I've been thinking a lot about fear; how it can be paralyzing and restrictive, but also life-saving in certain circumstances. From an evolutionary standpoint I enjoy contemplating the massive impact that fear has had on our ability to survive as a species. Without fear causing us to flee dangerous situations, or to be especially alert when we hear a strange noise behind us, we as individuals would have undoubtedly died way more often, possibly to the point of extinction. It could be a bear, or simply a pinecone falling. The fear response happens either way. The tricky part is that, in these modern times, where imminent death has lessened significantly, fear can hold us back. Our ancient brains have a hard time discerning life-threatening danger from social, financial and career type risks. The feeling of fear is the same, even if the risk is less. As I'm considering life, and what my future might look like, this subtle fear keeps arising within me and I haven't quite put my finger on what exactly is triggering it. Either way, I'm trying to learn from it as much as possible, and while I appreciate its protective role, I sense that it will remain with me until I simply jump.
"Many of our fears are tissue-paper-thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them." -Brendan Francis Behan
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In the spirit of absolute transparency, I'm not 100% sure that I took this photo. You're probably confused, so let me clarify: you may recall that my drone malfunctioned in Indonesia and ended up in the ocean, never to be seen again. A very sad day. But there was still another couple days of the photography workshop left, so when the group visited the seaweed farms, which was a great opportunity to get some aerial shots, the group leader, Jord Hammond, graciously let me borrow his drone so I could participate in the fun. The thing is, we both used the same memory card, and because so many of the photos each of us took ended up so similar (because we were both shooting in the same area, with the same workers, the same boats, etc.), it was difficult to discern which photo was taken by which person. But I loved the photo so much that I decided not to stress about it and got to work editing it. I hope you like it either way.
"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom." -Thomas Jefferson As a finance nerd, while traveling abroad I often think about money and the ways in which different cultures handle it. I'm generalizing obviously, but in the west, we have grown into a very individualistic society in which it's basically every man, women or household for themselves. And because there is not a lot of teamwork, even amongst family, it has forced the need for everyone to amass as much wealth as possible to pay for their needs whenever they retire. Now, I am far from a cultural expert, and would love for someone with more knowledge to weigh-in, but I sense this western approach to money far less in other societies. I imagine there is still a desire to amass wealth, as wealth creates options and freedom in any culture, but the entire format seems different. I'm not sure if this applies to all socioeconomic levels, but it seems that instead of every person or household having to amass as much money as possible to retire on, instead they share the financial burden generationally. Meaning, the parents work for as long as they can, raise their children who eventually enter the workforce - increasing the family income. Then, when the parents eventually retire, their children (now adults) continue to work and (here's the biggest difference), continue to provide for their parents. Meanwhile, the grandparents would look after their grandchildren, who eventually enter the workforce themselves and provide for the family. So on and so forth. And it seems to me that this is how humans survived our entire existence; family and teamwork. As I said, I would love for someone with more knowledge or experience to weigh-in, or correct me if I'm off on anything.
"In Mediterranean and Latin cultures [...] it's commonplace for multiple generations to live under one roof, sharing a home and all the duties that come with maintaining one. In the contemporary iteration of this living arrangement, the oldest generation often is relied on to assist with caring for the youngest, while the breadwinners labor outside the home. As such, the aged remain thoroughly integrated well into their last days." -Karina Martinez-Carter I recently heard a stranger say to their friend something along the lines of "we love the ocean because that was our home for millions of years." Now, I am clearly in no position to confirm or deny the science behind that statement, but the sentiment and image it instilled in my mind was profound. I'm fairly certain that all of us have stood on the edge of the water and felt the enormous energy and power and healing that the ocean effortlessly forces upon us. It's addicting, in a way. Many can't live without it. And I can't help but wonder if small parts of our DNA do actually remember that it was once our home and miss, crave and need it from time to time. As if our biology can't help but be drawn to this powerful place that we used to call home.
"We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch – we are going back from whence we came…" -John F. Kennedy While taking portraits of locals in Indonesia, I noticed the same response from multiple different people. After asking permission to take their photo in Indonesian, I would raise my camera to start photographing them. At which point most people would give a big smile, or toss up a peace sign, or take a drag from their cigarette. All of which was fun, but not the raw, natural shot I wanted. It was the shy ones, the people that were most uncomfortable around a camera, that would give me the shot I was looking for. Because after briefly attempting to pose for the camera, they were so shy that they would immediately just go back to their work, gaining comfort and protection from their job. It's hard to put into words, but each time I saw this happen, I got butterflies in my chest. It almost felt like a quick blast of human connection; like they finally let me into their world for a tiny moment. They were able to find their comfort in an uncomfortable moment, and I was lucky enough to witness it; a small glimpse of their humanness. And that's one thing that makes photography so amazing; the camera can create connection where without it there might not be one.
"The camera is an excuse to be someplace you otherwise don’t belong. It gives me both a point of connection and a point of separation." -Susan Meiselas You may recall that my drone malfunctioned in Indonesia and ended up in the ocean, never to be seen again. A very sad day, especially since there were still a couple days left of the photography workshop. It wasn't until we visited the seaweed farms that I started to miss my drone big time, as it was a great opportunity to snap some super unique aerial shots. I spent about an hour or so photographing the area with my handheld camera, which was still really fun, however, at one point our group leader, Jord Hammond, came up to me like a knight in shining armor and graciously offered to loan me his drone so that I could participate in the seaweed farming fun. It was a really kind gesture, and one I hope to be able to pay forward to someone else one day.
"Always give without remembering and always receive without forgetting." -Brian Tracy One of my favorite parts of visiting Indonesia was photographing the seaweed farmers. From what I observed, the seaweed is grown in shallow salt water, and when ready for harvest, the farmers would wade into the water, pluck the seaweed, fill large baskets and stack them on top of inner tubes for easy transport back to shore. Sometimes kayaks or canoes were used instead of inner tubes, depending on which type of seaweed was being harvested. Once back on land, the seaweed would go through various stripping, sorting, and drying processes, all done by hand. And all of which you will see in future photos.
"[Seaweed farming] has recently been thrust onto the global agenda as a coastal livelihood alternative that links economic growth both to food security and to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Seaweed, a marine algae, requires no fresh water or fertilizers to thrive, is fast-growing and nutrient-intense, and doesn't interfere with land-based systems. It has a number of end-uses, including carbon-dioxide removal via bio-sequestration." -Economist Impact In Bali, the weather conditions for photography were incredible, however on the 5th day it poured down rain all morning. This effected our sunrise plans, obviously, so we ended up having a lazy morning around the hotel and then went shooting in the afternoon once the rain stopped. This was the only day in which we didn't go to some jaw-dropping location where there were obvious photo opportunities everywhere we looked. Instead, we went to a pretty normal, rocky beach, and just poked around; having to search for photos. To be honest, this is similar to how I learned to photograph; finding beauty in relatively ordinary places, and something I still love doing. While I ended up finding some fun nature photos, for me what ended up being the highlight was the locals; this father and daughter in particular. Their energy was incredibly peaceful, and the constant physical contact between the two was heartwarming to witness.
"The more we learn about touch, the more we realize just how central it is in all aspects of our lives — cognitive, emotional, developmental, behavioral — from womb into old age. It's no surprise that a single touch can affect us in multiple, powerful ways." -Maria Konnikova I'm not sure if it's me, the culture I live in, or simply the world in general, but life can feel so chaotic and confusing at times. And this may sound strange, but when things get especially overwhelming or complicated, I find myself craving a code of ethics to live by. Like a list of principles, morals and core values to take a bit of the decision-making pressure off and to help guide my way when I'm having a hard time navigating on my own. In business I've been taught to create a vision and mission statement for this exact reason and I'm beginning to think that perhaps I should just create my own, as an individual. Do any of you have this sort of thing in your own lives? I'd be curious to hear more if you do.
"Let your thoughts be ruled by principle, and then live up to your thoughts." -Wallace D. Wattles Another fun aspect of attending the photography workshop that I attended in Bali is that the photographer leading the group, Jord Hammond, is fascinated with photographing people doing interesting work in unique settings. And he built this fascination into parts of the workshop. I'll be honest, this isn't something I had ever sought out before, but it became a little bit addicting by the end of the workshop. In this photo we went to a quarry and photographed men cutting down massive chunks of stone into smaller, more useful sizes. Debris and dust were in the air constantly, and the saws were almost unbearably loud; this definitely appeared to be an extremely tedious and dangerous job, especially without the use of even basic protective gear. Yet the men just kept on working tirelessly as we photographed the scene. A reminder of the intense service to society that is often done far behind the scenes.
"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence." -Martin Luther King, Jr. There's an aspect to photography that I really love, and that's that it allows me to test out basically any creative idea I have. For example, if I see something that I think might make a nice photo, but I'm not entirely sure, all I have to do is capture the moment, bring it up on my laptop and then decide whether it's worth editing at that point. If it's worth editing, and if I like the final result, I can share the photo with others or simply keep it to myself. If I don't like the photo, I can effortlessly push it out of my mind because I know I gave it a try. Either way, I love that I'm able to test the idea and proceed accordingly. It's clean and it's simple. I often wish more aspects of life could be tested so easily.
"I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed." -Garry Winogrand The people. When I'm asked what was the most memorable part of my adventures in Asia, the first thing that always comes to mind is the people. Until visiting Asia, I had never experienced cultures as warm, gentle and respectful as those I encountered while in Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. And hands down my favorite part was the respectful bow that can be exchanged as a greeting, as a goodbye and as a thank you. It's just bringing your hands to prayer and doing a subtle bend at the waist. Even to absolute strangers. I found it to be an incredibly warming gesture and, in my opinion, is a beautiful example of the hearts and souls of the people and of the culture.
"A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people." -Mahatma Gandhi After shooting the sunrise one morning in Bali, we noticed a nearby temple with some people milling about. We figured we'd stop by and ask permission to take photos of them and the temple. What we initially thought was a few people turned out to be a group of 20 or 30 men preparing for a ceremony. They graciously welcomed us inside and allowed us to photograph their multiple preparations. This man, while taking a break to enjoy a cigarette, had positioned himself in this intense stream of morning light. He kept himself partially in the shadow so the sun wouldn't shine directly into his eyes. And as you can see, it made for a pretty cool image. I find myself seeking duality in my photographs whenever possible; light and dark, clear and blurry, warm and cool, stuff like that. And this scene naturally gave me exactly what I wanted.
"Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography." -George Eastman I have no idea who this person is, but I really appreciate the extra dynamic they added to this photo. I actually think this represents a bit of a new style I've been enjoying since completing the photography workshop in Bali. You'll likely start seeing more subjects (people) in my photos in the future. Previously, I would patiently wait for people to leave the scene, so I could take a nature focused photo without anyone in it. But now I find myself doing the exact opposite by patiently waiting for subjects to enter the scene - I find it adds a bit of perspective and complexity to my photos. Subjects are not always available, obviously, and they do not always add to the photo, but I definitely learned how a properly positioned subject can add a whole new dimension to the photo. It feels like I've learned a new skill and I can't wait to master it.
"All of the top achievers I know are life-long learners. Looking for new skills, insights, and ideas. If they're not learning, they're not growing and not moving toward excellence." -Denis Waitley This photo was taken on day 3 of the photography workshop in Bali. We had incredible conditions the first two mornings but, I'm a little ashamed to admit, I sensed that our luck was about to run out on the 3rd day. As you can see, I was wrong. We woke up before sunrise and got to our location just as the sun was beginning to emerge from behind the volcano. The skies were clear and there was some fog in the distance - a solid start. To our delight, it just kept getting better as the sun started blasting long, thin rays of sunshine through the various clusters of trees. The photos from ground level were beautiful, but the real magic took place when we sent the drones into the sky. Even though I probably should have been more optimistic about my day 3 predictions, I was very happy to be proven wrong.
"Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed." -Alexander Pope I've already learned a few things in my brief foray into portrait photography; a little about photography and a little about life. One thing I've noticed that's especially interesting to me, is that while photographing someone else, it is extremely easy for me to respect, and even admire, the "imperfections" and signs of age that they wear on their face. They add so much character and portray a person's story, in a subtle way. Yet when I look in the mirror, and see these same changes in myself, it's with nowhere near the same level of admiration. And I don't think I'm alone in this. I'm not sure if it's a cultural thing, or a personal thing or a bit of both, but I think it's fair to say that I, and likely we, can be a bit more gentle with ourselves.
"You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection." -Sharon Salzberg If you followed my Instagram Story during my trip to Indonesia you likely saw that towards the end of the trip, my beloved drone went for an unplanned swim in the ocean off the island of Nusa Penida. I was standing on top of a massive ridge, probably 400 feet above sea level, with a gorgeous (accessible) beach on one side and a sketchy (inaccessible) cove on the other. I'll let you guess which side my drone fell into. Unfortunately, even though I had an almost full battery, the drone lost signal with the remote control and spiraled down, down, down. I was close enough to the drone that I didn't even have to use the screen on the remote control to navigate, I was watching with my own eyes. I flew it past where I was standing, and even gave it a little wave as it passed by. And as I turned to watch it go, that's right when it lost signal and began spiraling into the ocean. I'll be honest, it was a little traumatic and I couldn't quite believe it for a couple hours. It felt like a bad dream that I'd soon wake up from. But nope. There was nothing I could do to change it, so I had to just get over it. And before too long I did. And once I did, instead of being upset that I didn't have a drone for the last two days of the photography workshop, I became extremely grateful that it didn't happen earlier in the trip. It sometimes takes me a while, but I almost always end up finding the silver lining.
"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it." -Maya Angelou Do you remember the silhouette of the rice farmer that I shared a while back? Well this is the mystery man, in the light. I honestly wish I knew his name so I could refer to him as something other than "the rice farmer," but I suppose it will have to do for now. As I mentioned before, I took many photographs of this man, so you'll likely see him in the future. And hopefully, when you see the photos, you'll understand why I took so many of him. I found him to be incredibly photogenic, and while many of the photos I took are of him being quite serious, I think you'll start seeing his incredibly gentle personality poking through over time.
"I love the people I photograph. I mean, they’re my friends. I’ve never met most of them or I don’t know them at all, yet through my images I live with them." -Bruce Gilden I'm pretty certain this is the only portrait I've ever shared. And amongst the first I've ever taken, to be honest. And I want to prepare you for more in the future, as it's something I fell in love with in Bali. Now, during the workshop, even though we were blessed with mostly incredible weather for landscape photography, when conditions weren't ideal we would wander around the villages and local markets looking for something, or someone, interesting to photograph. We were taught how to say "may I take your photo?" in Indonesian, and the vast majority of people asked were delighted to participate. I found that most people act quite different when they know they are being photographed, and I learned that the best photos were typically taken once the subject became accustomed to my presence, possibly even bored by it, and started acting like their natural selves again. For this reason I would often pretend I was done photographing them, thank them, drift away a bit before taking more photos from a distance. One of my favorite parts was to show them the photo afterwards and see their eyes and smile light up with admiration of their own image.
"The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do." -Andy Warhol On the first day of the photography workshop, after shooting with our drones for a while, we grabbed our cameras and headed into the rice terraces hoping to catch some of the misty morning light. And even though we were very content taking purely landscape photos of the sun blasting through the trees, one of the rice farmers emerged and was kind enough to let us photograph him in the middle of his rice terraces, which added a fun new dynamic to the morning. You will absolutely be seeing more of this man in future photos, but for now I'll keep things mysterious and leave you with his shadowy profile.
"It’s not the photographer who makes the picture, but the person being photographed." -Sebastiao Salgado Indonesia has been incredible. I started off in Ubub, Bali for a few days by myself before my photography workshop began, and then for nine days I was together with a small and mighty crew of fellow photography lovers, exploring this beautiful area with the extremely talented Jord Hammond leading the excursion. The workshop has officially ended, even though a few of us have still been exploring other areas together. I plan on sharing various different scenes from the different days of the workshop with you, so I figured I'd start with a scene from day 1. The first morning we woke up early to fly our drones over the rice terraces as the sun was coming up. We honestly had amazing conditions for photography almost the entire trip and this was the perfect start to an incredible workshop. So glad I went.
"One advantage of photography is that it's visual and can transcend language." -Lisa Kristine This is one of my first photos taken in Bali. I went to bed early the night before, woke up feeling surprisingly refreshed and decided to go for a walk to explore the neighborhood. I ended up next to this little rice field with the clouds from the recent storm that passed still looming in the background. While I have definitely taken more stunning photos since, I love the calm simplicity of this one. It represented my first morning in Bali very well and I look forward to sharing a whole lot more of my trip with you over the coming weeks, and possibly months. Lots in store!
"We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us." -Unknown Once again, not my normal style but it's been fun exploring more abstract photography. In other news, depending on when you're reading this, I'll be leaving for Bali later tonight! One of my favorite photographers is hosting a photography workshop there and I decided to sign myself up! I'm not exactly sure what to expect, as I've never done a photography workshop before, but I'm really looking forward to exploring a new place and hopefully taking my photography to the next level.
"The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety." -Josh Waitzkin We ended up visiting Hanoi twice on our trip to Vietnam. Once when we landed, and once again before catching our flight back to Bangkok. On our first visit, my sister-in-law was sick, and couldn't join my brother and I at Train Street. So we made sure to stop by again when we were back in town so that she could see it for herself. And although we had a much longer wait for a train to roll in, it was really neat to see it at night. I will admit that it definitely made the photography more tricky, as snapping photos of moving objects in low light has its downside, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out in the end. Yet another great memory made while traveling.
"At the end of the day, your feet should be dirty, your hair messy and your eyes sparkling." -Shanti Even though it's not my usual preference, I actually love taking abstract photographs, especially when I travel. Reflecting back, I think a big reason why I gravitate mostly towards wildlife and nature photography is because the shots tend to be more difficult to replicate. A wild animal, for example, will almost certainly never be in that same spot, doing that same thing, with that same lighting, etc. And landscape photography, to a lesser degree, is difficult to replicate mostly because of the conditions of the sky and clouds that are always changing and never the same. And that's really exciting for me when I capture an amazing moment. Although I find abstract a bit more easy to duplicate, I do recognize that the real skill is in spotting the details in the first place. Which I'm learning to do more and more. Most people walk right past without even noticing the details that an excellent photographer can't possibly walk past without stopping for a photo. It's as if they are living in two different realities. And I think that makes it even more fun to experience.
"Often you will end up loving the new things you try and even if you don’t love it, you’ve given yourself a new experience." -Alli Simpson |
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