My friend Rudy was cremated today in a simple service after he died last week after a long battle with AIDS. Amazing Grace was played at the crematorium and the speaker drew reference to this particular verse that was especially poignant for Rudy:

My chains are gone
I’ve been set free
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy rains
Unending love, Amazing grace

Visited Planet’s philosophy and creed is about redemption, liberation and freedom. Rudy had found that in his life, the challenge is for the rest of us to do the same and enable others to do so too.

I published a gallery of photographs for Rudy last week, today I just wanted to share one more. This is an image an orphan in Myanmar took during photography lessons I ran there in November/December 2011. A simple white flower, fragile in form, delicate in spirit but bright and verdant with life. Not only does this reflect the journey of the nation Myanmar, the student who took the image but also Rudy – bright in life, filled with hope and living forever in our hearts. RIP.

Delicate flower photographed by a Myanmar orphan.

This photograph is one of the images used in the 2012 Myanmar calendar. These calendars are still available.

————-
Feel free to email Jo at admin@visitedplanet.com with your comments/thoughts/photo aspirations. See and learn more at www.visitedplanet.com

I read “Tuesdays with Morrie” some time ago about a former student visiting his professor who was dying from Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS).

For the last six months I’ve been visiting a friend in hospital dying from AIDS on Saturdays after lunch. It became a routine: bike ride, market, Rudy. There is little that is honourable, decent or dignifying about AIDS and watching the slow deterioration in this friend has been agonising.

Like in the story, I enjoyed immensely the time we had together, even though Rudy was no philosophiser on life. His face would light up when he saw me, he’d whinge and complain about family members to me in confidence and we’d go downstairs in his wheelchair so he could smoke away to his heart’s content. Yes I took him – why should he have been denied a few simple joys in his last months? A nip of Baileys and a good dose of chocolate were our other great shared joys. Read more

Police tape goes up as the streets start to flood. Pic: Joanne Lane, www.visitedplanet.com

This week it’s a year since the base for Visited Planet went underwater in the 2011 floods. While we’re sitting high and dry here now, repairs to the house as yet are still unfinished, although nearing completion.

It’s incredible to reflect back on what we were doing a year ago – madly evacuating computers, photographic and personal items out of the house as the waters rose around us and up into the property. It was a dreadful time; exhausting and debilitating in many ways but also an incredible time of community and friendship as people came to help and assist – many whom we didn’t even know. Read more

It’s been a hectic few weeks here at Visited Planet. So far I’ve uploaded about 30,000 images to the new database site hosted by Smugmug. You can see these images at http://visitedplanet.com/wordpress/

Here’s a taste of one of the galleries on Road Trains in Australia:

However soon the entire site will be moved simply to http://www.visitedplanet.com

In the meantime please check out the new site and feel free to send in any comments or suggestions.

Cheers!

——–

Feel free to email Jo at admin@visitedplanet.com with your comments/thoughts/photo aspirations. See and learn more at www.visitedplanet.com

I spent all day Friday preparing photographs for the FCCT / OnAsia Photo-journalism Contest. As usual I had left it until the last minute and had to do it all rather quickly so I’m under no illusion my submission was all that great but it’s a good process to go through – and it does refresh you on some of the better images you’ve taken in the last 12 months.

I like OnAsia as they utilize local photographers in the Asia/Pacific region with a focus on photojournalism and documentary images.

Read more