Please update your links to point to http://www.lolaakinmade.com.

You can also update your RSS feed to http://feeds.feedburner.com/LolaAkinmade.

Thanks for your continued support.

Lagos, Nigeria - One of the vivacious women that sell fish in Lekki village along the lagoon shows off her newly caught Nile monitor lizard.

Shot with Nikon D300 from safe distance.

Had to cancel an upcoming trip to Istanbul to cover ASTA’s International Destination Expo. While the traveler in me viciously fought the decision, my true priorities won.

Had I not canceled, I would have been on the road (6 countries) every single month since December for extended periods of time.

Okay?! What’s the big deal? you might ask.

For me, finding adequate time to properly settle into my new home and learn Swedish makes it a big deal. Plus, I do have an upcoming press trip early May and a trip to the US end of June for TBEX planned at the moment so buffers are super important.

Travel Photography

Been sorting through thousands (literally) of photographs from Nigeria which I’m pretty excited about. I’ve begun grouping them into themes which I’ll soon share via themed posts as opposed to a general gallery.

Humbling News

I’ve always been a fan of Roger Ebert. Everything about him oozes inspiration, openness, and a certain level-headed grounding that’s so difficult to find nowadays from those in the public eye. So finding these words from him on his Twitter page had me clutching my heart in utter gratitude.

Latest Pieces

• Fodors - How to Take Better Travel Photographs At Night

• United Airlines Hemispheres – Moving Day, Kiruna, Sweden (Note – Final piece severely edited).

• Matador Trips - When Night Falls In Budapest (Photo Essay)

• Travelblogs.com – Travel Snobbery Defined (Contributed to opinion piece)

Upcoming Pieces

I never really share these until contracts have been signed (whether the work has been published or not).

More common sense than jinxing anything. But I’ve got a few in the works including one confirmed (and maybe more) for Heart & Soul.

I do have a piece in National Geographic Traveler on Stockholm’s Green Hotels either in the latest or next issue. Since I don’t get NGT here in Stockholm, if anyone sees it, please let me know and I’ll track down a copy.

Photo shot at dusk with Nikon D300. Location – Buda District, Hungary

Now begins the most important week for Christians…

Revelers in an Anglican Palm Sunday procession in Lagos, Nigeria. Shot with Nikon D300

A heavy and dry Harmattan haze has been hanging over the Lagos skyline totally freaking out the populous. They fear acid rain as text messages have been sent around telling people to avoid the rain when it comes.

If it comes. Because the severe heat is currently punishing us day in, day out.

With over 2000+ images and impressions captured just these last two weeks, the real challenge begins mid next week when I start to weed through the collection in Stockholm and piece together half a dozen or more stories:

From fishermen down by the jetty to the preteens rowing themselves home from school to their remote villages deep within the lagoon’s islands.

From market women selling groceries to those selling traditional herbs and other ritualistic artifacts.

From photographing farm life and animal husbandry to photographing the final edible products.

From interviewing roaming tailors to visiting rows of tailors. From community-based outreach forums held under the shade of trees to my annual visit with my kids at Mercy Orphanage.

This time around, I focused on the diverse faces of various Nigerians with tons of close up portraits. With a country that’s home to over 250 tribes and a population of 150 million, our spectrum of facial features makes Nigeria quite the melting pot in West Africa.

More soon including my summary of the World Diversity Leadership Summit (WDLS) in Vienna where I moderated a panel.