The Photography of Dr. Jeffrey P. Harper

I have just loaded new photos from The Congo.  At Christmas 1984, my friend Dwain Bloyer and I boarded the Col. Ebeya river boat for an 11 day trip from Kinshasa, on the lower Congo River, up river to Kisangani, on the upper Congo: a 1200 mile continuous run of the great river. It was an extraordinary life experience.  Unfortunately, when I moved to Bangkok from Charlottesville, Virginia in 1996 2/3 of my shipment was stolen (in Virginia), including my personal photos and slides of my Congo travels.  Fortunately, Dwain had a set of slides from our trip (although no where near as good as my lost photos - hahaha!) and, when on a vacation to Bangkok a couple of years ago with his wife Sharon, brought them to me.  I had them hastily scanned and have just today gone through them to see if they are good enough for posting.  They are not of a quality I normally accept, but as a "record" of those experiences they are priceless.  I have added many more in my Travel Photo Bank: Congo at this LINK.

The Col. Ebeya.  Thanks to Jeff Shey for this photo, another Jeff who took the Col. Ebeya up the Congo River.  He has a great web site HERE.

The massive river boat and barge train in the background is the Col. Kokolo, the sister ship to the Col. Ebeya  I took up the Congo River for 11 days in 1984.

That's me on the deck of the Col. Ebeya surveying the produce.  The ship was actually a waterborne city of 3000 people that moves up through the Congo jungle region buying and selling goods as it went. The decks became fuller and fuller the further up into The Heart of Darkness we went.

The scenes along the river banks were breathtaking in their humanity.

Timeless Congo River Life.

The lovely and wonderful Congolese people. For more photos of my Congo experiences, please visit this LINK.

Samut Songkran is about an hour's drive from my house.  It is the home of the famous Floating Market - a tourist favorite.  There are actually three major floating markets in the Samut Songkran region.  There were literally thousands of people there . . . but I only saw three real foreign tourists all day. Apparently the recent troubles in Thailand have scared the tourists away.  That is a shame.  The Floating Market is a really beautiful and fantastically interesting place to spend the afternoon

The Floating Market is actually a real functional local market built along both sides of an estuarial canal with sales being made both from the old wooden shops that line the canal, and directly from the boats that ply the canal with goods from the farms and sea.

The Floatng Market, though popular with tourists, is a living market.

Life in Thailand as it has been for thousands of years.

A traditional klong (canal) boat and boatman in traditional clothing.

The town of Samut Songkran is estuarial, so seafood finds its way easily to the grills of the boat vendors.

Timeless river trading -- the easiest way to move goods from source to market.

The shops that line the canal are old.  Many are kept in beautiful Old Thai style. This one is actually a "Home Stay" hotel.

Many beautiful touches of beauty adorned the homes.

A young Thai Tom Sawyer.

Everything from gnarly fruit . . . . . .

. . . to steamed fish . . .

. . . to grilled squid . . .

. . . to colored cotton candy in plastic cups was for sale at the Samut Songkran Floating Market.

Frangipani flowers appear in clusters.

They unfurl like a flag.

When new, they have a texture like torn paper.

Frngipanis are wonderfully symmetrical.

The symmetry leads to a secret world.

A secret world of light and fragrance.

The fragrance of the frangipani can fill your whole yard with a sweet breeze.

The frangipani holds the perfect olfactory memory of the equatorial tropics for me.

They smell like love gone.

June 6 marked the 10th anniversary of my wife's (Yoo) mother's death.  In wonderful Thai-Chinese traditional style, we spent the morning with the family monk at the Wat.  It was also the tine to celebrate the birthdays of my two nieces, Par and Sa, whose birthdays are on the 9th and 11th of June (yes, the "911 Birthday Party"). Here are some pics of the day (taken with the low-res photo function of my Canon HD movie camera):

My wife, my Thai family, the family Buddhist monk, and me.

 Yes, this is me sitting in an alibastor and rosewood 'seat of honor' at the Wat.

Flower photos from my recent Lopburi week-end.

Hibiscus.

A bird of paradise back lit from a setting sun.

A flower with obvious extraterrestrial origins.

Pollination happens.

Succulents abound.

The lotus flower is ever-present in Thailand.

Lovely.

Orange beauty.

Red flower clusters back lit in by the early morning light.

Flowers in the Funeral Parlor Flower Market (FPFM).