March 2010
   In a couple days Jim will start another two month Middle East trip. This time he is planning to blog so he can send back text and Photographs. You can follow him at http://jimhamstra.blogspot.com/

    Some color images made on Jim's previous Middle East trip have been added to this site.  The trip involving over 7000 miles by truck along with other various modes of transportation, as well as camping in a dusty environment, prevented the use of the 4x5 Linhof camera.  Taking a roll film camera and, for the first time, a digital camera, resulted in a number of color images.

    After months of paper testing, he had a show of 17 images printed on Harmon matt paper.  The camera, a Nikon D200 with an 18-200 lens, performed well in the dust. 

    However, black and white in silver, platinum, and polygravure still make up the majority of his work.  On his  trip to the Middle East and Africa, his main camera was a Contax 645  medium format camera with black and white film.  The D200   also went along.