Saving Lives in Uganda - Part 2

[Note: This is Part 2 of the blog post from 2024 when I had first visited Dr. Schiff and his team. GF]

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The young mother was not doing well. 

Living in a remote village in the Jinja region of Uganda, she had given birth to a baby just a few weeks before, but she was feeling weakness on her right side of her body and had fevers.  She was under the care of a traditional healer (sometimes referred to as “Shamans” or “Witch Doctors”) who had instilled cuts on her body as part of the treatment, making her condition worse.  Dr. Schiff and his team examined her and thought she most likely had a stroke as well as an infection. He immediately arranged for an ambulance to come to the remote village and get her.  Empty space in the ambulance was filled with 4 other babies from the village who were also in need of medical attention – 3 had fevers, one had a discharge around the umbilical cord which wasn’t cut close to the body, one had pustules on the skin, and one had very yellow eyes, meaning it had jaundice early in life, a condition that can lead to brain damage if it isn’t treated. 

Once they arrived at the hospital, the young mother was scheduled for a CAT scan, plus treatment for an infection and high blood pressure.  But then the traditional healer called the hospital, demanding that the young mother return home.  When we last heard, the young mother was getting ready to leave the hospital early to comply with the healer’s demands.

Portrait of the King of Busoga

I just returned from Uganda, where I was working on Part 2 of my story on Dr. Schiff's work for Saving lives in Uganda (which will be the feature in next month's blog).  The final day of this trip was an added bonus, as I got a chance to meet a king and create his portrait.  I can die now. :-)

For more context about how this happened, let's go back in time a little bit.  Last year, while hosting our first photo safari in Kenya, I was showing participants how to shoot dramatic portraits using wireless flash.  Here's an example (as always, click on any image to view larger and sharper):

And the behind-the-scenes shot showing how it was done using only one flash:

Saving Lives in Uganda (Parts 1 and 2)

Children’s ward in the National Hospital, Kampala.

Dr. Benjamin Warf, Professor
of Neosurgery, Harvard 
Medical School

Part 1 - November, 2024

Our story begins more than 20 years ago, when Dr. Benjamin Warf, a University of Kentucky professor and a renowned authority on diseases of the brain and spinal cords of young infants, left his academic position in the U.S. to practice medicine in Uganda.  His father had been a missionary there; and Ben felt his life calling was to do medical missionary work. 

He also founded a hospital with the help of CURE International, a charitable organization which builds children's hospitals worldwide. Most of them are orthopedic, but Ben was a neurosurgeon for children.  And this would be the first and so far only dedicated hospital to children's neurosurgery in the developing world.

Dr. Moses Ochora, 
Pediatrician at Mbarara
University of Science and
Technology, CONRIM-U
project investigator

While there Dr. Warf discovered a strong correlation between the Hydrocephalus (“Water on the Brain”) cases he was seeing in infants there, and an infection early in life.  These infections also seemed to correlate to instances of Neonatal Sepsis (a severe infection in the first month of life).  He began doing studies.

The Reward for Waiting for the Right Light

Also in this edition:

• Walt Disney was a Genius
• RX1R III ebook now available in all formats!
• 2023 annual for CameraCraft magazine now available!

So here we were on our honeymoon in Alaska 20 years ago.  I was traveling with my Minolta Maxxum 7D, a six-megapixel DSLR.  I stopped at the side of the road to take a picture of Mt. Denali.

"You know", I said to my new wife, "If we wait about 90 minutes, the sunset light on the mountain will make for a much better shot!"  

And so we waited.  

7 1/2 Weeks on the Road...

 

Also in this issue:

• The usual announcements
• RX1R III size compared to my previous street cameras
• 7.5 Weeks on the Road

The Usual Announcements

* I've been getting a lot of requests for a book on the RX1R III, which I've already started working on.  You can pre-order the downloadable versions here at a discount!  (And see some size comparisons at the bottom of this blog post against cameras with which I used to do street photography.)

* There are only three spots left for the Kenya Photo Safari - Nov. 10 - 17, 2025.  Bring your 600mm lens, get yourself to Nairobi, and we'll take care of you start to finish!  Send me an email if you have any questions - and you can learn more at FriedmanArchives.com/safari   This will probably be the last year we'll be doing this.

* Even though the pandemic is over, I'm still being asked to do zoom talks for photo clubs.  And the most popular topic being asked about?  Computational photography.  (By far!)  It's a topic few other photo lectures tackle, and it opens the minds of all who are in attendence.  I can do the same for your photo club as well!  Contact me (Gary at Friedman Archives dot com) for details.

7.5 Weeks on the Road

So we just came back from another road trip - one of the grandkids in California was graduating from middle school and we wanted to be there.  What made this trip different is that we had no set schedule or path or time frame - we could actually take our time and enjoy ourselves (unlike on previous RV trips).  On an ideal day we can drive 4 hours and then work 4 hours.

So here's a brief travelogue.  As with previous travelogues, there's nothing award-winning in here.  Just some interesting snapshots (with good light) which shares a fraction of our adventures, told through the timeless medium of captions.  As always, click on any image to view larger and sharper.

Stumbled onto 3 Star Trek artifacts...

[This blog post is an addendum to the 7 1/2 week travelogue. It has nothing to do with photography. GF]

So here we were in Sandusky, Ohio near Lake Erie. After a full day of driving the motor home, we parked for the night near a shopping mall. I went inside for a walk because I needed the exercise and besides, it was air conditioned.

The West Has Two Gods

An example of western religious symbolism, where God #2 exists outside of you, somewhere up in the heavens. 
(Contrast this with most eastern religions, where God is everywhere, including inside us.)

Recently, out of the blue, my wife asked me: "Do you believe in God?"

"It depends on which God you're talking about", I responded.

Someone at Godox Should Be Shot

Also in this issue:

• A6700 Update
• Safari Update
• Two projects worthy of your attention
• The latest edition of Cameracraft is free to read

Someone at Godox Should be Shot

I get offers all the time for free photo gear if I either give the reseller a positive review or if I post a glowing review of the product on youtube.  So far I've only accepted the offer once.  But a few days ago I got an offer from a Godox reseller wanting great exposure for Godox' latest low-end product, the TT520III Flash.  (And if you're been reading my blog for awhile, you'll know that I really love Godox flashes!)  Here's the email I received from the reseller:

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Hi there,

This is an authorized Godox seller, and I'm excited to invite you to review our latest product, the Godox TT520III Flash!  I believe your insights would be invaluable to our community. 

Keeping an Eye on Generative AI

My grandfather died when I was 2. 
Here's an image of the two of us fishing together.

Also in this issue:

• New update for Sony A1 II ebook (printed versions, too!)
• Cameracraft Update
• Safari Update
• Lecture I gave at a pioneering microcomputer workshop

More on Generative AI

Way back in 2023 I took a deep dive into the burgeoning field of generative AI for CameraCraft Magazine.  And in this blog post I summarized my findings and created a list of what developments would be necessary in order for these tools to be truly useful for real work.  

Since then I've been keeping my eye on the field's development and the amazing work some of the users are able to generate.  But I don't want to jump onto that bandwagon while the industry is still immature - I remember learning how to program analog synthesizers in the 1970's and that head start got me absolutely nowhere.

Fast forward to two weeks ago - my older brother (who looks quite a bit like me) was reading my April Fool's blog post from 2023 about my short-lived acting career, and he sarcastically responded, "Yeah and I had guitar lessons from Jimi Hendrix and Steve Howe!"  That got me thinking...

Masking Unmanageable Hair

Also in This Edition

• A1 II's 199 MP image vs. Samsung S23 Ultra's 200MP image
• Kenya Photo Safari II is open for registration!
• The usual announcements
• Viewer Mail
• Geeking with Gary - EV charging networks are the wrong idea

Creating Photoshop masks for highly detailed objects has always been a challenge.  In the past I had a few techniques that worked pretty well, but if your goal is to add a dark background behind your subject the shortcomings of those techniques start to show.

Very quickly, here are the techniques I've used and their strengths and weaknesses:

The Inverse Square Law - Have I been lying all these years?

Also in this issue:

• Kenya Trip Report
• Next Time in CameraCraft Magazine
• Upcoming Seminars
• In the Pipeline

The Inverse Square Law

Imagine you brought a gun into space, and fired a bullet.  Newton’s first law of motion says that bullet will travel forever in the same speed and direction, unless hindered by something like spacedust or diverted by the gravitational pull of a planet or star.  (You would also go flying backward when you fired the bullet, but that’s a subject for another time.)

Photons work the same way.  They keep going full strength until impeded.  That’s why the light from the sun isn’t attenuated by the time it hits the earth.

My parents, taken with a point-and-shoot with
pop-up flash.  Under these conditions, if the subjects
are different distances away, only one will be exposed correctly.

And yet for years I’ve been teaching photography students about the Inverse Square Law, which states that the light gets weaker the further away it gets from the light source.  (And I gave several examples proving this law, like the image of my parents on the right!)  Have I been peddling a lie all of these years? 

The answer is both yes and no.  People experience the inverse square law all the time, especially back in the days when cameras had pop-up flashes and people used it as the sole source of light in a dark room.  (See example.)  Here, if there are multiple people in the shot, it’s important that all subjects are the same distance from the flash, for if the distances are different, only one of them will be illuminated “properly” – the rest will be too dark.  

Saving Lives in Uganda (Part 1)

 

Children’s ward in the National Hospital, Kampala.

Dr. Benjamin Warf, Professor
of Neosurgery, Harvard 
Medical School

Our story begins more than 20 years ago, when Dr. Benjamin Warf, a University of Kentucky professor and a renowned authority on diseases of the brain and spinal cords of young infants, left his academic position in the U.S. to practice medicine in Uganda.  His father had been a missionary there; and Ben felt his life calling was to do medical missionary work. 

He also founded a hospital with the help of CURE International, a charitable organization which builds children's hospitals worldwide. Most of them are orthopedic, but Ben was a neurosurgeon for children.  And this would be the first and so far only dedicated hospital to children's neurosurgery in the developing world.

Dr. Moses Ochora, 
Pediatrician at Mbarara
University of Science and
Technology, CONRIM-U
project investigator

While there Dr. Warf discovered a strong correlation between the Hydrocephalus (“Water on the Brain”) cases he was seeing in infants there, and an infection early in life.  These infections also seemed to correlate to instances of Neonatal Sepsis (a severe infection in the first month of life).  He began doing studies.

Kenya Trip Report

[Ed. Note - This post is an amalgamation of two blog posts from Dec 15, 2024 and Feb. 14, 2025.]