We were in the Amazonas village of San Francisco. While most of the group was occupied by the sugar cane juice squeeze demo, Doc alerted me to a baby girl. I turned around, our travel mate Michael already assumed position.
As I raised my camera while seeking optimal angle, I heard Michael's comment, "Jean, you must be a really good photographer. The baby just smiled for you". Oh yeah, that's right, the baby smiled, and then laughed, and then laughed really hard. All of sudden, baby D2 popped into my mind, the 6-month fresh baby that I photographed almost 5 years ago.
On the day that I met baby D2, he was woken up by grandma from a nap. Therefore, he was not supposed to be very happy. But as the photo session progressed, D2 laughed at every word that I said, or what seems to be every noise that I made. Needless to say, the session was a great success, and the grandma deeply relieved. At the end, she said, "Jean, you are like a baby whisperer in photography (as opposed to the famous Dog Whisperer in a different profession)".
Judging from lack of teeth, this baby is at 6-month of age the most. Throughout my career, it has been an amazing feeling to be connected to these (very) young human co-habitants of earth. Maybe, underneath my skin, there's a pre-teeth baby hiding?
On this trip, Peruvian babies/children stole my heart. More on that later...
Do you See what I see - Los Angeles Travel Photographer
I love traveling on water surface, especially when it's the dark mirrors in the Peruvian Amazon that reflect everything they see, only to be disturbed by the passing canoe, or skiff in our case.
Who knew, the swaying reflections in the Amazonas made me reminisce one certain image that I made in Tianzifang (็ฐๅญๅ), Shanghai years ago? Oh, that graceful glide through the balmy spring air, only to be finished by a flick in the corner of the qipao dress (ๆ่ข).
Do you see what I see?
May you Be Happy Like Two Birds - Los Angeles Travel Photographer
Me and my Assistante have been together for so long that, recently, we celebrated a major milestone in our relationship, together (again). People say when you are happy, time flies. I'm sure if my partner-in-crime continues to demonstrate excitement in my presence, like the male white-headed marsh tyrant does in this image, we'd have no idea how we fly through the next 20 or 30 years. Wink, wink...
This image was made under, kind of, an embarrassing circumstance. Well, we "missed the boat". We showed up when everybody had already left. So, for the two of us, we were given a special skiff and a special guide. While we certainly had a great time photographing birds at their breakfast time, it's a different feeling when we caught up with the others and we felt like they were all staring at us, at which point I was ready to kick the male bird off the branch, ahem..., skiff. "But he's so cute", you may say. "Not when he makes you late", I'd reply.
I still remember what our travel mate Don said when we got together afterwards. Thank you for being so supportive, Don!
On this expedition trip, we met many couples in great harmony. Helen and Roy celebrated their 50th anniversary and so did Doc and Barbara. On the other hand, Ophelia and Louis came on their honeymoon. Everybody else was somewhere in-between.
I wanted to dedicate this post to all the love birds that we met and wish you all be happy like birds, the ones in this image! :-)