(MAY 25, 2002) -- I've been back for more than a week now, and my internal clock is almost back on California time. Almost. Today I started editing the more than 2,500 images I shot in Bucharest over ten days. Of course we published the web site live each day, but that was on-the-scene picture editing versus sitting down now, removed from the story, and editing the images into a larger photo essay. That's going to take several weeks, I think, because I keep drifting off into memories several times per editing session. As long as I get it finished by the end of this summer, that's fine. I haven't been home one night yet without dreaming some kind of dream either about the children or about being in the hospital in Bucharest. I was profoundly touched by the entire experience.

Roxana, 2 (above, right) was a regular little chatterbox on the day after her surgery. She seemed happy; she was even happy to see me! She kept saying something in Romanian that made all the nurses laugh. I asked for a translation. Roxana was asking for a "hammer." Did she want to hit me? I don't think so. I think (hope) she wanted to play. I fell deeply in love with this child in just a matter of minutes. All the children were special, each and every one. But Roxana reached out to my heart in a way that was surprising to me. If it were possible, I would have brought her home. The only thing that made it any easier to say goodbye to this child was to see how very deeply her mother and father love and care for this baby. That, and knowing that I will someday see her again, if not this year then next year. Yes, I'm going back, one way or another.

It goes without saying that it is always a pleasure to spend time with my NMNP.org partner, Fritz Nordengren, and to actually spend "face time" with him on location and working together in person. We usually work together every day on the phone, eMail, online chat, faxes, "virtually," but to be able to be in the same place with him for almost two weeks is a rare opportunity. The last time we got to spend this much time working together was in Detroit, for the Soup Kitchen, and in Atlanta for Friendship Force. So this chance to shoot and write together in a foreign country was great. He's going to spend most of this summer living out of a suitcase, in South Africa, London, Manchester and southeastern UK, and then off to Norway. So this kick-off in Romania was just the beginning of his working summer vacation. We're also planning on going to Cuba together in October on a project, and I'm looking forward to working with him again. But by October, he may be all traveled out.

And the college intern we brought with us, Alyssa Cwanger, made some great photographs too, and it really helped the "Flight For Life" web site to have her working along with us. Two sets of eyes are always better than one, and she's a very different photographer than I am. Also, it was great that some of the mothers were totally at ease around Alyssa and she was able to make some really intimate photographs without it being uncomfortable for the mothers (like the image of Robica nursing her recovering child in ICU, one day after the baby's open heart surgery).

What I pulled out tonight for this page are just a few of the images that I have of myself from the trip, like this one with Roxana, who stole my heart, and a couple of quick examples to give an idea of what it was like to be there and to see it all through a lens. My thanks to a very special Romanian and American medical team for giving me the kind of access to a story that photojournalists seldom get these days. Dr. Russo: thank you so much. What you've given me is a unique opportunity to tell the story of a modern day children's heart surgeon in a way that American readers haven't seen before. My intent is to spend this Summer editing this story into a really comprehensive presentation, and maybe show it for the first time next Fall when I speak at a photojournalism conference in Southern California.

I have to say that this story would not have been possible for me without using the Nikon digital cameras, the new D1X from Nikon Professional Services, and Lexar media memory cards. There is no way I could have shot this many images if I'd been confined to film and the processing and production budget that comes with film. But more than that, I don't think film would come anywhere close to handling the huge range of light that we faced from room to room, from moment to moment, from in surgery to in a hallway to in a patient room, from tungsten light to florescent light to daylight. And in surgery, it was mixed tungsten and daylight with the operating table overhead lights about five stops brighter than the surrounding table. A real lighting nightmare. The digital camera blew me away for skin tones, and for the really broad latitude of colors. And also the ability to shoot really, really slow exposures and have them still be tack sharp, something I've not experienced with previous versions of the digital cameras. Also, the option of being able to look at the last series of images on the camera's monitor, or on the Apple G4 Titanium laptop, and to go back into the story and try something again if it didn't work before, is only possible on the digital cameras. No more getting home and seeing film back from the lab two weeks later to discover that the moment was missed or the exposure was wrong.

Probably the best example of what it was really like to be there each day on location is a story on the web site that was done on the third day of surgery, titled "Rebecca." The photographs that were published on that day are a brief edit of what I'm now working on in a longer version. I'd like to make the "Rebecca" essay part of a greater extended photo story, a story of a children's heart surgeon that has several chapters about individual babies. So there's lots of editing to be done. But for now, here's a taste of what things looked like for a few great days in Bucharest.