I’m writing this from 40,000 feet above the earth, just barely grazing over a floor of clouds, and I’m feeling good. I didn’t really know what to expect from spending what little amount of money I had left in my savings on a crazy 10-day photography road trip through the Coffee Region of Colombia with three perfect strangers, and I can’t really explain what I got from the last 10 days, but I do feel completely inspired and passionate about getting home and making things happen.

There’s a really good article in the on-board ‘Spirit’ magazine about a 20-year old guy named Rob Summers who was well on his way to achieving his lifelong goal of becoming a major-league pitcher when he became paralyzed from the elbows down from a hit-and-run car incident. I won’t go into much more detail about the story (other then with a buttload of determination and perseverance he is now standing and walking on his own), but if you’re interested I suggest you hop on the next Southwest Airlines flight and pick up a copy for yourself because I’m pretty sure they change these things out every month (also be sure to check the back for those nifty Money Origami Instructions).

Anyways, the article talks a lot about tuning in to your passions and inspirations, setting goals each day based on those feelings, and allowing yourself to add, remove, modify, or change importance of those goals from day to day. That’s exactly what I plan on doing. I’m tired of waiting for things to happen to me. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this trip, it’s that you have to put yourself out there, work hard, and keep on doing what you’re really passionate about. That’s when everything starts falling into place.

My goal is for this blog to portray that.

-Rob Rice

Today felt like the perfect end to a great photography trip. We ended up meeting Daniel, Keith, and a bunch of students from the Contacto School of Photography in the city of Salento, and they brought along Laura (one of our favorite models) as well as Angie (who did a fantastic job as well).

Although it was raining pretty heavily for the first half of the day, we found ways to avoid it, whether shooting inside a local café/restaurant or staying on the sidewalks with awnings. Mikey got a lot of great photos of the models, and I got a few great shots of Laura as well, but if there were other interesting people on the streets I was sure to take photos of them.

I did my best to force myself to communicate with people, whether it be sitting and conversing with the Contacto students at lunch or speaking Spanish/teaching English with our model Laura. I’ve gotta say, I’m pretty proud of what I’ve accomplished (in terms of communicating) these past 10 days.

 
-Rob Rice

We decided to hit the streets again today until we found something interesting, and that didn’t take long at all. Anytime you drive down a major road, chances are that you’ll see some military men dressed in full camouflage holding big ol’ guns, and that’s just what we found. They happened to be throwing out thumbs up and peace signs today to let everyone know that they are here to help and have a positive effect in Colombia, so we decided to pull over to see if we could take some photos of them. It didn’t take more than 5 minutes of chit-chatting before they had agreed to model and we had busted out the lights to shoot with.

After rapping up with the military men, we came cross a couple of kids doing Parkour at a park in Pedeida. Again, we jumped out of the car, got to talking, and got to shooting. I found Parkour a bit difficult to shoot because of how fast they’re moving, but I still got a few cool shots.

Finally, we ended up in Santa Rosa where there were a lot of street performers in the central park. Our two favorites were the flame-spitting jokers that put on quit a show. At first, I tried lighting them up, but then I realized that the flames they produced where lighting them up fairly well on their own, so I just went with natural lighting (which worked out well since a storm was brewing…)

 
-Rob Rice

We arrived at a Finca in Santa Elena late last night and woke up to a parrot, some peacocks, and beautiful scenery. Our morning was a bit lazy and mostly consisted of editing photos, shooting video, and lounging around the Finca, but we soon gained momentum once we left. On the way into town, we came across a few plantain farmers that looked pretty interesting so we immediately stopped, started talking to them, and started shooting. The ambient light was nice and soft so we didn’t bother with lights or scrims at all.

After giving the hardworkers a few beers and saying goodbye, we stopped at the main plaza in Barcelona and decided to just set up lights and let the people come to us. Naturally, people were curious, especially the kids, and we had a crowd in no time. We played around with a plain black backdrop, as well as having the church in the background, and mostly stuck to silly string lighting.

Finally, we arrived to Calarca, a city filled with busy streets and people everywhere. I took a few snapshots of people in the plaza, but once the sun started to set I decided to get some HDR-like of the street scenery (as well as some long exposure night shots back at Contacto). Mikey had a new tripod that I got to tryout called the 3 Legged Thingwhich I’ve kind of fallen in love with. It’s compact and made of carbon fibre so it’s lightweight but built strong, and can even be transformed into a monopod. It can also get really low to the ground, which is pretty neat…

 
-Rob Rice

Today was a pretty relaxed day. We left the chilly city of Manizales and had our site set on Armenia, one of the main coffee region cities of Colombia. We decided to hit the streets of a few nearby cities that had a lot of character, mostly with natural light, a scrim, and reflector.

We met a lot of friendly locals, saw a few exotic animals, and even got invited inside a couple homes. It was interesting to see their living quarters; mainly how small, run-down, and open it is. One thing I’ve noticed about the smaller pueblos and big cities is that everyone has windows or doors (or walls) open because the weather is so beautiful here year round.

We arrived in Armenia just in time to catch a rooftop sunset, which was pretty spectacular. The friendly people at Contacto Photography School are putting us up for a few days while we’re in town, and in return Mikey is talking to a few classes, doing a couple presentations, and inviting the students on some photography outings.

 
-Rob Rice

A few locals of Jardin recommended we check out the Gold Mines of Supia, so we added it to our list of places to check out. Mikey decided that I would be in charge of shooting everything today to see how I apply what I’ve learned over the past few days.

There were so many interesting people working in and around the mines doing various jobs from digging, sifting, separating, and transporting. We did our best to work fast with a light amount of gear in a fairly dangerous work area. There were a couple that didn’t turn out the way I was hoping, but for the most part I’m extremely excited and proud of the images we got today.

 
-Rob Rice

The time had come for us to depart from Jardin and continue the adventure. Our sights were set for Valparaiso where we planned to visit a tribe of Indigenous Indians, but en route we stopped at a bridge called Puente Iglesias near the town of Jerico to stretch and get some juice. While walking towards the bridge to take some photos of the view, I came across a few boys walking on home-made stilts of varying sizes. Naturally, I started taking pictures of them, asked if I could try, and in no time we had a full-fledged photo-shoot going on.

When we arrived to Valparaiso, we had lunch with the leader of the about 270 Embanachami Indians, some of which have recently won an award from INVIMO (in laymen’s terms: Colombia’s FDA) for researching and developing a food coloring that is all-natural and does not use any chemicals. These indigenous people live very simply; for the kids a half-inflated soccer ball, a piece of candy, or a bike tire and a stick are all it takes to bring a smile to their faces.

This first photo of me on the stilts was shot by Mikey of lightenupandshoot, I’m not that good at self-portraits…

 
-Rob Rice