20 October 2018: Monastery of the Temptation, Jericho, Palestine.
woman
Inspiration
One week in Perpignan, for the traditional photo festival Visa pour l’Image, admiring the inspiring work of great photojournalists and improving my understanding of the world, in its best and worst aspects.
Back at the office, the portraits of two of my colleagues stand next to a condolence book. Another source of motivation. We better have to be outstanding now…
05 September 2015: Visa pour l’Image, Perpignan, France.
Intifada
The room smells like books (Wonderland, At War) while Chet Faker is competing surprisingly well against an inspired Bonobo (listen to the last minutes). I feel my heart beat slowing down.
My two phones have been switched off, new symbol of a laissez aller, encouraging my brain to let go and to enjoy the fresh breeze. I wish I could be dancing in a cold fjord.
After 3 months and 7 days, my plane-free detox stopped, with a return to Europe announcing the beginning of a new mission. I am, finally, going to Yemen.
And the music get louder… 
Jet Lagged
24 February 2015: Street food vendor, Mandalay, Myanmar/Burma.
Introspection
Time flies. Two years ago, I was in Yaounde, Cameroon, wondering if my new job really was for me. Today, I am writing my end of mission report in Afghanistan, waiting for a good break, already knowing another challenge is coming.
14 January 2013: Sarah, waiting in Yaounde, Cameroon.
Up in the Air
My good old friend Bonobo is flirting with my ears with his new album live. And time and gravity don’t exist anymore…
Stress management lesson One
17 October 2014: Talia, Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan.
Silent WE
Quiet weekend, reading about new places, wondering if I could live and work there. Maybe this year, I won’t need googlemap to know where my new mission is …
04 October 2014: Azar. Bukhara, Uzbekistan.
The Cost of Life
Up to 500 people died last Friday due to a landslide in Badakhshan province, Afghanistan. After two days looking for survivors, the local Governor declared “We cannot continue the search and rescue operation anymore, as the houses are under meters of mud. We will offer prayers for the victims and make the area a mass grave”.
A few thousands of kilometers from there, hundreds of people have been working since March 8th, to find, in the middle of the ocean, missing flight MH370 and its 227 passengers and 12 crew members. It represents, according to the estimations, more than USD100 million spent for the operation (and therefore more than ICRC’s budget in Afghanistan for 2013).
How much are we ready to invest to find the mortal remains of relatives? Is there a limit to everything, a maximum cost to truth? I wonder…
02 May 2013: Lucia, Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan
Balade Parisienne
A few days in Paris and I am suddenly craving for street photography. Not sure my new mission in Afghanistan will give me that opportunity… but I hope to have the chance to shoot a few nice portraits.
21 November 2013: Café “Le Centenaire”, Paris, France. [Click on the picture to enlarge it]
Meanwhile, I’m getting rid of any form of gravity in my mind, listening to the new compilation by Bonobo and Late Night Tales.
21 November 2013: Exhibition “Un moment si doux” by Raymond Depardon, at the Grand Palais, Paris, France. [Click on the picture to enlarge it]
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. [Click on the picture to enlarge it].
Olivier Chassot 
