An Empowering and Exciting Time in Photography

"Photography is not dead and if we can harness all the creativity and tools available to us, we can make some amazing work and deliver it to audiences we never dreamed of reaching before. I see this as an empowering and exciting time." Ami Vitale, documentary photographer, as quoted from her website, http://www.amivitale.com/.

Ami is an amazing photographer. I had the opportunity to spend a weekend with her and other photographers in 2008 discussing documenting life and making extraordinary images of the same. It was a weekend well spent and I've redoubled my photographic efforts since that weekend. Her quote above, of very recent vintage, comes at a difficult time for many photographers and may be just the inspiration to get the creative juices flowing again.

Also check out her video shot with the new Nikon 300S at the same website.

Awe - Blue Highways

The first travel narrative I ever remember reading was William Least Heat Moon's Blue Highways. I always think of it when I start planning a road trip. CNN.Com has an interview with the author, who has just completed a new journey to many of the same places in a book entitled "Roads to Quoz" (which I haven't read yet - waiting for the paperback version to come out!) His insights on changes in the American landscape and in Americans themselves reflect the changes I think we all have seen but maybe not formulated in as concise a manner. Worth a quick read. http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/11/18/bluehighways/index.html

A Travel Tip Actually Worth Considering

I'm not a big fan of the lists of "travel tips" found in travel magazines. Most are either too obvious or too weird. But I actually stumbled across one in this month's Budget Travel that caught my attention. "Buy a postcard each day and job down a few sentences on the back" as reminders of the day's highlights or a special thought. When you get home, there will be both written and pictorial reminders of your trip. Not a bad thought. In this digital age, one could also take a quick photo with your iPhone or similar devise and then attached it to an e-mail to yourself with a few lines of text that would then be waiting for you upon your return home. Maybe this is an obvious tip or just too weird. Then again ...

Two Roads

I'm not much of a fan of the Wall Street Journal, especially the editorial page. BUT, in today's edition (11/13/09) that are two great travel-related articles. The first is an interview with Cormac McCarthy, the author of that most depressing yet hopefully fictional (we hope) travel novel, The Road. The interview's Q+A is fascinating with insights on writing and movies and life. When asked about how involved he is in movie remakes of his novels, he replies "No, you sell it and you go home and go to bed. You don't embroil yourself in somebody else's project." Forthright for sure.

The second article is on Tim Cahill's Montana log cabin, down a 20-mile gravel road from Livingston. "It often hilarious to me that I'm writing about Tonga or some tropical place and there's a blizzard outside and the cows are on their backs with their hooves in the air." Tim's travel narratives are some of the best around, and include "Jaguars Ripped My Flesh" and "A Wolverine is Eating My Leg." Check them out.

And check out the two WSJ articles at your nearest library.

And There's Always Someplace New

This weekend's New York Times Travel section includes an article on the islands of Bijagos, Atlantic islands off the coast of Guinea-Bissau. Simple lodging with only 4 rooms along a wonderful beach with no other travelers; freshly-caught fish grilled on an open fire; just wild beauty.

"... to arrive in the Bijagós after the two-hour ride in a small speedboat from the decrepit yet ingratiating capital of the country, Bissau, is to enter another world and another century, though it would be difficult to pinpoint exactly which ones."

Makes you want to go, doesn't it? Well, it does me.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/travel/08Bijagos.html?nl=travel&emc=tda1

Anywhere I Would Be Going Would be Fine

Pico Iyer, a wonderful travel writer (Video Night in Katmandu, among other books), is featured on a quirky video on the more obsessive frequent flyers around - folks who fly for the sake of flying and earning miles and flying some more. His closing quote, something to the effect of "anywhere I would be going tomorrow would be just fine" is not a bad outlook for travelers.

http://vimeo.com/7167640