Three months ago I got a call from the Mennonite Central Committee in Akron, Ohio. “We need a Canadian photographer. Would you like to go to North Korea?” What else could I say. “Pick me. Pick me.” I couldn’t refuse a chance to go to a country that almost nobody really knows. Three weeks later I was there photographing orphanages that were receiving soy beans and the pressure cookers to convert them to soy milk. All part of a program called First Steps run by a woman named Susan Ritchie. Susan was raised in South Korea and her command of the language and knowledge of the culture and politics is amazing. I had free reign to photograph when we were in the orphanages, but when we were on route or on the street, we always had a handler with us and that meant for the most part- no photos. I grabbed what I could of this unknown land, this one is on a back street where they are making charcoal for heating. Wish I could have grabbed a shot of the steam powered trucks that were moving down the streets behind a cloud of smoke- moving slowly for sure, but moving.

Back in late spring I was with a group of men cutting logs the old-fashioned way: cross cut saws and heavy horses. Hard heavy work even with a big horse to help out. Right at the beginning, when the horse was acting skittish, I had a close call- at least in my book. The horse had just been hooked up to a log and instead of waiting for the teamster’s command, it bolted. With a wide-angle lens up to my eye, it seemed that the one ton horse and the log it was dragging were coming right for me. I bolted and just got out of the way. It made me realize how hard those old lumberjacks worked and how easy it was for them to get injured: crushed fingers, legs or worse- and no hospital nearby. A tough job.

Sometimes you get lucky. I’d been to Ben’s a few months ago working on a book project on the Miramichi area, but missed the late night action there. Guess I couldn’t stay up till 3 for it. Well, I just happened to be passing through the area on the night of the Irish Festival and thanks to a friend up there we didn’t have any trouble staying up to catch the late night crowd at Ben’s. I didn’t have my D700 or D300 with me, but I did have a Canon G9 with image stablization built in- a good thing judging by the hour. And the burgers- great.