I had a chance to visit the Yale Peabody Museum with my dad recently; this is my second time to the museum within weeks. My first time to the museum, I was photographing an event for the Connecticut Public Health Association and I was essentially in shock when I saw that they had a dinosaur there. I went home and told my dad about it and he was really interested in the dinosaurs so we went back. There are a lot more to the Peabody museum than dinosaurs though, so make sure you schedule a few hours to tour the museum.
Dinosaurs came in at a lot of various sizes, I was reading about one that was only 50lbs full grown.
Dad and the dinosaurs.
They managed to pull this thing out of the ground too.
I am not that interested in archaeology but it still looks cool.
That would be a horse, not as exotic as the other stuff.
The history of food made up the other part of the first floor. Early advertising at its finest!
Walking up to the second floor, some very interesting architectures. Arches always amazed me.
The second floor of the museum is actually very small since it has to concede floor space to the ceiling of the first floor that has all the dinosaurs. I almost vomit when editing this photo of this ugly guy.
Going up the third floor.
The third floor have a lot of nature stuffs. It’s the museum of natural history right?
King Tut! Or some impostor. The ancient Egyptian section of the museum.
The machine that measure the radioactivity of rocks or something like that, I forget. I am a visual person so I don’t spend that much time reading when I am in a museum, probably not a good thing.
VIETNAM’S DAN OAN UNDER THE INTERNATIONAL RULE OF COMMON SENSE
by Hoan K. Trinh
Dan Oan is literally translated as “innocent citizen”. This term came about due to the failed struggle of Vietnamese citizens to hold onto their land from the expanding Vietnamese industrial society. The situation that Vietnam’s Dan Oan are under is not particularly unique in any growing society, but perhaps the way that it is being handled by the Vietnamese government is not ordinary under any theory of common sense.
The issue that plague Vietnam’s Dan Oan is essentially an eminent domain issue. This is a very common issue in the United States as well as other parts of the world. Eminent domain posed a very simple question: when can the government transfer and/or use private land to further economic development?
Now a little lack of anger management and foresight might reply that the government cannot transfer away private land under any circumstances, period! So if your house sit in front of a highway construction project, the public will have to pay for that highway to go around your house even though it might be a lot cheaper to go right through it. That could be considered a little selfish, don’t you think? Well, I can assure you that Vietnam’s Dan Oan did not have that option.
A more reasonable approach with better anger management might be that the government can transfer and/or use private land if and only if it is for the purpose of serving a public good (taking land for individual profit is a no-no) and that I will be fairly compensated for my loss. One can see that this is a pretty efficient approach when it comes to public projects that may require the use of private land. Now, we can argue what should be considered a public goods or what is fair compensation on a case by case basis, but I believe this is a very reasonable approach to the issue. Having one person or a small group of people holding the up the economic development for the good of the public is inefficient and unfair. However, to take away a person property without a public cause and without fair compensation would be extremely unfair to those who have to give up their property.
So common sense tell us that if the government want to take private land, it must ensure that the land will be for a public cause and the people would be fairly compensated for their loss. Fair enough?
Recently (as in today), there has been uproar as 2000-4000 Vietnamese police officers move in to forcefully evict farmers of their land in Van Giang. Well, the first question you have to ask is whether or not the purpose of taking over of the property actually serves a public good in any manner?
The land taken in Van Giang is to be used for an economic development project known as Ecopark. Ecopark’s introduction letter on its website includes the following:
Ecopark is being created by leading urban development experts (Viet Hung Urban Development and Investment – Vihajico) and demonstrates our commitment to Vietnam’s real estate market. We have listened to our customers and adopted a sustainable, environmentally-friendly approach as the foundation for urban development.
Located on 500 hectares to the south east of Vietnam’s capital – Hanoi, Ecopark is currently under construction and set to become a model township, with a comprehensive range of facilities including commerce, service and culture. In addition, during the first few years the investor will also focus on developing healthcare, education and tourism facilities. As a result, Ecopark will provide the strong development momentum needed for the key economic axis of Hanoi – Hung Yen – Hai Duong – Hai Phong.
Our first real estate products have recently been launched onto the market and have received a significant level of customer interest. We are keenly aware that the success of Ecopark very much depends on us providing a suitable living environment and added value for our customers. The first phase of Ecopark is scheduled to be completed within the next three years, when the green city will welcome its first residents. Green developments such as Vuon Tung and Vuon Mai will offer some of the most convenient and comfortable living environments. Rung Co will offer a range of modern apartments. While, Pho Truc will be the place for those wishing to develop their business, tourism or food brands and services. All of these developments are being carried out with energy and enthusiasm to meet our customers’ expectations.
We hope that the latest information and images of Ecopark available on this website will demonstrate both our commitment to our customers and progress of the development.
From the introduction letter above, one has to question the public benefit that might derived from this venture. This is certainly not the same as the building of schools or highways where the benefit to the public is clear. From the introduction alone, it is probably fair to say that Ecopark, while it might be an interesting and worthwhile venture, it was not conceive solely for the purpose of serving the good of the public, but rather it was conceived as a business venture for the sole purpose of making profit. This reason alone will disqualify the government from use andor transfer land from one party to another.
For the purpose of the next analysis, we will assume that Ecopark was conceived for the purpose of of serving the public and not for private gain. Then the next question that needs to be answered is, whether or not Dan Oan are being fairly compensated for their losses. Acccording to the Vietnam Express, the citizen of Van Giang was offered 135,000 đồng per square meter of land (approximately 75 cent per square foot ) that they are required to give up. A quick search of land being sold around Van Giang have land prices varying from 2.2 million đồng to 5.5 million đồng per square meter ($12.22 to $30.55 per square foot) depending on location. It would be quite difficult to argue that Dan Oan are being fairly compensated for their losses. Now perhaps one can understand the plight of Vietnam’s Dan Oan.
Your eyes have the same field of view as a 35mm lens on a DX format camera. On a 17mm lens, the camera have a much larger field of view than that of your own eyes. In other words, at the 17mm focal length on your lens, your camera can see more than what your eyes can possibly see in one frame. 17mm is not considered to be an ultra-wide by any standard on a DX camera, but it does give some interesting perspectives without too much distortion. Here are a few photographs taken at 17mm, to show you perspectives that the eyes cannot see.
*All photographs were taken on the Sigma 17-50mm f2.8 EX DC OS HSM lens. Yes, i realized that the name cannot be any longer.
Enjoying the White mountains. At a lake in New Hampshire.
The Nikon D90 was the first DSLR to have a video function when it first came out in 2008. When this video feature first came out, there were some resistant from photographers since it seemed like a gimmick and would not have a place in professional use. One of the phrases that I often heard back then was “If I want a video camera, I would buy a camcorder”. Now, after a few years, we know that video footage from DSLR does have a place in the professional video market since DSLRs do have their unique and desirable traits when recording video. Some these trait such as the low light capability and the depth of field in DSLR’s footages are difficult to imitate using other medium. Also, a DSLR system could offer a vast variety of lenses that does not exist in other format. While no one can deny the success of DSLR’s video capability, one question still has not been answered. When is a photographer going to use the video function on his DSLR? I mean the people that use DSLR to record videos are mostly videographers.
I am not much of videographer at all, but I did find that the video function on my D90 particularly useful when covering a speech. Why? Because there are only so many ways you can take a photo of someone giving a speech. The message of the speech itself cannot be captured by photographs. Carrying an extra video camera around for quick clip of speeches might be overkill for photographers who use still images as a medium of expression. With a quick click of a button, a photographer can capture the essence of a speech without too much much effort on his DSLR. I think the ability for photographer to do that is pretty neat and definitely worth it.
Can a photograph capture this kind of message? Probably not in this context. Record on the Nikon D90 with the 35mm f1.8 lens.
You can further read about the my trip to Washington, D.C where that clip was taken here.
Some photographers only use natural light in their photography and would cringe at the idea of using a flash, while others are more into studio type work where everything is artificially lit. Well, sometime you can do both at once!! Well, sequentially, not both at the same time.
Natural light tend to give you a more, ahem, natural look. In other words, you tend to have a more “innocent” interpretation of the scene.
When you have such beautiful natural light, why bother changing it?
The biggest problem with natural light is that it is not always available in good quantity or quality. It was getting dark so here come two flashes to the rescue. The scene is pretty similar to that of the first photo above but the different lighting set up in this photo created a dramatically different mood.
This is similar to the second photo above, except for the artificial lighting setup and slightly turn toward road. Again, different lighting set up created vastly differently moods. Which style is better? Well, it’ll depend on who you ask, but I like to have a variety so I don’t get bore.
I had a chance to go down to New York City a few weeks ago, so I contacted a good friend in the city to see if we can meet up and catch up on each other. One thing lead to another, we ended up talking about photography as well as different ideas we can try out. I have to say, as a photographer, it is great to have friends who are into modeling as they can very easily feed your creativity. I think it is a very relaxing way to hang out with your friends too, especially if it is a lady. Anyway, one of the landmarks that I particularly wanted to try to photograph on was the Brooklyn Bridge, just because…..I mean it is the Brooklyn Bridge! The funny thing is, while I live relatively close to New York City in northwest Connecticut, and I had been to the city on many occasions, I have yet to visit the Brooklyn Bridge. To make matter worst, my friend who lives in New York City also has never been on Brooklyn Bridge either. Talk about experimenting.
Now, I did not go to New York City for a commission photo session or anything particularly serious, I was there to meet with another group of friends from Australia and Texas earlier in the day (You can check out those idiots in the article right below this one . So for this particular occasion, I only packed my old Nikon D40 with the Nikon 35mmf1.8 lens, and a flash as I definitely did not want to haul around all of my heavier lenses and light stands around the city, especially New York City where I was going to do a bit of walking. We had a lot of fun messing around on the Brooklyn Bridge, there were a lot of traffic going back and forth making any kind of photography difficult, well maybe except for street photography. But these kind of challenging conditions are always fun, but it’s probably not always worth it though. It definitely did not help that we were doing this photoshoot during the St. Patrick’s Day weekend, but whatever.
Overall, it was quite fun and we got some interesting photos, but the next that we will photograph on the Brooklyn Bridge, we will have to do it at 3 o’clock in the morning or some other crazy hours, when there would be less traffic and allow for time and space to set up the right lighting equipment. That would be more interesting, I think.
Ah, yes, the iconic Brooklyn Bridge. See the white divider in the middle? One side is for pedestrian, the other is for cyclists…..there wasn’t really enough for either though.
The Manhattan skyline was actually the other way, so why did we face this way? Because the sun was shining this way, very soft light too.
The background is where the bridge is going to, Brooklyn.
I actually did not read what this sign says until I was editing the photo on the computer and zoom in on the image. Maybe this is typical of photographers?
The last photo of the night, this was around 8 o’clock. It might look empty but it was far from empty.
The title of this blog article is actually quite a misnomer. First: not all of the characters in this blog are American, we have an Australian friend with us on this particular day. Second and more importantly, none of us are IRISH. Before I go on, I like to sincerely apologize to our Irish American community for this debacle, but rest assured that we did not meant any harm. I hope everyone find this particular incident quite hilarious like we all did.
Let’s just cut to the chase with this story, me and my three wonderful friends, all of Vietnamese descent, visited New York City on St. Patrick’s Day. Of course, we wanted to get a glimpse of the parade. Well, they did, I never really understood the concept of a parade but in the company of good friends, who really cares. Unfortunately, a lot of the roads were blocked off for the parade which made navigating the city very difficult, even for pedestrians. One of us have this brilliant idea of following a portion of the parade that was going to their designated area in order go through the roadblocks. Well, next thing you know, we’re part of the parade itself…..
Not sure if you can completely tell that we were in a parade with this photo…..
But this is our view of the parade…..yeah
I think someone notice something was not completely right…..
We finally went up to a police officer to ask how to get out of the parade. He asked us where we wanted to go. Our reply: “We just want to get out” in an Australian accent.
An Irish Kiss…..here are some photos of the parade from the appropriate angle and viewing distance.
Kilts, the Vietnamese translation is váy. If translate váy back into English, it’s skirt. I believe that is called “lost in translation”.
A parade is not a parade without a band.
More band photo, I really like their white uniform.
Just a warning, this will probably be the laziest lens review that you will ever read.
The 35mm f1.8 lens is a great lens and it’s a lens that I often go to when I have a hard time deciding which lens to take with me for the day. Photographers often have to make compromises between the amount of gears that they want to haul along and the amount of weight and hassle that they are willing to put up with. The 35mm f1.8 is a very good compromise if you are shooting on cropped body cameras, thus I often go to this lens when I want a hassle free day. That said, it is not my favorite lens, probably because it is a jack of all trades and not particular good at anything. Okay, it is a very good walk around lens but that does not count as being good at something, does it? Did I hear someone says street photography? The 35 mm focal length is not truly wide enough for landscape photography and not enough of a telephoto for portraiture, but at 35mm, it’s an excellent compromise for just about everything. One other thing that is reasonably cool about this lens is that at 35mm, the lens gives you approximately the same field of view as your own vision, not any wider nor any longer, so what you see with your own eyes is what you captures on the camera. But I kind of get bore with that same field of view after a while (this happen afterward when I go home and review the files).
The above was my general impressions and opinions of the lens. Let’s talk about the technical qualities of the lens (a very important aspect of a lens review)
Technically, this lens is a very sharp lens, especially if you stop it down to f2.8 or better. It is still plenty sharp at f1.8, but let’s just say, it is noticeably softer at f1.8. But to reiterate, this lens overall is very sharp, as sharp as any professional lens out there that might cost much more. It certainly does not give an inch to any of the other more expensive professional grade zoom lenses in my bag when it come to sharpness.
Vignetting: The lens does have some vignetting at f1.8 which is typical of just about any lenses when use wide open. I never find it to be an issue in my work. If you like to have minimal vignetting or add your own vignetting, this is a simple step in post processing.
At f1.8, this lens is very good in low light, this is typical of a lot of fixed lenses. The f1.8 aperture does allow for bit flexibility in low light situation, this flexibility is something that zoom lenses cannot offer, obviously, you lose the flexibility of a zoom. There is always some kind of trade of in photography.
This lens is also very light. I actually don’t know the weight of the lens off hand, but it is fair to say that this lens is essentially weightless. Weightless in the sense that you won’t know that it is there. This is a factor no one really considered until you have to carry your camera around your neck for the whole day. For the image quality, low light capability, and weight, you simply cannot beat this lens if you are on a cropped body dslr.
Last but not least, we have to have sample images. For the sample images, please see my two other blog articles where my images were shot exclusively on the Nikon 35mm f1.8. This is the lazy part I was referring to in my thesis statement.
All the photos in this article were shot on the Nikon 35mm f1.8 lens, in fact, it was the only lens I used for the whole trip. All of the landscape photos were shot between f7.1 to f9 or f11…..I don’t remember exactly. The portrait photos were shot at between f1.8 to f2.8. All shot was taken on the Nikon D40.
All the photos in this article were shot on the Nikon 35mm f1.8 lens, in fact, it was the only lens I brought for the whole trip. All the indoor indoor photos were taken at f1.8 to 2.8 due to the lighting condition. Most of the outdoor shot was taken at f5.6 to f8 to convey the whole story. All shot was taken on the Nikon D90.
Note from the author: I wrote this article with the hope of shedding some light on how a demonstration works or how to get your voices heard in Washington, D.C, as well as bringing some attention on the human rights issues in Vietnam that I was advocating for while I was there. I am not writing this article on behalf of any organization or to preach my political view to anyone, this is a photography blog after all. That said, I am not exactly playing a role of a reporter, I was there to advocate for human rights in Vietnam, and not to simply record it. However, photographers have always used their photos to tell countless stories through out history and this is no different. Hope you guys enjoy the photos and perhaps learn a thing or two. Also, if anyone say that all Asian people look alike after seeing all the photos in this article, I will personally filed all the paper work necessary to deport you from the United States of America, whether or not you are a U.S citizen ( I can always argue that your actions make you un-American )
PETITION THE WHITE HOUSE: FACES OF A DEMONSTRATION
For some, especially the younger generation of the internet age, demonstrations and protests could be quite mysterious. Some view demonstrations as something you only hear on the news of those who cared too much about society. For others, they considered demonstrators and protestors extremists. I believe that it is safe to say that most people my age or younger (26) have not been to many demonstrations or protests. I, myself, have never been to many demonstrations, the one that I am going to tell you about is only the second demonstration I have been to in years. I certainly have never been to a demonstration of this scale either.
I am writing this article not only shed light on the issue that I care about, but also to give an inside view behind this particular demonstration. Oh, and being a photographer does help a bit in this kind of situation.
I recently had a chance to join the Vietnamese communities from all over the United States in Washington D.C to shed light on human rights violations in Vietnam. We also had a chance to advocate for an American foreign policy that would alleviate the human rights issues in Vietnam to our representatives and senators the following day. This whole scenario started with the arrest of a song writer, Viet Khang, who composed two songs that are considered to be questionable by the Vietnamese government. The Vietnamese American communities band together and started a petition to the White House regarding the issue of Viet Khang, and with over a hundred thousand signatures in a very short amount of time, the Obama administration agree to meet with leaders from the Vietnamese American community to discuss the issue of human rights in Vietnam as laid out in the petition. You can find out more about the petition here:
This trip could be broken down into two separate and distinct tasks: demonstrating in the front of the White House to lend our support to the Vietnamese American leaders inside the White House and to meet and greet with the senators from our own state to bring their attention to the issues on the following day.
This is part of our delegation from Connecticut. All of us crammed into a van for the 7 hour trip. In D.C, we met delegations from states from all over the U.S. One of the largest delegations actually came from Massachusetts with just about 100 people coming down in two chartered bus.
Arriving at the hotel in Washington DC on Sunday. You don’t see this kind of scene often, even in a hotel.
Normally, it is not easy to find three random Vietnamese men sitting around a table, but this particular weekend, it was quite easy.
Cherry blossom in Washington, D.C came a little early this year.
Meeting people from other areas.
Dr. Nguyen Dinh Thang of BPSOS, one of the organizer of the event spoke to everyone with regard to the goals as well as the protocol of our demonstrations and advocacy on Monday and Tuesday. Yes, this is one crowded room.
Monday morning, people from our Connecticut delegation getting ready to go to the White House for a demonstration to show our support for human rights in Vietnam.
I met Lam Thuy Van at the hotel. She’s one of the singer for Asia Entertainment. It is kind of surreal to finally meet someone that you have seen on TV for a long time. It is also funny that that you know who she is but she does not have a clue who you are.
Finally, a photo of Viet Khang, the song writer who got all of this started. This is the rendezvous point for the demonstrators to be pick up by buses to go to the White House.
Of the two demonstrations that I have been, there were always a lot of singing. Now that this demonstration is for Viet Khang, who is a singer/songwriter, well, you need to do a lot of singing.
Me and my friend Quan, from Connecticut posed for a photo with the son of general Le Minh Dao who also reside in Connecticut. Photo by chu Hien.
Women of the demonstration, for some strange reason, I find that Vietnamese women are probably more active than the men when it come to politic. At least, when it come to doing something about it. Us men like to talk about politic more
Unfortunately, we did not find to many Vietnamese youth at the demonstration, he’s one of the few.
Boarding the school bus to go the White House for the demonstration. Sitting 3 to a bench, the bus have the maximum capacity of 72. We had 67 people crammed into this particular vehicle.
More bus picture…I have not been on a school bus since 2003, brought back memories
Chu Trinh, who is also from Connecticut but he came down separately, joined us on the bus to the White House.
Vietnamese American for sure
“Free Viet Khang”
This is not Viet Khang People were always so please to have their photo taken, I was in a photography heaven.
The Vietnamese community from Illinois also made the trip to Washington, D.C.
There was actually another protest infront of the White House that was there before us so. I am not entirely sure what this particular protest was about but they kept saying “Down, down, down with the state of Israel”. Only then did I realize that the Prime Minister of Israel was also there that day.
This particular guy was arguing with the Jewish protesters from the photo above, got mad, went out and got an Israeli flag. Someone gave him the Vietnamese flag to wave too, I thought that was funny.
Viet Khang isn’t the only dissentent currently in prison, he is just one of the more popular ones because of his songs.
Another Viet Khang sign, that tape doesn’t look like it’s much fun.
This is essentially sponsored street photography. I just took the photo and then smile at them afterward.
This is delegation from the Vietnamese American community in Georgia. We drove 7 hours to get to D.C, it must have been worst for these guys, yet they still have quite a crowd.
A beautiful face in the crowd. The title of this article is Faces Of A Demonstration, remember?
While it is often said among our circles that this fight for Vietnam is really a fight for the youth since it is their future, it is encouraging to see the older generation putting up with the cold weather, travelling, and the inconveniences to come out and support a cause they believe in.
Probably one of my favorite images from this demonstration on behalf of Viet Khang. The lady looks extremely peaceful through out the whole thing, yet she’s among the demonstrators. Truly one of the bright face of the demonstration.
These people are not as quiet as the lady above but nothing too wild happened.
Another young face in the crowd.
Cao Dai disciples in their traditional white garment at the demonstration. The lady is 94 years old, amazing courage!
I did not have a chance to speak with him but I am sure he must have sacrifice a lot to be there with everyone else.
Overall, I have to say everyone was quite well dressed for this demonstration.
Colorado to D.C is quite a long trip, that alone was impressive.
Another young face among the demonstrators.
There is also another demonstration against the bombing of Iran while I was there, this is actually quite a fun demonstration to watch, very creative I must say. Remember, the Prime Minister of Israel was also there on that day, March 05,2012.
The police simply walked through a crowd of demonstrators, I don’t know why they came out in the first place.
Back to the Vietnamese demonstrators, Truc Ho, one of the prominent leaders in the Vietnamese American community spoke to an energetic crowd after he left the White House.
Capitol South Station, this is the metro station to Congress. If you are in D.C and want to go to Congress, remember Capitol South!
Back in the hotel, I too, was a demonstrator so here is my face for you. For all the photography geeks out there, all the photos in this article were taken with the 35mm f1.8 lens on a Nikon D90. It’s a very versatile set up.
Tuesday, Vietnamese American from various part of the United States approaching the capital to speak with their senators and representatives regarding the human right issues in Vietnam.
A Vietnamese American woman wearing her traditional Vietnamese garment outside of one of the office buildings, getting ready to speak with senators and representatives from her state regarding human right violations in Vietnam and how American foreign policy could help the situation.
After a long day of hustling between offices of different senators and representatives, a young lady sat by the stairwell playing with her phone while my friend from the Connecticut delegation walked past.
Wrapping up, the last session was held in one of the conference rooms in the office building of the House of Representative. We discussed what we did wrong, right, what could be improved. Overall, everyone was very thrill with the number of people that show up for the event.
Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) came to speak with the Vietnamese American communities from all over the U.S on the issue of Viet Khang and human rights in Vietnam.
You can see his speech below:
And if anyone wonder why it’s a good idea to have a video recording ability in DSLR, well, this is not a bad example, you want to be able to record someone’s speech since the message itself will be more important than the image.
I am also into cars and stuff so I just thought it was quite interesting to find a Castro GTX motor oil box in an office setting. It was actually used for the purpose of carrying….food!
Everyone must have been tired, I know I was. We did not have much to eat or drink for the few days that we were there. The logistic of a demonstration is often nothing more than a controlled disaster. I slept for about 4 hour a day, skip (real) lunch and did not have much to drink during the day. so yeah, I am sure it was tough on everyone. I am sure it is much tougher for those activists that we are fighting on behalf of, however.
On the bus to back to Connecticut. Yes, my friend, Quan and I came down in a van, but decided to come back on a bus with the people from Boston instead. I saw the odometer on this bus, and it has like 713,xxx miles on it. Yes, that’s a lot of miles. I wonder how many of these chartered buses came into Washington D.C for this particular demonstration?? I know the people from Boston alone had two, I saw another one from Georgia. But yeah, the people in the demonstration don’t come out of no where, and most of them do not live in Washington D.C. People from various Vietnamese American communities put together a van load or a bus load of demonstrators at a time and you can have a very respectable demonstration even though the Vietnamese American community is not particular large in the United States.
P.S: For anyone still reading, I will make my photos from the demonstration available for you guys to download on my website (listed under the byline above) within a couple of days. The number of photos that I will make available will actually be a bit more than what you are currently seeing on the blog. Be sure to check the website within a couple of days if you want to download the photos.
I had a lot of fun capturing these images and I hope I contributed something to the Vietnamese American community by providing some memories of this historic event. I hope that all the subjects in my photos had a chance to see their photographs.
I recently had a chance to photograph a CPHA function at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford, Connecticut. If anyone is not familiar with CPHA, CPHA stands for Connecticut Public Health Association. While the name of the association maybe straight forward enough, it is hard to fathom what they actually do just by the name. Essentially, CPHA members promote, advocate, educate, and work with local and state government on legislation concerning social issues related to public health. Some of the recent issues that they have work on are: mandating employers provide paid sick leave to employees, the banning of toxic chemicals from children products such cadmium, phthalates and other ingredients in plastics that are linked to serious health issues. You can find more information on CPHA work here. In short, there actually are people in Connecticut who really care about the health of the public, especially since CPHA is almost entirely make up of volunteers and the association does not receive any particular grant from the state.
This particular function that I photographed for CPHA is known as the Legislative Breakfast where members of CPHA had a chance to meet and greet members of the CT General Assembly and the Department of Public Health to discuss current public health issues and concerns that CPHA would like to address as well as a chance to speak about CPHA goals for 2012. At this particular Legislative Breakfast on February 24, 2012, there was the Connecticut Commissioner of Public Health Dr. Jewel Mullen, who spoke to various members of CPHA and was quite a delightful lady.
Kathy Lewis (middle), President Elect and Co-Chair of Advocacy Committee relax with other CPHA member before the guests arrived.
Kathi Traugh, CPHA president just arrived to the Legislative Breakfast after a long treacherous drive through a late season winter storm.
CPHA President, Kathi Traugh made a short speech with regard to CPHA goals in 2012.
Connecticut Public Health Commissioner, Dr. Jewel Mullen, second from the left, took a group photo with the board of director of CPHA
Member of the CPHA spoke with Connecticut Commissioner of Public Health, Dr. Jewel Mullen.
Connecticut Commissioner of Public Health Jewel Mullen spoke with legislators during the Legislative Breakfast.
Dr. Jewel Mullen shared a laugh with CPHA President, Kathi Traugh and President Elect, Kathy Lewis.
State Representative Prasad Srinivasan, who is also a practicing medical doctor from the 31st District in Glastonbury, spoke with members of CPHA during the 2012 Legislative Breakfast.
Overall, CPHA Legislative Breakfast was quite a fun and interesting event to photograph. I will be also be photographing another function for CPHA on April 5, 2012 at the Yale Peabody of Natural History to celebrate National Public Health week. If anyone is interested in joining the event, please visit CPHA website to register.
. So for this particular occasion, I only packed my old Nikon D40 with the Nikon 35mmf1.8 lens, and a flash as I definitely did not want to haul around all of my heavier lenses and light stands around the city, especially New York City where I was going to do a bit of walking. We had a lot of fun messing around on the Brooklyn Bridge, there were a lot of traffic going back and forth making any kind of photography difficult, well maybe except for street photography. But these kind of challenging conditions are always fun, but it’s probably not always worth it though. It definitely did not help that we were doing this photoshoot during the St. Patrick’s Day weekend, but whatever.
