Today I randomly found a blog that got me so hooked up that I ended up reading every single entry of it. It's called "Agitate every thirty seconds", with the subtitle "Darkrooms were cooler when there were chemicals", and as you've probably guessed is the blog of a photographer. A photographer that seems to be as cool as the title of his blog suggests, who has spent the last couple of months traveling around northeastern DRC. Or her blog -I have no idea if the author is a guy or a girl, so I guess I shouldn't use the masculine form.
The blog is worth visiting just for the photographs, which are stunning. For example, the one below taken in the Ugandan border which I love because of the juxtaposition between the woman's angry expression waving the umbrella and the message in the background "Go share the love". Or this series taken in Bangadi, a village 40km south of the border with Sudan. But the writing stands on its own too. Here's an introspective sample from a post titled "That's the one thing we got":
I’m not sure whether I’m an optimist or pessimist. I’ve been walking the line for years, but have most recently had a foot on the optimist side. I think I need to hold on to a touch of optimism in order to function as a journalist. I need that nugget of hope that humanity is not lost, that people can be good of their own will, and that solidarity in the face of evil will effect change. Even in the face of atrocity, that little lighter of a flame burns in me. Perhaps when it goes out I will have lost my soul.
As all my friends know, I'm a huge fan of The Onion, America's Finest News Source, which is always more accurate than real news. Lately, I've also become a big fan of the excellently middle-named Michael Bear Kleinman's Humanitarian Relief blog on Change.org, and even more so since he posted a great video from The Onion about ensuring that Darfur knows how much Western celebrities are concerned about them. You can see the video below, but Michael's post has a compilation of other awesome Africa or humanitarian relief themed headlines such as "I'm Totally Gonna Get Laid on this Humanitarian Mission to Uganda".
