Project Rice

I've used Olympus digital cameras exclusively since 1999, starting with the model D340R (a whopping 1.3 megapixel) point-&-shoot - and I've been hooked on them ever since then; the Olympus colors from their cameras are amazing.

In 2001 I began shooting with the Olympus C3000 Zoom (3MP) and in 2003 I began using the fantastic Olympus E10 digital SLR with its beautiful fixed zoom lens (it was the world's first 4 megapixel digital camera at the time), and in late 2004 I began using my current Olympus E1 (5MP) which is a weather-sealed Pro body and perfect for shooting in the humid/dusty Philippines - I own only one lens with it, the Digital Zuiko 14-54mm (28-108 35mm equiv.) which is also weather-sealed, and a wonderfull piece of glass to shoot with.

Olympus is my personal choice to own & shoot (I'm not endorsed or compensated by them) and it's the only camera & lens I own.

As my Project Rice Portfolio was evolving with my best images taken in late 2005/early 2006, I began to feel the limitations of using my 14-54mm lens that is only able to zoom out to 108mm on the telephoto end, as I really wanted to be able to shoot longer zoom tele-portraits of the children & people here, to try to take my photography to the next level, but with all of my personal resources being put into this upcomming trip, I just can't afford any of the Olympus Pro telephoto lenses, that are priced from about $900.00/USD (their 50-200 zoom) to their 150mm F2 prime tele (300mm/35mm equiv) at over $2,000.00/USD, to their wonderfull 35-100 F2 (70-200/35mm equiv) priced at about $2,200.00/USD.

So earlier this month I contacted Olympus Professional Services about some loaner equipment for my upcomming November 2006 Philippines trip (that division does provide cameras & lenses to working Pro's for evaluation and/or loaner equipment worldwide), and I sent them the link to the Project Rice.Org website so they could see the caliber of my photography, and how I'm trying to promote the needs of Philippine Children In-Need, etc.

I have asked them to loan me one Olympus E1 body & battery grip, and one telephoto lens of their own choosing to use on my trip (returning the equipment of course after the trip), and they responded that they have forwarded my request to their Olympus Public Relations Dept. for evaluation - they review cases on a monthly basis, so I'm hoping to hear back from them within the next few weeks and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I can only hope that this website speaks to them when they see my images here, and that I can have the chance to do some serious telephoto shooting for Project Rice in 2006/2007, using their excellent equipment.

Thanks to Olympus for considering my request, and thanks to all of you for reading today.

Best Regards,
PJAMES

Posted by Paul James at 10:21 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Photo: Rosa who I've helped support for the past few years.
Date: Jan.1, 2005: Manila Philippines
Camera: Olympus E1 digital SLR with 14-54mm Zuiko Digital lens

I made a new pRICE Banner for the Gallery on pBase.com, including some added text that explains how Project RICE was ramped up in January 2005 by the generosity of my friends & friends at pBase.com.

see the new banner on the Gallery here

Regards,
PJAMES

Posted by Paul James at 09:10 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Jan.20, 2005: Cebu, Philippines
Camera: Olympus E-1, Olympus Zuiko 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 Digital: 1/200s f/4.5 at 43.0mm iso200

Theresa May is a child in-need from Cebu, Philippines - she's got a big bright smile, and is always happy dispite her poverty.

Most of the kids in this neighborhood who are poor always play together and protect each other - some who don't have safe places to sleep, stick together through the night, or go to sleep at homes or places they feel welcome and protected in.

Therese sometimes plays with the late night children I buy baluut eggs for, so I always make sure she's included when they eat.

Best Regards,
PJAMES

Posted by Paul James at 04:17 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Jan.3, 2006: Cebu, Philippines
Camera: Olympus E-1, Olympus Zuiko 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 Digital: 1/320s f/3.3 at 37.0mm iso200

Seeing Therese again in early 2006, she gave me that big beautiful smile again.

PJAMES

Posted by Paul James at 04:07 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I was looking at the Project Rice site over the weekend on a few different computer screens in different locations
and in almost all instances found these site pages were displaying much too large, requiring me to scroll around side-to-side in order to view the images (which were also displaying too large).

Screen resolutions lower then 1280x1024 will cause this, negating the compact blog form that displays the pages
and images in-line, where you only have to scroll down to view all the entries comfortably, at 1280x1024.

If your screen resolution is 800x600, 1024x768, or 1152x864, you'll have a much better viewing experience (here & on most other websites) by setting your resolution to 1280x1024, or even a bit higher.

Current laptop widescreens set to 1280x768 or higher, are also optimal for viewing.

Thank you, and thanks for reading Project Rice today.
PJAMES

Posted by Paul James at 03:45 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Feb.22, 2006: Cebu, Philippines
Camera: Olympus E-1, Olympus Zuiko 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 Digital: 1/160s f/3.3 at 41.0mm iso800

Rachael comes from a poor Family and lives in the small house next door to Lisa & LetLet's Family, and frequently watches them (and a good number of the other young children in her neighborhood) for their Mama Milagros - here she's caring for a neighbor's child who has Down's Syndrome, and I'm happy I got this capture - it's a beautiful little image about caring & tenderness.

Rachael's very good with the children - she's very attentive to their needs, and she's also very protective of them.
...I've often seen when other male kids from other neighborhoods would run by & try to tease the Children in Rachaels care, and Rachael would never hesitate to defend them & get them out of harms way.

When I go shopping on Lisa & LetLet's clothing drive, I'm going to include Rachael's needs also - because when she's not watching Lisa & LetLet's Family, she's either babysitting for any number of her neighbors, OR watching her own little brothers & sisters...and when she's done with the kids, she's always helping her Mama with the household chores so she works very hard & does not have very much free time.

Regards,
PJAMES

Posted by Paul James at 12:52 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Jan. 20, 2005: Lisa at home in Cebu, Philippines
Camera: Olympus E-1, Olympus Zuiko 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 Digital: 1/125s f/4.5 at 45.0mm iso200

I'm almost totally recovered from the hard drive crash from 2 days ago (please see the post below) so in Celebration and Thanks, I'd like to share a beautiful smiling image of Lisa when I visited her Family on this day in early 2005.

I'm honored to be helping Lisa's Family on my upcomming Nov.2006 trip to the Philippines - I have enough to be able to buy the Family a few 50kg sacks of RICE and some new clothing for Lisa & her 8 brothers and sisters (yes, that includes her kid sister LetLet), and I'm very anxious to see them again; I've been missing their Family so much lately.
read more about Lisa's Family & see more images here

Many Thanks for reading today,
PJAMES

ps: PLEASE remember to back up your data!

Posted by Paul James at 10:35 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

September 24, 2006: USA

Two days ago while working in Photoshop, my 3 year old Western Digital 120GB external (non-portable desktop type) HD started clicking for 3 seconds, then died completely (powered up with no clicking, but totally un-responsive.
...the drive couldn't read anything on it, and my PC wouldn't even power down & turn off while that drive was connected - I had to disconnect the AC power to get it to shut down.

I hooked that drive up to my notebook, and WIN XP wouldn't even recognize it, not would it power on or off while the drive was attached - so I disconnected it & declared it dead - the armature sounds like it just broke down, and hopefully the data is still there on the hard disk for an attempted recovery in the future.

ALL of my digital images from 1999 to present day were on it (including over 3 years of Philippines and Project RICE images) and it's the only drive I worked off of - I did not have that drive backed up to another internal or external HD which in hindsight was a terrible mistake. (post continued)

Last week I'd planned a trip to B&H in NYC to get a G-Tech external HD with an over-built heavy duty aluminum enclosure - I knew I badly needed one for archiving, but I wasn't able to get it in time.

Just by happenstance last week I backed up all current pRICE stuff to my Western Digital Passport 80GB HD to take with me to work last week, so I have those pRICE & related Photoshop PSD files saved - I got very, VERY lucky there with that timing.

I now have all the important image files from the WD Passport 80GB portable HD backed up to a separate Western Digital Passport 120GB external portable HD.

All 2005/2006 recent Philippines images were backed up daily to Verbatim Brand DVD's while in Philippines & I restored those today on the WD Passport 120GB HD.

In 2003/2004/2005 in Cebu & Manila I backed up daily to CD's, then to DVD's when I got back, and I just found those today and put those on the new Passport 120 HD.

Today I made a 2nd. set of DVD's for Philippines 2005/2006/2007 on Verbatim DVD's which are what the Pros use to archive; they're said to be the very best aside from the Belkin 24KT Layered Gold DVD's.
...I'll make a 3rd. set of those DVD's on another brand later this week.

Last year, I took an entire day and I made DVD's of the important image Galleries of the drive that would later fail, and I found those today & burned them to the 120 GB Passport HD....that day last year backing up to DVD's is what saved me.

All the pBase.com images are now recovered, but the Photoshop .PSD files for those images (with the layers intact) are gone; those PSD's for Philippines 2005 & 2006 are the only files I did not back up, but at least I do have the ORIGINAL images from Philippines 2003 through 2007 and that's the most important thing - I can now go back into Photoshop & re-create what I need from the original image files from the Olympus E1 & E10.

In the future I'll need a G-Tech 320GB-400GB external drive, transfer all files from the 120GB Passport, and work off that G-Tech , leaving all the originals ON the 120GB Passport which will become a back-up drive.

I also backed up to DVD's all the digital video I have from Philippines 2003 , so I'm thankfull I kept backing up to DVD's the past few years.

* PLEASE DO NOT TRAVEL with an external HD that is not designated as "portable" ie. shock-mounted HD (I'd been traveling with the now failed WD 120GB external HD since late 2003)

IF YOU DO NOTHING ELSE OTHER THEN BACK YOUR FILES UP TO DVD RECORDABLE DISKS IT CAN SAVE YOU FROM A DISASTER!

* A NICKEL'S WORTH OF FREE ADVISE:

IF YOU ARE ARCHIVING OR SAVING YOUR FILES ON AN EXTERNAL HD, PLEASE BE SURE TO BUY ADDITIONAL EXTERNAL HD TO BACK UP THE DRIVE YOU'RE WORKING FROM, OR HAVE AN INTERNAL DRIVE PARTITIONED SOLELY FOR BACKUPS - THEORETICALLY AN EXTERNAL HD THAT IS BACKED UP ONCE PER WEEK & THEN DISCONNECTED FROM YOUR SYSTEM & KEPT OFF SITE IN A DIFFERENT LOCATION (BANK DEPOSIT BOX, ETC) CAN HELP SAVE YOU IN THE EVENT OF A BREAK IN OR FIRE, FLOOD, ETC.

Best Regards,
PJAMES

Posted by Paul James at 08:00 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

May 3, 2003: Manila Philippines
Camera: Olympus E-10 digital SLR: 1/200s f/3.2 at 34.0mm iso80

Gabino's a popular cigarette & candy street vendor in Metro Manila, and I've photographed & chatted with him many times over the past few years (here I caught him napping in the afternoon at his vending stand) - I always make an extra effort to support his business when I'm in town, buying his snacks that I give to the street kids I'm helping there.

He leads a very simple & hard life there; I've seen him sleeping many times on Pedro Gil Street at night - yet other times I've seen him pack his wares at the end of his day and walk off to places unknown, so I don't really know what his situation really is.

What worries me about Gabino is that the last time I saw him in early 2006 he was getting very thin - he'd been losing a lot of weight since 2005 and I can't help thinking that he might be sick, and I really won't know this until I get back to Manila in Nov.2006 and try to find him again.

On the positive side, if he needs to see a doctor - I know my friend Dr. Chris Acala just outside Manila will let me pay for his office visit, or maybe won't even charge him for an office visit if I can get him to go, or if I can bring him there - Dr. Chris is a good friend of mine & a fellow photographer in his spare time, as well as a humanitarian.

I hope my friend Gabino is still there on the street when I get to Manila.

PJAMES

Posted by Paul James at 04:00 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

April 24, 2003: Manila Philippines
Camera: Olympus E-10 digital SLR: 1/50s f/2.4 at 12.0mm iso80 with Flash

I photographed little Frederick & his Family before on this trip - the Family lives a very hard life sleeping on the street, and a few of my best images from this trip were his images (posted earlier a few months back in the archives - camera: Olympus E10 digital SLR)
here's the link to Frederick's other candid image

I'd always have food & snacks for the Family, and in this image I'd just returned from the local 7-11 with milk for the boys, and as I shot this image Frederick offers to share his drink with me.

I smiled - I was touched...and I told him "...it's ok - it's for you...you drink"
...even though he didn't have much, he offered to share it with me.

PJAMES

Posted by Paul James at 09:40 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

April 26, 2003: Laguna Province, Luzon Philippines
Camera: Olympus E10 digital SLR: 9mm f3.2 1/80sec. iso80

"Laguna Little Girl" - I owe this girl & her Family everything, for it was on this first trip to Philippines that I became aware of the needs of the Families there, and began the type of street-shooting that I continue to do today.

Captured with the Olympus E10 SLR, she was the very first child I photographed in this neighborhood, right after I arrived, and there are more images of the children in this Barangay in my first pRICE posts, from May 2006.

I leave for Manila on November 13, 2006 and I'll be going back up to Laguna to try & find those kids from this neighborhood, to thank them and their wonderfull Families, and to update them on what Project Rice has now become.
another image & post on 'Laguna Little Girl' is here