THE BEAUTY OF THE PAST

It's hard not to look back to the past without envy. Before our over-reliance on computers, things were done by hand. Case in point are the beautifully drawn plans for Feynan Ecolodge done by architect Ammar Khammash. This is a photo of the original watercolor that Ammar submited to the client to win the bid for the job. As I walked with him through his firm yesterday, he showed me how he submits plans to clients today. They are done with computers and the building sits on the site as if it were built in complete photo realism. Perhaps better for the client, but we've lost something soulful and good in the process.

AMMAR KHAMMASH

Ammar Khammash is one of the most well respected architects in Jordan. He is also one of the most fascinating people I've had the pleasure to meet. Ammar is one of those people whose insatiable curiosity pushes them to seek connections in life across a multitude of disciplines. This journey has led him through the fields of architecture, art, photography, botany, paleontology, archeology, and geology. He is also intrigued by biomimicry (the examination of nature, its models, systems, processes, and elements to emulate or take inspiration from in order to solve human problems). He feels embracing this field is the only way for us to avoid destroying this planet and ultimately ourselves. On the future of architecture he says, "Houses will be grown and behave very much like trees. They will harvest energy from the sun, filter the air, and protect us from the elements, all with minimal impact to the environment." Ammar also told me that chance plays a large role in his architecture and his painting. "In art, you have to recognize a good chance and utilize it properly. I plant good chances in my life like seeds."

A COVER FIT FOR A PRINCE?

Well, I hope so. This shot wasn't my first choice for the cover. I preferred the bottom photo where Prince Ali wasn't looking at the camera, but I was informed by the former magazine manager that people on covers have to be looking at the camera. Some fights are not worth it here in Jordan. I did however fight against the decision to airbrush every blemish off his highnesses face. One small victory.

SCUBA DIVING RED SEA

Julie and I ventured down to the southern port town of Aqaba this past weekend. We decided to attempt scuba diving even though we both hadn't been in over ten years. My long hiatus was due to a scary dive with a shady outfit in Mexico in 2000. But I decided to give it another go due to the Red Sea's reputation as a world class dive destination. If you have intuition, and it has guided you well through this life, you should always listen to it. The dive company in Aqaba never asked to see our dusty PADI cards. My intuition said, "don't go with these guys friendo," and I turned a deaf inner ear.

Before our dive, during our refresher course, I noticed my BCD (buoyancy control device) was leaking air. Our guide told me it was just sand in the connector. Then I remembered back to my original training course and how vehemently my instructor warned us about getting sand in the connectors because it could cause dangerous leaks. My intuition shrugged smugly. Our guide tried several times without success to clear the sand, then finally told me it would take a month for the tiny leak to empty the tank. We proceed to the dive. I couldn't achieve neutral buoyancy because my BCD air release valve was sticking. So as I sank to the bottom, I pushed the button to add some air to my vest. When I realized I added too much and began to float up, the release wouldn't let the air out, and I went all the way to the surface (this can be very dangerous). I went down and up three times during the dive, and our guide never noticed. By the end of the experience my tank was almost completely out of air, so the instructor had to hold me at the bottom because my tank was acting like a giant floaty. That scared the shit out of me. The pictures above do a poor job of telling this story. The reality is that the Japanese Garden reef where we dove was quite beautiful. The shots were taken with a Canon S90 encased in a Canon waterproof case (a great little combo). I'm shooting in full auto mode on the underwater setting. The last thing I needed to be doing down there was adjusting my aperture! The company we went with was called Aqaba International Dive Center.

WEANING OFF THE CONSUMER TEET

One nice unintended consequence of moving to Jordan has been stepping back from American consumerism. I used to think I was less effected then most, but really I was just as effected as anyone (I think like alcoholics the verb should be a present tense am instead of was). I test positive for the disease. Like Ed Norton in Fight Club, I too at least had found the perfect couch. I too told myself that no matter what else went wrong, at least I had the couch thing covered. I ended up selling that couch with my house. When I was on Semster at Sea, I actually had several nightmares about the couch getting damaged by the girl who rented my house.

Now everything I own sits on a 70 square foot slab of concrete somewhere in rural Oregon. In Jordan, Julie and I rent a furnished apartment and have no intentions on settling down here, so we don't buy things for the house. Another consumer vice of mine, electronics, cost about two times what they do in the US, and the selection at stores is very limited. Amman has no good bookstores, music shops, or camera stores. I have literally bought nothing tangible in the year I've been here. So my title for this post is a bit misleading. There was no weaning process. The tit was ripped out and I was forced to survive on my own. It isn't easy. There is withdraw. When a new lens or camera comes out and I know I can't get it, there is a melancholy that comes over me. Like a boyfriend helplessly trying to win back the affections of a lost lover, I sometimes take to forming crazy plots on how to bring a must have item to me. In the end though it is just a futile attempt to squash the hurt. And though I will always have to say with a trace of regret that "I am a consumer," it gives me peace to know a life without it, if only for a brief time.

PLEASE DON'T TELL HER PARENTS!

Julie has been a real sport embracing the culture here in Jordan. She has even taken to wearing a head covering, or hijab, at my request. I don't want everyone looking at that cute scalp of hers and getting the wrong idea. Of course, this is a joke, and this picture was taken in a mosque where you are required to wear a gown and head covering. What a lot of people back home don't understand is that the various forms of head coverings that women wear in the Middle East are not mandated by Islam, but rather as a result of the culture of each region. The Koran talks about men and women dressing modestly only in passing. I'm told that twenty years ago hardly any women in Amman covered their heads, but as men went to Saudi in search of work, they brought back this more traditional outlook. Today Amman is still a rather liberal Muslim country, though head coverings for women like the hijab are common. I guess things would be different today if men twenty years ago went to Amsterdam in search of work instead.

WILD JORDAN

I'm not much of a nature photographer, but I really like these two photos from the eastern desert of Jordan. It's funny how we remember little spelling tricks our whole life, and mentally say them every time we use a particular word. As I spelled "desert" I thought to myself, "Now which would you rather have, desert or dessert. The after dinner treat is so good it gets two s's." I was in the desert. I wonder if kids today are still taught spelling tricks like these or if they are simply shown how to right click.

KEEP YOUR ARBITRARY RULES OFF MY CAMERA

On our trip to Beirut, Julie and I visited Jeita Grotto, Lebanon's most visited tourist attraction. The caves were a finalist in the New Seven Wonders of the World competition (though they did not win the coveted "Wonder" title. They will have to settle for "Mild Awe"). As a photographer, I hate when places charge me $20 to enter and then tell me I can't take any photos. I do understand that sometimes flash can be damaging, but in cave? And if that is the concern, make people turn off their flashes. So we enter the cave after being damn near patted down for cameras and even mobile phones. We then follow a raised concrete platform that takes us about a kilometer into the cave. About every hundred feet, stationed very strategically, are photo cops. It is their only job, and they seemed quite adept at spotting the distant glow of a mobile LCD. They sent person after person, including me, back to the start of the cave to lock up their illegal devices. OK, fine, I knew I was breaking the rules. But as we continued walking, people in front of us would hang on thousand year old stalagmites, throw gum wrappers on the ground, and the kicker, featured in the photo I managed to take, throw copious amounts of coins and even paper money into the cave pools. Not a word from the cave staff! I was livid, and Julie quickly grew tired of my rantings about injustice and hypocrisy. Fair enough, but these arbitrary rules are, unfortunately for my temperament, extremely common in the Middle East. The irony of the no photos in the cave rule is that it works against the agenda of the Ministry of Tourism, who I was told was responsible for the rule. Their overriding agenda is to increase tourism to a country that doesn't have the best image to most Westerners. If people were allowed to take pictures, they would end up on social media sites, like Facebook, Photobucket, blogs, etc. Lebanon has essentially shunned free advertising to make a few extra bucks on postcard sales, and for that stupidity, I will blog!

BEIRUT ON ONE GIG

I just returned from a 4 night vacation to Beirut, Lebanon. Normally I would have brought back hundreds if not thousands of pictures from an exotic place I've never been to before. But in Beirut I took less than 80 photos. I think this might be my new gauge as to how much I like a place. I had a camera with me at all times on the trip, and as you can see from one of the above photos, I even had a waterproof case for ocean shots. Beirut simply didn't inspire me to take photos like most other places. It is a nice place, a lot different than most people in the States probably think of it. There are a ton of upscale restaurants and boutique stores. Everybody seems to drive a Porsche or a Ferrari. There's a healthy mix of Christians and Muslims, all of whom seem eager to go clubbing and explore their sexuality. Lebanon also has the freest press in the Middle East. Booze is cheap and is available on every corner. Almost all the sections of downtown that were decimated by the Civil War have been bulldozed and now host modern offices, shopping, and Starbucks. Julie and I walked all over town, took taxis to farther away places, and more often than not, my camera stayed in my bag. I ate, drank, and tried to like Beirut. And what was my final verdict? I took less than 80 photos and threw over half of those away when I got home.