On the Hawaiian forest floor
Before I was mesmerized by the Rainbow Eucalyptus trees at the Keahua Arboretum in Wailua’s highlands, I walked through the forest paths to get a feel for the area. There was one spot near the stream that divides the park where Hibiscus blossoms were spread across the ground below the trees they had fallen from. This flower was tucked into a curve in a tree root. With the humidity, I don’t know whether the flower had just fallen or had been on the ground for a few days. Either way it was beautiful and fun to photograph.
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Hawaiian Landscapes: Sunset in Hanalei
As a good friend said while writing me birthday wishes today, I’m a lucky duck. We landed in Kauai last night so I was able to spend my birthday touring the island’s eastern and northern areas. It was a great day in the forests, on the beach and in the water with my family. I started the day making abstract images of wet leaves with my son and finished the day photographing in the Taro (Kalo) fields in the Hanalei Valley with my dad – both very special moments. A wonderful day for a fortunate web-footed broad-billed bird like me. Thank you for all of the very kind messages and warm wishes.
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Ox carts in Bagan
Last year when I was traveling in Myanmar we spent several days on the plains of Bagan. The dry season had a firm grip on the land and the fields and dirt roads erupted dust trails with any traffic passing through. These clouds of dust drew our attention to a small village where we talked with several of the farmers and cart drivers.
In the afternoon, the light was warm and there were nice images available with a nod or a smile from one of the villagers serving as approval to click the shutter.
At the suggestion of one of the farmers, we agreed to meet them in the early evening at one of the nearby fields that spread out from an impressive temple ruin.
This last image came as the ox teams were heading back to their homes. The grandpa and grandson took turns looking back as the rising dirt kicked up by hoof and wheel wrapped the carts and rose upwards.
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Canadian Rockies Landscapes: Sunrise in the Tonquin Valley
Being able to spend three nights in the Tonquin Valley allowed three chances to have great light in the morning. The landscape around the valley is honestly spectacular in every direction. The Ramparts, an iconic chain of peaks that string together the length of the valley, rise sharply up from the western shoreline of Amethyst Lake while there is a band of forested hills separating the shore from the sharp ridges that form the eastern edge of the valley.
The rocks, water, mountains and snow can be combined beautifully when photographing in the valley during the day with imagination being the only limitation during the daylight hours. However, adding in dramatic light when the clouds decide to play along provides a magical element to work with in the images. For two of the three mornings I was in the valley, there were moments where the sunlight crept under the blanket of clouds and the pinks and reds of the early morning shone through.
An incredible place to spend some time.
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Watery Reflections of South Carolina
Ran across some beautiful, warm evening light when I was in North Myrtle Beach a few days ago. I was walking on the boardwalk around Prices Swamp Run and the reflections in the rippling water were beautiful.
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Myrtle Beach: Nighttime over the Intracoastal Waterway
I was in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for a few days last week. Great weather and very good golf courses. The area is bounded by the ocean and the land off the water has been recovered from swamp. I had a good vantage point of a major canal, the Intracoastal Waterway, that is about a mile back from the beach and runs parallel to the ocean for a very long stretch. At night, the sodium vapour lights provided most of the illumination and when mixed with stray Christmas lights and other types of lighting made for some interesting landscapes.
This boat, The Barefoot Princess 5, looked like a half-hearted re-creation of an old sternwheeler – without the wheel. Designed for sightseeing, it has maximum seating but at the expense of a bit of character. At night though it looked very nice with its blue lights and the street lights streaming through the decks.
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Mandalay: an afternoon in a street market
Throughout Asia, markets are a big part of daily life in a way very different from our malls. I romanticize them a bit when I’m touring through my memories of trips to and living in Thailand, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Myanmar. However, every time I return, I head straight for the nearest night market, food bazaar, or whatever to get a feel for the place and the people. Just about a year ago, I was in Mandalay in central Myanmar and in a bid to escape the afternoon heat, I lingered in this corridor set off to the side of a very large market in the city.
Just a really cool spot to spend a couple of hours. The kids were a ton of fun but pretty elusive – they welcomed me to take their picture but weren’t interested in staying still for even a fraction of a second. No worries, we shared some laughs and I had some really good tea from the lady with the pink food (but I didn’t give that one a try).
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Inle Lake Fishermen in National Geographic Traveler Magazine
I just received the latest issue of the National Geographic Traveler magazine and was excited to see one of my photographs and a short essay on the back page.
Short story behind the publication: Kathie Gartrell, Managing Editor – Interactive, at Traveler had contacted me in October asking me to send in a caption to accompany an image that I had submitted to the My Shot section of the National Geographic website. She said that they were considering it as a photo of the week on the Traveler website. I was very excited and I submitted a brief essay right away. Then at the end of October, I received an email from Ben Fitch, a Photo Intern at Traveler. He told me that they had just finished the layout for the January/February issue and they needed a higher resolution of the image. The photo did run as a photo of the week in November. And has been printed in the current issue of Traveler. Not sure how it went from a possible photo of the week to a full page image and text in the magazine but I’m certainly very happy. Although I haven’t met Kathie or Ben, I would like to thank them for the help they had in publishing this image.
Here is a scan of the page from the magazine with the picture.
Now I’ve set my sights on being sent by National Geographic to photograph a story somewhere in this wonderful, crazy world.
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Saturday Morning Monks
Up early with the kids this morning and I had a little time to revisit some photographs I made of some monks inside a weathered temple in Bagan.
I like how the monotone changes neutralize the dominance of the colourful robes and put different emphasis on part of the image.
(as always, click on the photograph to see a larger version)
I remember it was about 38° C outside but with the thick stone walls of the building, inside it was much cooler aided by a soft breeze (which you can “see” if you look at the blur in the robes of the rightmost monk).
These files were converted into a duotone of silver and dark grey using Adobe Lightroom’s split toning feature.
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Shortlisted Images for the Travel Photographer of the Year Competition
The Travel Photographer of the Year awards have announced their shortlist and I have images in the hunt across three categories. The TPOTY is a major competition out of the UK so it is pretty exciting to have some of my work recognized to this stage.
The image of the monks on the bridge at sunset in Amarapura in Myanmar is one of three images that are in the running for the single shot category. The nuns at prayer and the lone fisherman are the other images that have been shortlisted in this category.
The following four images are finalists for the World in Motion portfolio category.
The last set is a really fun category to be shortlisted in. It is the New Talent category. The portfolio I entered was for Bagan in central Myanmar. The objective was to sell a location, a journey or an idea. From the TPOTY website: “Tell the story of a place, a destination, an experience, a journey, even a travel commodity, but sell it to us. Make us want to experience it. This category is for photographers looking to start a career in photography. Your images should give the judges a real sense of the place or travel experience and entice them too. This is your travel advert.” I tried to share the wonder of Bagan across the four images. It was an interesting exercise to cull through all of the photographs I made in Bagan and select four that provided a window into the people and the land.
With this competition’s international profile, there are many very high quality entries so it is exciting to have a range of work reach the final round. The winning images will be announced in the next couple of weeks so we’ll see what happens.
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Flight Lines
I was up in the North-East of Calgary a couple of days ago during the tail-end of the cold snap. At one of my stops, I realized I was in the flight path of planes landing at the Calgary International Airport. I found an interesting set of lines to frame a plane and then waited in the frigid air for 10 minutes for another plane to pass overhead. I like the result of this simple composition.
Here is the alley sans plane.
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National Geographic – Travel Photo of the Week
One of my photographs of the fishermen of Inle Lake in Myanmar has been selected as the travel photo of the week on the National Geographic website. Here is the link.
[click for a larger image]
That’s pretty cool – now if I could just angle for an assignment from the yellow border.
