Gobi Desert, Mongolia, 2012. A quick hello from Ulaan Bator, Mongolia. We’ve just come in out of the dust and heat after 8 days off-road in the Gobi Desert. What an adventure! We spent time photographing sand dunes and horse races, the so-called White Stupa cliffs, and miles and miles of desert, horses, goats, and Mongolians. We’ve slept in some …
Packed: Mongolia
I’m flying to Mongolia tonight. I have two carry-ons; a Kiboko bag and a Think Tank Retro 30. And I have one checked piece, my dented but beloved Rimowa Topaz. For the curious, here’s what I’m packing. And man am I happy to be going in the summer! Last time it was February and much colder than this Canuck likes. …
Vancouver Island
Emily in the mud. Vancouver Island. Click to enlarge. What an amazing weekend. It was Canada Day weekend here, north of the 49th parallel, and I celebrated with friends by driving 600 km up Vancouver Island, through old growth forests, logging roads, mud puddles, and coastal views. I went as the new guy on the block, signing up for membership …
Make It Happen
My mother was an officer in the Royal Air Force, a nurse who trained at Florence Nightingale’s St. Thomas’s Hospital in London. She met my father in Cyprus. She’s where I get at least 50% of my wanderlust. This weekend we were wandering around Coal Harbour, in Vancouver, when I made an off-the-cuff comment about jumping on a float plane. …
Objects of Beauty, 8.
Tara, Bronze. Kathmandu, Nepal. This is Tara, the goddess of compassion. She sits on my dresser in Vancouver, but I found her in a little dusty shop in Kathmandu, and fell in love with her form, serenity and sensual lines. I carefully packaged her up and put her into my duffel and gave her no further thought until she was …
Objects of Beauty, 7.
Saddleback Leather Satchel, Hasselblad 500 C/M This satchel is made by Saddleback Leather (they call it a briefcase, but I so seldom carry briefs in it…). The leather is so thick it weighs almost 7lbs empty. I rarely use it for my international travel but for weekend trips and day-to-day use, this bags carried my laptop, notebooks, assorted cameras, pens, …
Beautiful Objects, 6
Glasses, Oaxaca, Mexico. Port Charlotte, PC7 Single Malt Whisky. The Scotch whisky is a beautiful thing all it’s own. It’s from Islay, the only island from which I’ll drink, or at least enjoy, the whisky. I like it peaty. If it doesn’t taste like someone threw a little dirt into my class, I don’t want it. This one’s distilled and …
Unplugged.
Fog. Hurley River Rd towards Gold Bridge, BC. I spent the last 3 days almost completely unplugged. We left early Wednesday morning and drove towards Whistler, then took a random forest service road to see where it would take us. It took us, it turns out, 8 miles up and then put us into 3 feet of slushy snow from …
Objects of Beauty, 5.
Nikon D3s, Zeiss 50/1.4. Gitzo Ocean Traveler tripod. Heading off this morning with Emily (my Jeep) and my buddy Corwin for 3 days of adventure, working our way around some logging roads and offroad trails, basically looking to get into trouble, find something scenic to photograph, and unplug from the matrix. In the back, somewhere, will be a scarred Gitzo …
Objects of Beauty, 4.
This is a rungu, an African war club, traditionally made of olive or acacia wood. It was given me by my village, Ongeli, in northern Kenya, but to get the full meaning of it, and therefore it’s full beauty, I need to tell the story. I was in northern Kenya on assignment for the BOMA Project, making portraits of people …