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Routine
A couple is giving a final touch to their sunburn reading a book under the sun while children are playing around the pool. I'm reading my 5th book of this break and my legs are sore, thanks to 3 days walking/bicycling around temples (strangely always hidden on top of a hill with 5 billion steps...). It feels great. I walk and read to compensate all what I haven't while in Yemen but for once, I don't do the same with food and drinks (especially with drinks).After almost 8 years working as a "humanitarian", these breaks have become a routine, although I keep improving them, detaching myself further and faster of the previous months. I now frequently wake up, not sure of where exactly I am, between Yemen, Djibouti, Sri Lanka, Thailand or somewhere in Europe. But I start missing a routine. A cafe where to read the news or a favorite restaurant with a waiter knowing my name.Few months ago and for the first time in 8 years, I spent 3 consecutive weeks at the same place, sleeping in the same bed. With a longer break in the coming months, maybe now is finally the time to work on a place I could really call mine.
30 July 2016: Sigirya, Sri Lanka.
P.S: Tomorrow, Nourane will have been missing for 8 months. 8 fucking months...
Geek Time
I was not a big Apple fan, far from it, but became one when I got my first iPod (nano 1G) and later started using a MacBook in 2007. Fantastic ergonomic coupled with a nice design and very intuitive to use (even for a big Windows XP user and geek).
I just purchased my 4th Mac (a MacBook Air 11") and like the previous one I owned, I have it most of the time with me. Amazing autonomy (up to 9 hours), great performances (faster that the previous one, with which I used to process all my pictures and even designed two books) and of course, incredibly thin and light.
Nothing new, for people knowing me, but what is, though, is that I have to recognize a certain lassitude lately. My MacBook Air is certainly still the best machine on the market in its category and Mountain Lion is amazingly stable and powerful. But I start seeing a clear lack of creativity. While google just provided a brand new easy-to-use gmail interface (sorting your mails for you), Apple still struggles to use the gmail flags properly and hasn't brought anything new in his Mail.app lately. And the upcoming new Mac OS shouldn't change anything neither.
The iPhone, that revolutionized the (smart)phone industry remains very expensive and starts lacking some serious innovation. iTunes still has bugs with iTunes Match (unloaded covers, weird albums grouping, …) and I fail to see a real interest for a fingerprints reader (which, by the way, already equipped my IBM laptop 7 years ago). Androide's phones certainly have tons of useless and unfinalized applications, but at least, Google is making some effort to bring new technologies.
I am ready to pay more, to get an outstanding customer service (Apple store and warranty), a great design (Macbook Air) or a fantastic ergonomic (Moutain Lion / Apple touchpad) but I am not ready to pay a fortune just to get a bigger phone and I worry when I realize that nothing, in the new Mac OS really interests me. Where are the new Time Machine, multi-fingers support or other spotlight functionalities? I understand that it takes time to design new products and to invent something really inovative. But in the past months/two years, Apple hasn't surprised me at all. Maybe NOW is the right time...
11 September 2013: Agaichatou, Naivasha, Kenya
Inspiration
In Perpignan, admiring the work of some of the best photographers. Thousands and thousands of pictures, teasing me, pushing me, inspiring me and forcing me to do better and to re-question my vision of photography and of the world.And a book, particularly stunning: Bosnia 1992 - 1995 with an amazing selection of fantastic photographers including James Nachtway, Gary Knight, Ron Haviv, Eric Bouvet and many others. Just watch the video and you'll certainly understand what I meant. My love for books is not going to die now...
20 Aout 2012. Girl cleaning the floor, in San Andres, North of Lima, Peru. It's one of the last pictures I took in Achalay and in Peru. [Click on the picture to enlarge it].