I took a walk through the old walled city of Chiang Mai, Thailand this morning just after sunrise. The place is littered with temples but many are tucked away — out of view from the street. Walking was the perfect way to stumble across these jewels. The shot above is of Wat Tung Yu.
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The busy schedule of the last few days has left me with little time to post but I thought I’d share a couple of yesterday’s portraits of the Hmong people in highlands of the Mae Rim District of Chiang Mai, Thailand.
I’m in Bangkok, Thailand, tonight with my first solid internet connection so I thought I’d share a shot from Dubai taken this morning. It’s the Burj Khalifa (formerly the Burj Dubai) — the tallest building in the world. Note to my mother: the observation deck is still closed so, no, I didn’t get to go up.
There will be more Dubai shots later, including the spice and gold markets in the older part of town but how can I mention Dubai and not show this building. The growth in Dubai has been explosive but what makes it special to me is the attention to design. They aren’t just throwing up tower blocks as fast as they can, they are creating one of the most unique skylines in the world, using some the most creative architecture I’ve ever seen. This is the future world that we were promised in sci-fi movies. I almost expected to see people zipping around in their personal jetpacks.
Anyway, more later. I have a 4:30 wake-up call for tomorrow morning to catch my 5th flight of 12 on this trip. I’ll be in Chiang Mai for the next few days and will post as possible. More images will follow once I’m home and can do some proper processing.
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Since I’ll be on the road for the next couple of weeks, and my ability to post may be hindered, I hated to leave you staring at a photo of my feet. Instead, I’ll leave you with the first sign of Spring in our backyard — the Witch Hazels that we planted last summer are blooming.
See you all soon!
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My travel schedule is just about to shift into high gear. I leave for Thailand in a few hours with a short stop in Dubai along the way. I’ve been busily making preparations for weeks: getting photography permits, researching locations, etc., etc. But it’s the air travel that will define a large portion of this trip. In just over two weeks, I’ll have a dozen flights. Everything has been booked and a few days ago I logged in to the airline websites to check my seat assignments.
This is where the real strategy begins. I have a couple of long, overnight flights — around 13 hours each — and seating decisions can make the difference between arriving rested or arriving cramped and in a sleep-deprived haze. Being able to make seat selections online is great. Airlines’ sites are getting better and there are sites like SeatGuru that give all kinds of information by airline and plane type regarding location of power outlets, seats with extra legroom, less under-seat storage, etc. It’s great. Almost too great because now your seat assignment is your decision and not something you have to leave up to the fates and the person behind the gate counter.
So back to those long flights. Here’s the conundrum: window seat (where you can lean on the side of the plane to sleep but you’re trapped by your seat mate if you need to get up), aisle seat (where you have elbow room on one side and easy access to move around whenever you want but you have to constantly let your seat mate out), or the dreaded middle seats (where you can be pinned in on each side by your fellow flyers — no space and no freedom of movement).
Then you have to think about the other empty seats. Do you take a window seat in a two-seat row in hopes that no one will take the seat next to you so that you can spread out a little? Or do you take the bigger risk of going for an empty 5-seat center section? You run the risk of other seats filling after you book and being stuck shoulder to shoulder but — if you can pull it off — you can flip up all the armrests and practically have a bed to sleep in (albeit a bed with seatbelt buckles that like to find the small of your back in the middle of the night). This is the holy grail of economy class long distance flight but it doesn’t come easy. Others will spot you in-flight and you may need to protect your turf. After all, who are YOU to get 5 seats all to yourself? Feigning a drooling sleep will ward them off for a while but beware when you sit up to eat or make a bathroom run. It’s every man for himself.
I’ve gone with a hybrid strategy. Traveling to Thailand, I’ll stop in Dubai for two nights so I’ll arrive in Dubai in the evening and can get a good night’s sleep. Arriving in Bangkok two evenings later, I’ll get another good night’s sleep. Since sleeping on the plane won’t be so critical, I’m going for a window seat in a two seat row — currently there’s an empty seat beside me. Hopefully I’ll get to spread out a little and maybe I’ll be able to get a shot or two of the palm islands upon approach to Dubai (I made sure I wasn’t seated over the wing).
Flying home, I’ll have about 27 hours of nearly-continuous flying time in four legs with brief connections. I’ll want to sleep on this one so I’m taking a gamble on a 5-seat center section. I took the aisle so that, if it fills up, I’ll still have elbow room on one side but maybe I’ll get lucky and get the whole row. That would be pretty sweet.
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Sorry. Bad pun. I’m posting a couple of photos from Chile today since there’s been so much in the news since the earthquake last week. The shot above is from Valparaiso, on the coast west of Santiago. It and the following shot are from a trip I took to Chile a couple of years ago. If you want to see coverage post-earthquake, check out The Boston Globe’s Big Picture here and here. The following shot is of a more modern side of Chile in the bustling capital city of Santiago.
Chile has also lately been appearing on television in the Amazing Race 16. This show is a guilty pleasure of mine as I love to see the contestants panic when thrown into the various situations that so often come with travel. I had to laugh when the cowboys changed their money for “Brazilian” when they heard they would be flying to Santiago. Obviously, that didn’t work out so well for them upon arrival in Chile, but they’ve been doing much better ever since.
Valparaiso was also the scene of a challenge when team members had to “wire walk” across a deep valley in that very hilly city. I knew exactly where this challenge took place and can say that I would not have wanted to participate myself. In fact, there are few of the challenges that I would want to participate in but I would love to be on the crew of this show and travel to all of the exotic destinations. Maybe be the camera guy that travels with the host, Phil. I imagine they get to stay and eat in the nicer places.
If you haven’t seen the show, check it out this Sunday. I think the cowboys might take the million dollars this year.
Oh, and back to my pun… it IS getting warmer. Finally! The last couple of days it has reached the 60s after three months of deep freeze temps and repeated ice and snow storms. There’s still ice in some areas of our yard but it shouldn’t last long now. I’ll be leaving in a week for even warmer temperatures but more on that later.
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I had thought about a catchy title for this post like “shooting dead relatives” but decided that it might get me some strange Google hits.
Winter grinds on in these parts and I haven’t had any travel for the last few months. Instead I’ve been getting caught up on indoor work that includes updating my files with stock agencies, organizing the chaos that developed over the course of the last year in my office and doing lots of tabletop studio shoots. I don’t do a lot of studio work but I do have a few clients that need the occasional product shot. This past couple of weeks I’ve been shooting a lot of architectural glass and mirror samples. While I had the small studio area set up for this, I decided to copy some old family photos.
Some of these photos appear to be daguerrotypes. These images are tricky to photograph because they have a mirror-like surface and at most viewing angles they actually appear as a negative — almost like an etched piece of silver.
To see the image properly, you have to look straight-on so that something dark is reflected on the surface. Reflections of any other kind would be a big problem when re-photographing these portraits so I built a box out of foam core. The bottom was a piece of black foam core so that it doesn’t reflect onto the lower portion of the daguerrotype. The sides and back were white to bounce as much light around as possible and I draped a piece of thin foam packing material over the top to soften and distribute the light that came into the box. That light came from two hot lights that I had shooting up at the ceiling and bouncing down into the box.
To eliminate reflection from the surface of the image, I draped a piece of matte black cloth from a background stand across the front of the box. Think of the box as a puppet theater and the black cloth is the front curtain. I could stick the lens of my camera through the curtain and let the cloth drape over the lens to block any reflection from the markings on the camera itself. I used my Nikon D300 and a Nikkor 60mm macro lens to be able to get the close focus that I needed.
The system worked pretty well but there is some pitting in the surface of the glass covering the portraits that was accentuated in the copies. For the tighter shots that I made, where the frames are cropped out, I’ll need to do some significant spotting in Photoshop. I like the wider shots warts-and-all, though. The wear on the cases and the pitting of the glass show the age of these images which were likely made between 1840 and 1860.
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It’s a shot I took of some monks at Haeinsa Temple in South Korea. The temple stay program there is featured as one of Rough Guides’ 1000 must-do experiences. It’s an interesting book with tons of ideas for adventurous travel. Some of them I’ve already experienced but so many more of them I have not. So much to do, so little time. Anyway, I thought it was interesting that this particular usage would pop up just as I was having thoughts of making the most of my own time on earth.
I’ve been busy planning upcoming trips and trying to get my stock files fed at various agencies. Good work to do when it’s cold and snowy out. More on the upcoming travel plans later but, for any cat people out there, I’ll leave you with an update on our broken-legged cat. You may remember that Caper fell from an upstairs bannister and broke his leg around Thanksgiving. After two surgeries and weeks of seclusion in a room emptied of anything he might jump on, Caper has finally been cleared to resume all cat duties. He’s still hesitant to make the big jumps but he’s getting around really well. Here he’s enjoying watching the snow fall:
I had brought the camera to the living room window to shoot the snow-covered redbud tree in the front yard. As I was framing the shot, an SUV came sliding down the street, out of control. I instinctively tracked the car’s path with my Nikon and fired off a burst of shots just as it slammed into the neighbor’s mailbox across the street. The driver then left without so much as a “sorry ’bout that”. I jotted down the license number as they drove away and reported the incident to our local police, following up with an email that included the series of photos along with one enlargement of the car’s plates. Needless to say, the neighbors were quite pleased.
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Winding up my review of the the past decade…
My first trip of 2009 was to Egypt — a few days in Cairo, a flight to Abu Simbel and then a Nile cruise from Aswan to Luxor. Egypt is one of those places I had wanted to go to since childhood. I was a kid when they were moving the temples at Abu Simbel to get them above the rising waters of the Aswan dam. The King Tut treasures always seemed to be in the news as well. I remember making drawings of that golden mask over and over again.
Sometimes places live up to our childhood imagination and sometimes they don’t. Cairo was a lot to take in at first. Big and bustling. The pyramids were astounding but hard to really experience amidst all the tourists and people selling everything from postcards to camel rides. Access to the Sphinx was very limited, allowing only a few angles for photography. If I were visiting as a tourist, I’m sure I would have had a very different experience but, as a photographer, I found it difficult.
Once I was out of the city, the Egypt of my childhood imagination reappeared. Crowds were fewer or gone altogether and the monumental temples and sculptures were more accessible. It was easier to lose yourself in the place. If I were to give anyone planning a trip to Egypt some advice, I’d say to check Cairo and the pyramids out, but be sure to visit some sites further afield. For me, that’s where the magic was. Again, I’ve posted on this Egypt trip before so enter “Egypt” in the search at the top right for more.
I had a couple of opportunities to get out on the Nile in felucca boats. But it was the temple architecture that really caught hold of me.
Oh, and that hot air balloon ride was a highlight, too. That was near the Valley of the Kings across the Nile from Luxor. Walking down into the tombs in the Valley of the Kings and seeing the wall paintings still bright with their original color was something else. That was definitely another crowded spot, though. We were granted special permission for interior photography, then it was quickly taken away when tourists saw us and starting snapping away themselves. But temples like the one below in Dendarra were almost deserted. You could walk around and feel like you were discovering it for yourself (although someone had come along before you to install some fluorescent lighting).
I must have been making up for the cold weather of Banff the year before but 2009 was mostly hot destinations. My last international trip of ‘09 was to Mexico — Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara.
I’m not a hot weather guy and it was HOT. Beautiful and hot, but hot. Steamy, too. I would walk out of my hotel room and find a chair where I could sit for the 15 or 20 minutes that it would take for my lenses to clear up.
On my last day in Guadalajara, a friend had asked me if I would like to accompany her to some restoration shops run by the local car club members. Shiny objects are always of interest and vintage shiny object especially so. To make things even better, one of the car club guys picked us up in a restored 1941 Packard convertible. We were rollin’ Guadalajara in style.
But you know the grungy parts of the shops were my favorite:
Thanks for tagging along as I’ve meandered the backroads of my last 10 years as a travel photographer. It’s been fun for me. I’ve learned a lot by looking at where I was in 2000 and where I am now. In some ways I feel I’ve improved. There are also some things that I think I used to do better. In the early years I was much more in control over where I went and what I shot. As I started making a conscious effort to build my international stock, I started looking for opportunities to travel affordably and then worked out a plan from there. I needed to shoot a little of everything so I would go anywhere. Now I’m beginning to feel like I’ve covered a lot of bases. I have stock from North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. I’ve begun working with more agencies so that I can focus more on shooting and less on marketing and sales. When I sold directly, I had to be more focused and niche oriented. Now I can put just a few images of a place with an agency and they will still be found by buyers. I don’t have to be “the Egypt guy” to sell an Egypt photo.
I’m now reaching the point where I feel I would benefit from becoming more focused again. I want to start planning trips that are of particular interest to me rather than taking whatever comes along and seeing what I can make of it. I want to develop some themes and explore them more deeply. It’s a little bit about slowing down, but it’s also about being more productive. It will be a steady transition — I already have multiple international trips lined up for the next two years — but it’s something I want to start working toward.
One more thing I’ve learned from researching these last 10 posts is that I want to look back at every year and wonder how I managed to get so much done. I don’t want to look back at a year of my life and wonder what I did with it. We don’t get many years and we need to make each one count.
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Continuing my review of the the past decade…
More adventures in Canada in early 2008. This time it was a winter trip to Banff and Jasper in the Canadian Rockies. I had visited this area briefly in 2000 on my way to Vancouver. It had been in the spring of that year and a completely different experience. This is grand country but I think it shows itself best in the winter. Still, I’d like to go back in the summer to see the green waters of Lake Louise.
Snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, hiking on frozen lakes — I added a whole repertoire of ways I’ve traveled to get a shot. Perhaps my favorite part of this trip was a moonlit hike up the Maligne Canyon. You strap some steel spikes onto the soles of your boots and start walking up a frozen river at night while the canyon walls climb around you and stars shine in the narrow streak of sky above. At frozen waterfalls, your guide can shine his powerful flashlight behind the ice to illuminate the intense blue and green colors. Slippery, cold and dark… but a great experience.
2008 was another extremely busy year in terms of domestic travel. Michigan, Kentucky, Arkansas, Colorado, New Mexico and more. All while buying a new house and moving. It was a crazy year. I remember spending election night in a cabin in the woods in Arkansas and going down the mountain to check email at the nearest wifi hotspot. I had received a last-minute invitation to go to China in less than two weeks. I needed to send my passport in for my visa and luckily I had it with me. The next day was filled with driving back and forth across Arkansas visiting various Post Offices in different towns trying to find where I could get additional passport photos taken and get my package over-nighted to Chicago. No one Post Office seemed to be able to do both of these things but by splitting the chore between two (I believe in Harrison and Fayetteville), it got done. Ten days later, I was in Shanghai.
I’ve posted about the China trip on this blog before — you can enter “China” into the search box at top-right to find more. The trip started in Shanghai and then went up the Yangtze to several water towns with historic districts built on canals. The colors were phenomenal.
Those last two shots were from an open-air performance in Zhouzhuang. It was spectacular.
The architecture was also fun to shoot. Pagodas were everywhere, including the world’s tallest in Changzhou that had opened just a year before. Over 500 feet tall, it appears through the glow of the morning sun in this shot on the left:
The pagoda on the right is from Zhouzhuang. I hope to return to China again soon. It’s a big country and there are so many more things I want to see. But that’s the way it is with the whole world, isn’t it? So many things to see, so little time. I’ll continue to do my best to see and photograph as much of it as possible, for as long as possible.
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