Trade in Truths

Portraits from Lake Kivu: A work in progress photo gallery.

Mount Nyiragongo is a volcano in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is 20 kilometers north of Goma. The main crater is 250 meters deep, two kilometers wide. At the center is a luminous lava lake. The volcano has erupted 34 times, most recently in 2002.

A Syrian soccer team of teenage girls trains ahead of a match against Jordan in July. Girls soccer is at its fetal stages in Damascus and still frowned upon. The team is struggling. Lacking local opposition, the group has no choice but to train against a younger team of 11 and 12 year-olds. Short on numbers, the team has brought in an Iraqi and an American girl into the fold ahead of regional competitions.

On July 11, 2008 a group of us headed north to Syria's second largest port city. From Tartous we boarded a small vessel and sailed to Alwad. We explored the shipyard where the plum prize was a Phoenician beauty poised to circumnavigate Africa.

The Mosque: House of prayer or playground? A little bit of both as it turns out in Damascus. These shots were taken July 2008 at the Ommayad mosque at the heart of Old City. Although Damascus is not short on history and spectacular sites it is, on the other hand, a little short on parks. No wonder that the mosque doubles as a day care center.

These are shots taken in Damascus, Syria, during a visit in July 2008. While most Syrians are heartbroken at the reconstruction of the biblical Via Recta, the energy of renewal captured my lens and imagination.

Guaso is a Chilean term that lassoes rodeo riders, cattle ranchers and horsewhisperers alike. These shots were taken in El Chanar, a valley near La Serena, in the North of Chile, full of vinyards and orange groves. El Chanar is a wind-breaking plant that grows in the Atacama desert. It is rumored that those who sample its fruits will never leave the region again.