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Astana Grand Mosque
I lived for 8 years in Astana, Kazakhstan. It is the rapidly growing capital of the largest country in Central Asia. The country is situated south of Russia, and west of China, although significantly smaller than either of those neighbors, remains as one of the top 10 largest countries in the world. Astana, meaning “capital”…
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Semana Santa, Holy Week in the Pueblo
Semana Santa, the week leading up to Pascua, Easter Sunday, is probably the most important holiday season of the religious year in Spain. In my pueblo the week is marked with various religious processions, for which Spain is well known. I went out on Viernes Santo, Good Friday, to try to capture a bit of…
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Overnight Bicycle Tour
Over this past winter I imagined an overnight bike tour in Andalucia — my destination the Caminito del Rey. The Caminito del Rey (the Kings little path) is an elevated walking path through a gorge near Ardales in Málaga province. It was built as a service path for workers on a nearby hydroelectric plant. I booked a night at a hotel…
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Day Trip to Malaga: Street Scenes, Roman Theater, and Alcazaba de Malaga
The location of Malaga has been a human settlement for thousands of years. As a city it was founded by the Phoenicians, was an important part of Roman Iberia, a major city in Islamic Al-Andalus, then a key piece of the Monarchy of Catholic Spain, and continues to be an important commercial city in contemporary…
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Alozaina Rally Car Racing
On a hill, on the edge of the pueblo there are two serpentine and undulating dirt race courses. The lower track is for motorcycles. It’s narrower and steeper and has large jumps. The upper track is for cars. Rally cars.
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A Day in Malaga
I live in a tiny Pueblo in Malaga Provence in the autonomous region of Andalucía in southern Spain. It’s a mouthful when I put it that way. My understanding is that the general administrative organization of the country starts at the top with the government in Madrid. Under that are a number of regions/autonomous regions.…
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Baldosas de Terrazzo: Terrazzo Tile
I know that I had seen Terrazzo before moving to Andalucía. It’s the material that the Hollywood walk of fame is made of. It’s a classic flooring material, and has roots in ancient Egyptian architecture, though according to Wikipedia it started its rise in popularity in 15th century Italy. According to Vox.com and Dwell.com, it…
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Vestiges of Al-Andalus; Granada and Alhambra
Looking back on the Travelogues that I’ve written here, there is a clear trend toward travel-as-exploring-history. This piece continues that trend. History is deeply intertwined with both my photography and travel. Looking through the viewfinder at an urban scene, say, or at a piece of architecture, I always seek to capture something about the world…
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Tres Hermanos de Flamenco
Flamenco. Andalucia. Words that are nearly inseparable. The instantly recognizable notes emanating from a Flamenco guitar can transport nearly anyone, nearly anywhere, to a Spanish pueblo resplendent in whitewashed houses with brightly colored trim, with tile-work, gardens of brightly colored flora, and men and women reflexively dancing to the native sounds of this part of…
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An Evening Stroll through the Pueblo
Our little Pueblo is a place that constantly fires my imagination. I day dream about the countless generations who built this and the other Andalucían Pueblos stone by stone, and tile by tile. I took a little evening stroll the other day as the sun began its final encore and soaked in the end of…
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Looking Up
A lot of my photography is an effort to record what it is that I see. I love to look at the world around me. People, and their interactions with their environments, objects in space, landscapes that go on and on. And I like to look up and see what my normally busy self is…
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Moving the Flock though Town
In my small Pueblo Blanco in Andalucía the agrarian past is an ever-present part of the every day. Behind the colegio (elementary school) there is the town olive co-op where local growers bring their harvest for processing and packaging. Currently we are in the season for harvesting, so olives are everywhere. One particularly lovely aspect…
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Dolomite Mountains to Venice
From the age of four until I finally got a drivers license and regular access to a car some 13 years later, bicycles were a huge part of my life. The demands of teenage/twenty-something living put the bicycle out of my mind for the most part for many years. As an adult I picked up…
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Fotografica by the Color: Wide Gamut
Probably like butterflies or other creatures, I am attracted to color. Bright color. Many colors. All together. Growing up I recall the daunting task of “matching” clothes to wear to school. This was done using some dark-art of pre-teen and teenage color theory that I only learned in glancing blows. I never understood the details.…
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Produce Stand
While I lived in Astana, Kazakhstan the city was in a constant state of growth. Blink and a new block of high rise buildings was up. Leave for a week and a half and there may be no real way to know which way is home. Over the time I was there, I could see…
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Kids: Joy and Dancing
Kids can be such honest and straightforward people. Showing their joy, acting on feeling, sharing their thoughts and hopes.
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Cars at Rest
I estimate that cars are some of the most highly designed objects that many of us deal with on a daily basis. For some they can be sculptural masterpieces, and others they are a blight on the urban environment. Clearly they are ever present in the modern world. Cars by their nature move through space…
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Doors of Andalucía
The gorgeous Pueblos Blancos of Southern Spain contain a multitude of stunning sights. Perhaps not the most obvious are the doors on homes and buildings. The front door of a home is a boundary between the public and the private. If left open these are an invitation. Closed, they send potential visitors away.
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Pueblo at Sunset
In Andalucía in Southern Spain, there are incredibly beautiful villages, Pueblos Blancos, filled with white painted buildings and homes in the mountains. Built over centuries, the location of the villages perched on mountainsides provided protection and security in extremely culturally divided times. Today they are vibrant and historic places where people live and work. They…
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A Week in Bodø: A first visit to the arctic
In my early 20’s I had a 5 year career as a sailor on the schooner Ernestina (christened Effie M. Morrissey at original launch in 1894, and recently renamed Ernestina-Morrissey to honor the variety of working lives she has had), a tall ship that had at one time been a preeminent vessel for arctic exploration…
