matthew gordon

Bosnia, last post

I've got a few more pictures I want to post before I get back to regularly posting weddings and e-sessions...

This was right next to the door to a house in Livno, I thought it was cool, and then noticed a little bear that looks like the one Madison carries everywhere she goes :)

On Saturday we drove to Mostar, one of the most heavily damaged cities in the war.  There are still buildings all over that are decimated and some buildings that are in the midst of being repaired.  

This bridge is world famous and was destroyed in the war and was reconstructed in 2003 with the original stone.  

destroyed in the war...

You can see a few bullet holes in this door

I did get to go into a Mosque in Mostar, it was really cool

climbing up the tower...

the last picture of war damage I'm posting...

On Sunday, we drove back to Split Croatia.  I didn't realize how much of a tourist spot Croatia's become, it's really popular now!

Diocletian's palace was right on the beach and was really neat to visit.

We arrived Sunday afternoon, and the place was pretty empty until the stores opened up in the evening.

Found this hole with 'beauty' directly behind where I was standing for that last shot,  the second picture is looking through the hole..

Bosnia, last work day

We're back from Bosnia!  It was an awesome trip, it's so different to "live" in a place for a week instead of just visiting like a tourist.  It's a different pace of life over there, you get used to it and it makes it hard to leave.  

Leaving was a mess anyway, the German airline Lufthansa went on strike the day we left!  We had flown into Vienna where I picked up a USA Today and realized our time in Germany would be interesting :) Our flight back was on a smaller than scheduled plane with basically no food on a 9 hour flight.  More than 80 people were denied seating, and it was literally a first come first serve, those that found a seat flew to the US.  The food that they did serve was Frozen through and through. 

When we arrived back in the states I was shocked to find out our luggage actually made it!  Now I'm fighting jet-lag...  by 2 am my body thinks it's 8 am and it's hard to get any sleep.

Here's a few more pictures of the classroom work we did and the semi-final product.  The classroom is getting a new floor this week and all new desks, unfortunately I won't have a picture of that but I can show you the walls!

Purple, yellow and orange aren't colors I would have picked out but they ended up looking really good together.

 

This is the final product, with everyone hanging out taking pictures 

This is head maintenance guy at the school, he's the guy working with the fishermen in one of my other posts, he's the one cutting the block for the wall..  

Anyway, he came in and said we did a great job.  He gave us One thumb up!  He said he would have given us two, but he's only got one.  Of course that was all in Croatian so it's paraphrased but he wanted a picture :)

And the last picture of the school, this was my favorite part, it's immediately across the hallway when you walk in the front doors.  You can see the mountains through the broken panes on the top left.

I'll be posting just a few more pictures soon.   We visited Mostar Bosnia, it was a city devastated in the war and there's still tons of damage.  The last day we spent some time in Split Croatia and I've got some really cool pictures from there too...  stay tuned :)

Bosnia, town

We're nearly done with the classroom now!  I'll post some more pictures of the progression and finished room tomorrow when we're done.  But I wanted to show a little more of the town here.

First thing this morning on the way to the school, there were cattle crossing the road :)

This church is just a block from where I'm staying, the bells are the first thing I hear every morning

We tried to go to a Mosque tonight, but unfortunately there was a wedding today and it was locked up early.  I'm sure we'll try to go again tomorrow. It's really neat hearing the call to prayer

The thing to do here is Coffee.  That's really it.  You sit at coffee bars with friends, then you go to another one, then another one.  This is where we went for dinner and coffee tonight,  we ate cevapi and had Turkish Coffee, I learned this week that I really like Turkish Coffee.  It's like espresso, only much stronger!

This Kafe serves the coffee with Turkish Delight, and in a handmade copper pot

Attached to this coffee bar is a museum.  This guy just started collecting things, he'd find things in basements, attics, he found a 2400 year old Roman spear at the top of the ridge.  It was one of the coolest things I've seen so far here in Bosnia.  I took several pictures, but I'm only going to show two, the first is the owner, it was cool to see how much it all meant to him.  He went around and told stories for so many pieces there, and he's collected more than 5,000 pieces!

Then the last picture is just my favorite piece there.  Notice the pot for turkish coffee :)

We'll be done working tomorrow and I'll post some more pictures of everyone working, and the finished classroom!

Bosnia, day 3

It rained most of today, and it's COLD.  Nobody brought anything warm with us either, it's been in the upper 80s, and today it didn't even hit 60.  and it was windy!

Anyway, we're here to work, but we found out that when it rains, the school looses power.

We still had lots of plaster to mix, and that now had to be done by hand.  

We did finish plastering, tomorrow we're sanding and priming.

I think I mentioned that the town is starting to get into this project too, the next few pictures are some of the local fishermen that decided to adopt a classroom and fix it up too!

They are also building a wall at the end of the hallway for a new office, check out the "powertool" he's using to cut through this cement block...

and let me just tell you..  we have nothing to complain about. ever.

this is a picture of the toilets in the school.  there's not even a roll of toilet paper near, you have to grab some by the sink. (sink.  not sinks, one sink) at least they have doors I guess.

Bosnia, Turkish Tower

After working today, we hiked up to a 500 year old Turkish tower.  There were originally 5 of these, we saw 4 and the 5th is missing.  

It was a long hike but you can't beat the view of Livno!

We walked through the town to get up to the mountain, and these first two pictures are at the source of the towns water, it's from spring out of the middle of the mountain.  They say there's miles of underground rivers and even lakes under the mountains.  

It's far from where we were walking, but this is a picture of a few houses that were burned down during the war.

This is me with Laura and Krista, the team from Indy with Livno behind us.

This is an old Roman Road! It wrapped all the way up to the ridge, and was really neat to see. 

We're almost there now, but a great view of Livno.  It's a town of about 10,000

You can see the tower in this picture that we're walking to.

and we finally made it... by now everyone is totally out of water too!

you could walk inside it!  you had to scale the front as it has mostly fallen away.

This picture is for Madison...  right now she LOVES finding snail shells

The group of us that climbed.

Tomorrow we're plastering the walls of the classroom... I should be able to post more pictures again!

Bosnia, day 2

Today we started working on the classroom and got a lot done! 

This school had been shelled in the war and didn't have a roof for several years.  There's lots of water damage and just general neglect.  We're going through and scraping the walls, covering holes with concrete and plaster, then painting.   Overall, these classrooms are getting new windows, floors, desks, paint and the finished rooms look great!

The first two pics are the outside of the school:

This is the group of us working on this classroom. There's a group of local fishermen that are rehabbing another classroom too!

Within the first hour the scaffolding broke!  we were stuck using chairs balanced on desks to reach the ceiling (no such thing as osha here!)

By the end of the day a welder came to fix it for us.  

That's it for right now,  I might be able to post some more later tonight.  After working we went hiking to a 500 year old Turkish tower!!!  You can see the entire town from it.  So check back later.

Bosnia day 1

Just a real quick post,  we made it to Bosnia!  Everyone's luggage arrived too!  It's been a LONG day or so with no real sleap since Friday night.  (eta:  obviously, since I can't even spell sleep!  I've really been awake for more than 30 hours now, just dozing a few times on the plane)

I should be able to post a few pictures each day, but I can't guarantee it.  Tomorrow we start working on the classroom, painting, sanding and whatever needs done.

I haven't taken many pictures yet, just a few from the van window on the way from Croatia to Bosnia.  It's a beautiful country!  It was around 90 degrees when we landed but it feels like upper 70's.  

This is a view of Split Croatia, the city we flew into to drive across the border to Bosnia. --I didn't shoot anything near the border... sorry :)  

This was just a church building we drove by, I saw several out in the middle of nowhere

Check back tomorrow evening,  I should have a few more posted of Livno and the classroom we're working on

catching up

so I've been neglecting my blog and now I'm so far behind on posting I think I need to just start fresh! It's time for a new look too, keep looking over the next few weeks for changes!

Last week was the annual trip out to Vegas for WPPI. This year was by far my favorite trip too, I ran into so many of my friends! This past November I shot Kurtis and Jen's wedding at Mavris, and Kurtis is a local photographer so they were in Vegas too. It was so much fun hanging out with one of my couples! On Monday we were at a party my friend Anne was throwing at Rio, we had passes to the club on top of Rio, the view of Vegas from the roof is awesome!

I didn't have my camera, so these pictures from my iPhone will have to do...

This is Dan and Brooke Brand taking pictures of the skyline....

and Kurtis and Jen...

and this is my favorite picture of them... they were in the center of the dance floor on top of Rio with open sky's so there's so very little light, but I couldn't resist taking pictures of them dancing, it's habit :)

I've got so many really cool weddings coming up this year, I can't wait to show them off!

friends...

I recently did a family session for some of my really good friends, Rex and Nowell and their two little girls!!

Rex is an engineer and loves old architecture, so we had to do their shoot at Holiday Park in Indianapolis. These columns were from the facade of an old bank building downtown that was torn down several years ago and moved to the park. It makes for some very cool images!

We climbed over the fence to get some of these shots, Nowell fell off a column too!!! Sorry about that!

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My favorite images from this shoot though. Their daughter Raelyn is my little girl Madison's best friend. So I actually got to bring her to a shoot :)

Madison's on the right, she's nine months older, but sometimes they look like twins...

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and my favorite series from the session... they were having SO MUCH FUN!

OH.... and I didn't pose any of these :)