New Post on a New Blog!

I finally bought a domain name and will now be posting my blog post at jesseydearing.com. Or click the image below to be redirected:

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N.C. Mission of Mercy Dental Clinic

I'm working on a project about health care for my documentary course. I've been trying to cover a broad range of topics and one is dental. Dental is often not included in health coverage and is very expensive. People go for years neglecting their dental hygiene even though dental pain can be one of the most nagging and painful injuries to endure.

This two day clinic offered free dental services for patients and performed most dental procedures except root canals. On the second day, people began lining up at midnight to be seen at the clinic, which opened at 7 a.m. It took most people about 8 hours to be seen. Many of the people I spoke with had traveled from rural parts of North Carolina and had not been to a dentist in several years. I was surprised at how happy many of them were to be there even after waiting through the night and having one or more teeth pulled. To learn more about the dental clinics, visit the N.C. Dental Society's website.

F/22 and Snow

We had a project titled F/22 where we had to photograph 22 things based on a list of 22 words. Here are some of the photos I came out with and the word we were to photograph.

Blue


4 a.m.


Body art


The Letter E


Fear


From the Hip (not looking through viewfinder)


Gross


Love


Self Portrait


Shadow


It snowed and a lot of people met on campus to throw snow at each other.

Raleigh Rally

Photos shot today, can you believe it? My focus today was light. Don't steal my pictures. They are copyrighted. For real.

State Fair Project...

LivingGalapagos.org

Below is a youtube version of my Galapagos project, but I encourage you to visit LivingGalapagos.org because the website is pretty awesome. There is a ton of content on this website about the islands and worth visiting multiple times (you will have to, to see all the content).

action vs reaction

This the the coach of the women's field hockey team at UNC having a roaring match with a fan.

Protest in Pittsburgh

I went to Pittsburgh with two friends Thursday night and Friday to photograph the protests of the G20 Summit. This is just a couple of images from the protest. The night protest were intense scenes. Police in full riot regalia used smoke, tear gas, rubber bullets and physical force to remove the protesters from the area. Several people arrested were University of Pittsburgh students and other non-protesters who were out on just another Thursday and Friday night. The press were not to be distinguished from the protesters, to be arrested all the same. I will add more to this later.

galapagos livin'

I have nearly 10,000 photos and nearly 20 hours of audio from my travels. Here is only "making of" type images, none are from the actual project I did. I also have hundreds of other photos from my time in Ecuador that are not included in this video. My first two weeks in the Galapagos were spent on Isabela Island. On July 3rd, the entire group (from all islands) met on San Cristobal where we completed the edited process of our videos. It was an amazing trip and eye-opening. This being said, I think at the same time, the atmosphere makes it easy to forget the impact you are having on the islands. While it may be positive for those that live there, changes are definitely happening due to tourism that are impacting the eco-system in a negative way. This is a balancing act which our project aimed to address. A website is in production and will hopefully be online soon. The website will be: http://www.livinggalapagos.org

the camry does it again...

I made the drive to Dallas, TX from Wilmington last week. It was an eventful two day journey. The first picture is where I slept, a driveway in Nashville in my camry, or my car. The sun rises early in Nashville because they are just over the border for central time. I think this was at 5:30 a.m. and it's already over the horizon. The second is while driving in Arkansas, it is flat there. I leave for the Quito on Monday, but I'm making a weekend trip to Austin today.

uncle x 4

Sylvia, my new niece.


The Zoolander


Sylvia's older sister, Jade.

work in progress...

Two images from a project in progress. I'm not sure if the final will be in black and white or color, I like both.

at it again...

surrounded by 10,000 people...


surrounded by 40,000 people...

can't stop, won't stop

I've been shooting a lot lately. Below are some, but not all of what's been going, and others are out-takes from assignments.

Betty Bigombe, a former minister of Uganda and peace negotiator, delivers her keynote speech Thursday discussing her mediations between the Lord's Resistance Army, a rebel group led by Joseph Kony, and the Ugandan government. Bigombe's speech was part of a week of events for Human Rights Week organized by Advocates for Human Rights.

From the press release:

Bigombe was appointed minister of the Ugandan Parliament in 1986 and minister of state for pacification of northern Uganda in 1988. Her task was to persuade the army of rebels to cease fighting and reach a peaceful resolution. In this role, she organized the first-ever face-to-face meeting between Lord Resistance Army head Joseph Kony and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. The meeting paved the way for additional peace talks.

Please click here to read more.

Greg Mortenson, author of "Three Cups of Tea," also spoke at UNC-Chapel Hill. Speaker assignments would be much more fun if they utilized awesome powerpoint pictures like Mortenson. His book has been on the New York Times Best Seller list for 112 weeks and is number one this week. I was able to meet him before his speech and he is very passionate about his work and the importance of education. I have not read his book, but I have a feeling it will be a good read.

From his biography:

Mortenson is a living hero to rural communities of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he has
gained the trust of Islamic leaders, military commanders, government officials and tribal chiefs
from his tireless effort to champion education, especially for girls.