On our first full day in Tokyo we were learning our way around the city, visiting different neighborhoods. Riding the subway we met a lovely gentleman who was a retired math teacher and really great at origami. He happily put on a little bit of a show for us by creating an origami goldfish. Origami…
Author: Anata
Traveling to Tokyo
We arrived in Tokyo yesterday evening after an amazing flight aboard the new 787 Dreamliner. What a beautiful airplane, it was noticeably smoother and quieter than any jet we’ve previously flown in. One of the coolest things were the new polarizing window shades. Instead of those pull down window shades we are all so familiar…
Kyrgyzstan Nomads
I previously wrote about our experience at a Nomad Kyrgyzstan Yurt camp. A remarkable experience, recommended if you ever get the chance. Here is another photo I wanted to share that shows the vastness of the high altitude Central Asian Steppe near the Chinese border. Yurt Camp, Kyrgyzstan Steppe.
Past Meets Present in Uzbekistan
Travel to Uzbekistan and you will be hard pressed to experience a land and people with as deep a history so close to the surface. The people of Uzbekistan are friendly and beautiful. During our Silk Road trek, we crossed Uzbek desert and steppe overland because we wanted to see it all. From the viewpoint…
Beautiful Uighur Photo Essay
Photographer Wang Qing has produced a wondrous photo essay of Uighur spiritual practices in the Xinjiang Provence of Western China. Thank you to the terrific blog of Tewfic El-Sawy for this.
African Elephant
Yesterday I was pining for the days of black and white photography. This is probably because I’ve been looking at all the new mirrorless cameras being released which got me thinking about monochrome rangefinder photography. While I don’t miss mixing chemicals or the smell of stop bath I do miss the emphasis monochrome places on…
Friendly Bukhara
I met this lovely young lady while visiting the remarkable Samanid Mausoleum in Bukhara. When she saw me jotting down notes and taking photographs she approached me in that wonderful way children often do. She spoke excellent english and asked question after question from an intelligent curious mind. A while later she took me around…
Song-Kol Lake
This is a black and white conversion of horses grazing at Song-Kol Lake in Kyrgyzstan. It was early on a bitterly cold morning. We had spent the night in a yurt and were headed further into the mountains on our overland passage to China. The sun had just come up to illuminate the distant mountains…
Zeiss Contest Entry
Tomorrow is the deadline for the 2012 Zeiss Photo contest and I have selected this photograph as my entry. I captured this image in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem over the holidays. A lengthly line had formed at the tomb of Jesus and I noticed a candle off to one side. A…
Emperors and Concubines
While we know it today for it’s magnificent blue and white porcelain, the Ming Dynasty is credited with closing off China from the rest of the world, putting an end to over a thousand years of cultural and economic exchange along the Silk Road. It was the Ming Emperor Zhu Di who moved the capital to…