Today I start telling the story about my Sierra Leone experience.

I will start from the beginning and work my way through to the end day by day and always complimenting with images.

The tickets were booked and I started to prepare for one of the most challenging adventures of my life.

@Sierra Leone | Kenema | Busstation on my way to Kono |2010

@ Sierra Leone | School kids on bush road between Tiwai and Bo | 2010 | By: Emil Leonardi

@ Sierra Leone | Fishing village of Tombo | 2010 | By: Emil Leonardi

@ Sierra Leone | Fishermen at Aberdeen Beach, Freetown | 2010 | By: Emil Leonardi

@ Sierra Leone | Rawdon street, Freetown | 2010 | By: Emil Leonardi

The Inception

It all started about a year or two back when i first heard about a small country in West Africa called Sierra Leone, listed as the number one poorest country in the world 2005 which gets 70-80% of the government funds/budget funded by foreign aid, lowest HDI “Human Development Index” in the world, one out of five children under five years of age died and an average expected living age of 36 years.

Read more: HERE And: HERE

Pretty much what you read and hear about Sierra Le

one is what movies like Blood Diamond, Lord of War or Amistad tells you.

Slavery, poverty, diamonds, rebels and atrocities committed in the civil war that Sierra Leone was suffering under, A Decade long (1991-2

2) civil war that was so filled with atrocities and torture that its rater not be spoken about, corruption and miss managed governments.

People experience and witnessing first hand things that were so horrible that they would not even fit in the worst horror movie.

The people that were living this was not only soldiers and generals, it struck the normal civilians the most. People like you and me that had no particular political point of view or even communities that never even heard the word “Political”, people living in peace with nature in the bush, tribes totally outside of the “modern civilization”.

And in all of this darkness I saw light. I kept getting amazed by some stories that I read but there was one particular story that caught my attention and sparked my real interest in Sierra Leone:

The story of a fisherman which village got attacked by the rebels on morning and his daughter and wife was killed and he got his both hands chopped off by an RUF soldier.

Imagine the anger and devastation this man suffered, he will never see his wife or daughter again and never be able to work.

One day as he was walking the streets of Freetown to go to rehabilitation for his disability a moment of fear struck him as he stood face to face with the person who had chopped his hands a couple of years earlier right there on the street in a now peaceful Freetown he started to scream and tears was cascading from his eyes as all his feelings came back and as the crowd understood what was going on they all jumped the ex-RUF soldier and started to rip his clothes of and just as they where about to stomp the ex soldier to death for what he had done to the fisherman, the fisherman shouted “STOP” and walked up to the bleeding ex soldier and reached out his chopped limb to help him up as they were standing face to face again he looked in to his eyes and said:

“I have been thinking about this moment since we last met, that day you took my life away from me but today I’ll give yours back, I forgive you but I will never forget” and saved the ex soldier from the angry crowd and he let him go free.

As I read this I was so touched by this. I read, hear and see what´s going on in this “modern” Western world and I could never imagine that a situation of parlay could take place in our world.

From that moment on I knew I had to experience Sierra Leone myself and learn from those people. I saw greatness that no other human being in this world ever would practice.

As I started to read and learn more about this country, I was captivated by the story and unfortunate history of this country.

A country blessed with one of the most intensive and diverse mineral resources compared to its size and population. In Sierra Leonean soil you find Iron Ore, Gold, Rutile, Titanium Ore, Bauxite and one of the ten biggest Diamond deposits in the world.

Vegetation unlike any other country, high mountains, plain steps, rain forests and long unbroken beaches. Anything will grow here Rice, Coffee Beans, Cacao, Bananas and Coconuts.

A nature so beautiful you could not imagine.

Geting back on track

First of all I wanna start with apologizing for the VERY long absence. Not that I have any fans or followers who missed me, but it feels like the right thing to do.

I have been wanting to start sharing stories and pictures with you for a couple of month now but never found the time and ease to do so but hopefully I will start dropping some pics regularly from now on!

Have done a lot the past couple of months and have a lot of pictures to share with you and foremost A LOT of stories.

So let’s get going….

Beauty

@ Summer 2009 | Mauterndorf | Photo/Retouch: Emil Leonardi

This is Isabel a friend from Vienna, who was visiting our shop last year and we shot a couple of pix, that i dug out again last week to try some new Beauty/Glamour retouching techniques. Must say i love it, it´s a lot of fun! It´s definitely something that I’ll be doing more of from now on.

If there´s anybody that would like to model just for fun, please let me know.

Drop a comment on what you think of the result.

Thai Two

@ Thailand | 2009 | Photo: Emil Leonardi ®

Thai

A couple of random pic from Thailand. More to come....

ND Graduated BKK

@ Bangkok, Thailand, June 2009 | Photo by: Emil Leonardi ®

This picture was taken with my ND Graduated Filter, which gives you the possibility to darken the sky so that you can balance the two major different light from the bright sky and the dark street. It gives you a perfectly metered sky and a exposure low enough to give clear detailed street and buildings and even drop so low that the cars are blurry creating a great effect

High on Elements 8

THIS PICTURE IS STAGED

I have just started to play around a bit with my new ELEMENTS 8 and i love it.

Stay tuned for more.

Hamburg #2

@ Hamburg | Spring 2009 | Photo by: Emil Leonardi ®

I came along with my father who was invited there by a customer/friend who hired him to photograph the whole company and Hamburg to make theire new image concept everything from office interior to flyers, brouchures, business cards and logo.

So we where shooting singel employees, the office and then where escorted around Hamburg to shoot different keypoint locations of the city. Stayed at a great Möwenpick hotel, where invited to dine at the most exclusive restaurants in town. It was a great experiance ande here are som åpictures that i took privat and wherent added to the Business Image Concept.

Hope you like it and please as always felle free to leave a comment always happy to hear what you guys think.