Alex Manning

So our wedding, honeymoon and the holidays are finally behind us and, it finally feels like things are settling down. We had a fantastic time in Jamaica on our honeymoon. It has its quirks, but it is a wonderful country. We drove from Montego Bay to Negril for our first excursion and then drove down to Ocho Rios for the final leg of our trip. Negril is a beautiful place with wonderful scenery, but the locals are hip to the tourist scene and we found it a bit difficult to escape the non stop constant harassment. We were however able to do lots of fun things and enjoy the cliffs, beaches and food.

Ocho Rios is a place I have been before and it is just as great as I remember it being. It was a beautiful three hour drive on the wrong side of the road from Negril. We stopped for a coconut along the way and got in at a reasonable hour. This town was a bit more laid back and we had a great hotel overlooking the water where we would go snorkeling every morning out to a reef. The hotel is a glimpse into what Ocho Rios was in the 1950′s and while we fully enjoyed it, we were a bit jealous we couldn’t have seen it in it’s heyday. We took some side excursions to the craft market, sight seeing and to Margaritaville. We ate all of the food, which if you haven’t had I highly recommend, and then we drove back to Montego Bay for our flight out.

When we returned we learned that our house had been broken into but nothing was stolen or molested, except for our front door. Thank goodness for our fantastic neighbors who thwarted the would be offenders attempt at thievery. The next day we took a trip up to Sequoia National Park for a weekend of snow shoeing and merriment with some good friends. All in all it was a fantastic two week trip.

On a different note I made Kim a Valentine this year and used a bunch of photos I have of us together. I really enjoyed the process of going back through the photos to put her Valentine together. It is a good reminder how good life truly is. Here are some of the photos.

Well we just returned from our honeymoon in Jamaica. It was a fun trip but short. Here are two photos from the trip.

I have been scanning an old set of family photos my mom gave to me and have found it to be quite cathartic. I really enjoy seeing my grandparents when they were my age out doing fun things. As I have gotten older I have taken a greater appreciation in my family’s history and some of the cool things they have passed down through the generations. Growing up I didn’t have a very big family. It was basically just me and my brother and my mom most of the time, we would go spend weekends with my dad but that was pretty much it. I really like to see my history and aspire to be better about staying in touch with my family and keeping us together. Here are two of my favorite shots of my grandfather while they were on their honeymoon.

I have a very fond memory of my grampa where we would go to visit him in Portland and we of course love candy. Anyway he knew that we loved candy and would put a bowl of candy on the dining room table with a catch. He would put a shrunken head next to it. I don’t know where he got the shrunken head but I do remember being terrified of it and it was always a chore to get that candy. Anyway I’ll probably post more photos as they get scanned.

I took this photo when I went to the museum of glass in Tacoma Washington during the new years trip. I like the framing and the subject matter of dads with their kids watching trains.

I have been slacking in making posts for awhile now. The Holidays consume a lot of time as does work. I am using this blog to try to inspire myself but I think that it is pretty telling where my mind is that I cannot inspire even myself.

The week before christmas I took a trip with my work to El Paso/Juarez. It was one of the final shoots for our “Americas Longest War” Documentary. We interviewed Dr. Tony Payan at UTEP, City Council Member Suzie Bird and a Journalist Sandra Rodriguez at El Diaro in Juarez. It was a truly profound trip. The cities of El Paso and Juarez are pretty unique in that they butt right up next to each other and have lived as siblings for a long time. Recently however with the NARCO fighting in Juarez, El Paso has receded quite a bit from the friendly relations it once had with Juarez.

The people and things we saw in Juarez affected me very deeply. I saw some of the most intense poverty I have seen in my life, some of the most violent things I have ever seen in my life, but also some of the most beautiful and bizarre places I have seen in my life. We heard about and met people who have been unfairly caught up in this terrible war like photographer Luis Carlos Santiago.

We went all over the city with a driver we hired and got some fantastic imagery.  It is a trip that I will never forget. Which is a good thing and a bad thing. Below is a view looking back at el paso from just under the bible sign in Juarez. Photo courtesy of Paul Feine.