Hi guys

so im off to gaza in December, yeah things move quickly...

So this email ive been sending out details more information about my trip as well as a catalogue of the images that i am selling to help raise funds to get there...

read on......

Hello friends,

I address you all as friends knowing some of the people behind these email addresses well, while I also recognise there will be many people reading this who I haven’t had the opportunity to meet. If this is the case, please allow my photo stories to act as an appropriate introduction, see www.conorashleigh.com .

My name is Conor Ashleigh, it is fair to say I am many things to many people, while for the central purpose of my work and mission in life I can comfortably say I am a storyteller that is driven by my passion for social and environmental justice.

In December I will be travelling to Palestine to document the freedom march for Gaza http://gazafreedommarch.org/, the gathering is focused on raising awareness of the atrocities that continue to take place in Palestine. The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Richard Falk, condemned Israel’s siege of Gaza as amounting to a “crime against humanity.”

It was less than two weeks ago that I was told about the event in Gaza and I knew quite instantly that I would be there come December 27 no matter what it takes. The next morning I made my way into a travel agent with only $90 in my bank account knowing a deposit would be needed on the spot, there wasn’t a choice to be made, but rather an intense bout of brainstorming surrounding how I can raise funds to make this journey happen. Approximately $2000 is what I need to pay for my flights to Gaza and to cover the basic living costs the Gaza Freedom March organisers are asking for registration, camping and food. My three-hour train trip from Sydney back to Newcastle the following day gave me the time to finalise a body of 25 images. The photos are from my journeys in Australia, South Africa, Uganda, India, Nepal and East Timor, I chose them as I feel they broadly encapsulate some of the places and people I have been able to capture along my journeys.

The 25 pictures I have chosen can be viewed by downloading the attached pdf document. I am selling A3 (29cm x 42cm) prints of the pictures for $50 which includes postage and handling anywhere in Australia. The size of the images in the pdf catalogue have been reduced so they could all fit on a single document that wouldn’t overwhelm Internet connections, so please don’t worry about the quality as they will be printed at their highest resolution.

Speaking to friends over the last two weeks about this trip, it seems there are many people who strongly support the plight of Palestine but wont be attending the freedom march. I see my presence in Gaza as a set of eyes and ears that represent a wider community. I will regularly update my blog, website and group emails which will be my portals to keep people connected with my journey. Once I return to Australia I hope to have an exhibition from which you are all invited to attend.

I will be taking orders for prints until October 30, the pictures will then be printed and sent out on the following Monday November 2^nd. The easiest way to make a payment is a direct bank transfer with your name in the transaction description and a confirmation email with an attached or cut & copied receipt. Once I receive a payment and email I will reply with confirmation and also notify people once they have been sent out. Also if people check my website www.conorashleigh.com and would prefer to have an image printed from there please contact me and I can also have these printed.

I have recently returned to Australia from East Timor where I have been working on photo stories on the journey of coffee as well as covering the 10-year anniversary since Asia’s youngest nation voted for independence. If you think someone you know might be attracted to my work please pass on my website and contact details and know that all money is going towards covering my costs to visit Gaza so that I can learn, understand and experience what life is like in Gaza. Similarly if people are interested in staying connected with my journey please write and let me know this so I can store your email address and I look forward to staying in touch for what will be an incredible experience.

In solidarity,

Conor

Banking details

Name- Conor Ashleigh

Bank- Commonwealth Bank

BSB- 062 563

Acc #- 10030204

Timor's 10 Year Anniversary Since the vote for Independencece

Last Weekend marked the 10 year anniversary here in Timor since the vote for independence.

I have included just a few images for you all, more can be seen on my website in the near future.

Bondia hau Timor Leste

Conor Ashleigh © 2009

Hello again from Timor,

 

writing is a big part of the routine i've settled heavily into here in Dili. Routine good and bad at the same time, I know my local shop keeper and his family by name, this relationship makes buying hot bread and water in the morning more personal as I feel compelled to wrangel together my  pidgeon Tetun to ask a few questions and find out what they have planned for the day.

Dili is still hot and the lures that the last of the picking season comes to an end makes me want to run up the mountain at once, but one thing ive learnt is invaluable in Timor like many other places, patience. Im still waiting for mine to arrive, but im trying my best to sit things out and work closer to home for the moment and wait for my ride up the moutains later this week.

So I have a few pictures from the orphanage where I have been living.

  

 Conor Ashleigh © 2009 

While my shopkeeper Augusto Peres sells me water to see me through the next few days.

Conor Ashleigh © 2009

Children from Bobonaro, an area close to the border of West Timor dressed up in traditional tais perform in Dili.

These are a few pictures from a salt baking community, the landscape of these people is so harsh, so incredibly baron and hot as they burn fires with intense heat in order to extract the salt and hope to sell a bag a day which will make them $2, it sounds as though it’s a lucky day to sell more then a bag.

 

Conor Ashleigh © 2009

Conor Ashleigh © 2009

Conor Ashleigh © 2009

These are a few images from the story on the orphanage ive been working on, hopefully soon i will have a complete story and text ready for publication.

Conor Ashleigh © 2009

Conor Ashleigh © 2009

Conor Ashleigh © 2009

article

So this article was published on monday about me,  im not sure how i feel about it, for sure its good press but it also eeks me out a lil, hmm, is that normal?

http://www.mn.catholic.org.au/newsroom/auroraissues/aurora85_story2.htm

some more stuff from round Timor's tracks

Caption- Sunset drive through the mountains Baucau to Viqueque.

 

So I am still in Dili despite some yearnings to get up to the mountains. It isn’t all bad, ive meet a great bunch of people here in the last few weeks and have been quite busy trying to organise access to photograph with the PNTL- Timor’s police, as well as spending time with some of the young radical up & coming journo’s of Timor. I have moved out of the over priced airconditioned fish tank that has been rapidly sending me broke and have swapped it for an orphanage. It will be an interesting few weeks here, everyone is up rather early, I feel naughty waking up at 7am as I know everyone else has been up for nearly two hours already, give me a week and ill be writing here how great it is to be up before the sparrows.

 

For reasons unknown ive been graced with a tropical infection that has left my left knee looking and feeling like I should just have finished up in hospital with a knee replacement, its ok though, I know that all good things come to an end and the loads of funky stuff coming out of it means its on the mend…

 

A great group here in Dili are ICFJ- the international centre for journalism, they are focused on providing training and development for local journalists as well as other services in the community, cool meeting of the community development and journalism worlds…

 

I have a few random images, including;

 

Sunset drive through the mountains Baucau to Viqueque part2

 

 

Political slogans on the back of a public bin here in Dili.

Fruit seller along the beach front in Dili.

 

 

Kids playing @ sunset along Dili beach.

A woman waits for a ticket to train by ferry to the East Timor enclave of Ouecussi, ferry’s leave twice a day and are quite competitive.

 

This is all for now,

cheers

C

A quick hello and some stuff from Timor Leste

Another update from Timor Leste, I now write to you from Dili where I am just finishing up my time on assignment with Catholic Mission. Ive had a great last two weeks or so, ive been able to bear witness to some amazing projects already including two separate orphanages & agriculture projects as well as a boarding house for underprivileged students and a leprosy clinc- the only one in Timor in fact… funny leprosy seems to be rearing its head in my life quite a bit as of late…

 

So since being back in Dili ive  been busily editing the last bunch of images from the leprosy clinic before Lana leaves for Australia, while Im also settling in Dili for a handful of days hoping to meet up with various people and organise my trip to Emera District- the coffee growing district to start work photographing the coffee growing process ‘from the tree to the cup’, I will be staying back at the Bakhita Centre where I spent a good portion of my time last trip I was here in 2005…

 

My initial trip to the cock fights in Baucau grew into a daily routine where by the end was just 'that' crazy white guy with a fascination for the only form of legal gambling in Timor… it’s a ruthless fight, sometimes its over in seconds while in other rounds (there is usually 5+ fights a day) it goes on for a few minutes whereby both cocks have been badly injured and end up collapsing simultaneously and finishing in a draw, the punters are never happy in this instance however in some ways I feel it fitting… Watching this game I naturally detatched myself from the cruelty of it, however I still couldn’t get past the pile of prizes (aka cocks that lost)who are shoved in between old pieces of corrugated iron and fence posts, some still alive and slowly bleed out as they watch the battle for their next comrade in the loosing pile…

 Last Sunday myself and Lana hired two microlets and took the Sisters, members of the live-in leprosy community and the boarders down to Baucau beach… (just to clarify a microlet is a 1.8 L van that holds upwards of a soccer team, they are usually covered in terrible kitsch indo-western idols including shakira, britney spears and other demi-gods in the emergying western music scene of timor…) Our day at the beach was brilliant it included teaching the boarders how to float on ones back- such a simple thing to us water borne Australians, as well as dancing the timor 2 step-1 step dance on the sand while also enjoying a feast that seemed very lush and left me with a pang of guilt that I was at the centre of the special occasion. By 5pm it was time to head home, I could feel the suns burn starting to take hold on my white skin and I new a coffee was in order before I returned to the cock fights.

 

I spent time travelling between communities in the outer reaches of the Baucau district, I spent a few days in a town called Viqueque where I was able to photograph the local soccer semi final game. It was a big affair for the community, the rocky field was ringed with fans mostly shy of 20, while a strong Timore police and UN police group blocked the fans from the field, this was in response to the previous semi final the day before where it ended with opposing fans throwing rocks and the game was sadly cancelled. After a goalless game it trickled into a penalty shoot out that ended out equal, meaning another penalty shoot out where a winner was eventually found in the orange ‘Tatu Hada FC’-you can see some of my stuff from here on my blog. I finished off my rural trip in Ossu, we rounded out our time here with lunch of rice, tempeh & palm wine- don’t ever be deceived that this stuff resembles wine in any way, the only thing under 20% about the stuff is the amount of respiratory function one can enjoy after enjoying three full glasses. The stuff isnt remotely close to its shiraz cousins, After another hour on the road back to Baucau the steep drop of the palm wine finally took flight and I slept rather groggily for the reminder of the trip back to Baucau along some shocking roads Im glad I didn’t have to consciously travel.

 

The sunburn is fading and so are the 17 degree winter days of Newcastle/Sydney, I treated myself to a beer in an international pub this afternoon, watched BBC World and giggled as I saw Australia’s east coast weather report- the grass is always greener and for once im glad im not in Aust!

 

After the fires....

These are a collection of images taken after the bushfires in Victoria, Australia. On Febuary 7th 2009 deadly fires swept through South East Victoria killing hundreds... Below are a few images taken 2 months later... all copyright Conor Ashleigh 2009 ©