morning light would pour in while they conducted business on a schoolroom chalkboard, making plans for books, medicine, churches. It was unfair, that light, not muted by glass or drywall. Impossible, full, unadulterated light. They glowed in it, belonged in it, their faces like marble saints nestled in a tympanum.
I ate that light alive. I died for it. I still want it.
Both day and night there were so thick, and most of them found it odd how late we’d stay up, being accustomed as we were to our nights of electric day. But we sat up and sang, Jen, her cropped black hair and glasses, her mother’s tenderness; Alissa, always watching, thinking; Ben, blonde, gentle and dreamy, a Germanic stranger to that wild locale; Ryan, who wooed the place by chasing its chickens and climbing its trees and muddling through language, utterly unafraid.
It’s all so clear I almost believe I am still there: the four-hour rides on slow-moving motorboats, feet over the side, the sensation of gliding over the Amazon. The white birds flapping low over violently green grass. The night Walter and Isaias played the flutes together, hunkered against the metal sides of the boat, piercing, lilting music while the black, starry river slept. The way their eyes fixated on me when I sang, their faces frozen, like I was magic. The dew on the grass in the pink dawn. The red seeds strung together for necklaces, the black tattoos on the wrists of the women, the plaid button-down shirts on the men. Ryan singing The Cars over and over again, his guitar mercifully muted by the humidity. The huge stacks of banana leaves hauled over the shoulder. The sensation of mud between the toes, all the way up to the calves, free of debris; the way it baked dry in the sun and cracked off, pieces of pottery.
How to gather these dappled images and inhabit them again? If I go back, will any of it smell the same, feel the same, taste the same? Will the light still be so good? Will the night still be unsounded?
And if I sing, will the people still stare at me unabashed, and wonder who I am?

Guatemala is saturated in brilliant color. Blue skies, dark exotic wood, bright stucco, white stucco, brilliant fabrics, coffee-colored skin…

Father and son selling roasted nuts on the street. This one gets a lot of comments as well.
GERMANY

“MOMENT”

Professor Murphy from Houghton College bought the print of this one. That was one of my proudest moments…but not,however, the reason for the title.

THE ANYONE SERIES

(title inspired by e.e. cummings’ poem “anyone lived in a pretty how town”)

“UP SO”

_

“FLOATING”

“MANY BELLS DOWN”

This photo is the last in a series of three that I displayed in my senior show. All three shot in Germany.

If you aren’t familiar with the poem, I highly recommend a quick read: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15403

“EMILY”

Shot in Germany during a “Man’s Day” festival, (which is somewhat like Father’s Day) The face was just perfect. The title actually comes from the name of a girl a friend was dating at the time.

PERU

YOUNG SOLDIER

Hilter is a young Peruvian National Guardsman that traveled with us during my trip on the Ucayali river. We needed armed guards with us 1) to protect the equipment on the boat and 2) to give us legitimacy because in the jungle areas there is a rumor that white people will steal indigenous babies and use their fat to run their airplanes!!! Having the National Guard with us at least communicated governmental approval and helped to debunk this rumor, but there was still one village would not let us in because they believed this story.

As young as the young man in the photos is, he had already spent a few years in active duty in the Peruvian army. A story about a South American soldier would be a dream assignment for me: I think it would be fascinating. This young man had a story to tell and I hope I can create some images give it some justice

PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

“MACKEREL SKY”

UCAYALI DUST STORM

One day along the river I experienced my first Amazonian storm… The sky turned an ominous color and the wind whipped up the dust till the sting against the skin was painful. Note the little boy using a plastic bottle as goggles to protect his eyes from the dust.

Usually in Peru, children and adults alike stare gravely into the camera like 18th century deguerreotypes. In San Juan, however, the popular response seemed to be to mimic some sort of martial artist…or a tiger, I’m not sure which.

You’d never know it, but Nancy had just gotten two teeth pulled by our boat dentist–that’s why she’s hiding her mouth.

ANDERSON

Possibly the most adorable child…ever.

CUZCO

THE TRAIN FROM CUZCO TO MACHU PICCHU

LIMA

LIMA WATER PARK

MANCHU PICCHU

MANCHU PICCHU, THE WYNUPICCHU DAY

The foggy, rainy morning almost convinced me to skip the climb…Instead, I stuck to my commitment, pulled myself out of bed at 4 am and set off for the summit. I ended up meeting and spending the day with an Argentinian named Paulo and an awesome photographer named Derek–who was kind enough to let me swap lenses with him all day. These are the (currently unedited) shots from one of my most fantastic adventures ever.

WYNUPICCHU

Climbing the mountain behind Manchu Picchu is something I’ve been longing to do for 6 years, ever since I first saw its looming black summit. It was worth every moment of waiting.

Three generations of climbers. The grandfather, in the center, was 86 years old.

THE SUMMIT OF WYNUPICCHU

Soaked, dirty, and victorious. We waited and waited for the fog to clear.

Tom, a traveler from the Netherlands.

The oldest climber. 86 years old.

The cave.

The sun came out as we descended, and by the time we’d reached Machu Picchu again, the weather was brilliant.

I point to Wynupicchu, our accomplishment.

MANCHU PICCHU–once the sun appeared

Paulo and I met a girl from Israel who taught how to perfectly time shots like these. Apparently shots of one-and-one’s-friends-airborne-in-front-of-tourist-sites are cliches in Israel. Who knew? The concept was totally new to us, and we annoyed other tourists for approximately half an hour before we got a French dude to capture this shot for us. Exito! The shot below shows our little Israeli teacher…unfortunately I forgot to teach her friend how to speed up the shutter speed…and to take off the lens guard

I’ve devoted an entire post to “The Water Filter Project”

PERU: THE WATER FILTER PROJECT

Photography by Lindsay Musser and Joan McGwire

In the Ucayali Region of Peru, the Ucayali River and its tributaries are the main source of water for several different people groups.

The Ucayali is beautiful, but the water is muddy and brown. Sickness is common due to parasites and bacteria in the water.

The BioSand water filter designed at the University of Calgary, Canada is a great solution

Water poured into this concrete filter passes through layers of media and exits through a plastic pipe. The filter media installed inside has 3 layers

1) half-inch stones

2) quarter-inch stones

3) fine sand

In addition to the mechanical filtering, a biolayer forms in the top 2 inches of sand. Here beneficial microbes actually eat harmful bacteria resulting in 95% pure water

The only maintenance is to stir the top layer of fine sand removing the cloudy water whenever the flow slows due to the biolayer becoming full. The same sand can be used for years.

The design is simple, but the difference in water quality is drastic.

It is easy to teach the people how to install and maintain the filters.

Every house in the whole village can have a filter

Workers at Oasis Construction, the water filter factory in Pucallpa, are building filters and preparing sand media

The filters are transported upriver by boat where they are installed in homes.

Each dollar donated to this project helps change the lives of people living in isolated jungle villages.

For more information, to donate, or ask how you can help, please email Blair.McGwire@efca.org

PERU: THE WATER FILTER PROJECT

*for a more complete story, see sub-page

Every dollar donated helps change the lives of people whose faces you see below

The “gigglewagons”…

U.S.A.