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  • Sunset at Saguaro National Monument
    SaguaroNationalMonumentAtDusk.tif
  • The famous crown of Our Lady of Guadalupe church in historical Puerto Vallarta.
    LaCaronaDeLaIglesia.tif
  • 20140814-Namibia-Giant'sPlayground--...tif
  • 20140812-Namibia-QuiverTreeForest--6...tif
  • 20140812-Namibia-QuiverTreeForest--1.tif
  • 20140801-SouthAfrica-CapeTown-11.tif
  • 20140801-SouthAfrica-CapeTown-2.tif
  • 20140812-Namibia-QuiverTreeForest--3...tif
  • 20140812-Namibia-QuiverTreeForest--5...tif
  • 20140812-Namibia-QuiverTreeForest--7...tif
  • 20140801-SouthAfrica-CapeTown-12.tif
  • ILoveRioThisMuch.tif
  • Perhaps no other local illustrates the rugged American Southwest better than Monument Valley. This must be exactly how the famous Hollywood director John Ford felt when he first discovered this magical landscape in the mid-thirties, and is the reason why he chose to shoot several of his blockbuster westerns here including, Stagecoach in 1939 and How The West Was Won in 1962. Although it still receives relatively few tourists compared to other parks in the region such as Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona or Zion and Bryce canyons in Utah, most people still find it familiar. This is no doubt due to the countless advertising campaigns that have featured the monuments as the backdrop for marketing their rugged image. Toyota trucks and even the United States Marine Corps have used the scenery, but nobody seems to spend more time here than the Marlboro Man. Yes, that fictional cowboy the Marlboro Man is the reason why most people in the world have seen pictures of Monument Valley, whether they realize it or not. In fact, I have noticed billboards in Kathmandu and posters in Tokyo featuring Monument Valley's vistas and always point out to people, "Hey,that's where I'm from". Actually, the only people that can really claim to be "from" Monument Valley are the people of the Navajo Nation as Monument Valley sits entirely inside the borders of the Navajo Indian Reservation, the largest such reservation in the United States. For centuries the Navajo have been ranching and farming this land and consider many of the monuments to be sacred..Just South of the border with Utah, these are probably the most famous monuments in the valley and together they are known as The Mittens. No matter how many times you go to Monument Valley, they never cease to inspire awe with their shear size and perfectly eroded shapes of a left and right mitten. I chose this composition because I felt the beautifully striated boulders in the foreground not only lead the viewers eyes nicely into the phot
    WarmMittens.tif
  • I can vividly remember as a child seeing a photo similar to this in an elementary school geography book and thinking, someday I must see this in person. It is one of my earliest memories of experiencing wanderlust, a diagnosis that would become a driving force throughout my life. Only later as an adult did I come to find out that this is also the birthplace of Bossa Nova, the bikini, and of course, the world’s largest party. It is also home to over seven million Cariocas, as the locals call themselves, a colorful mix of some of the most beautiful people in the world all packed into the most beautiful urban setting on the planet, Rio de Janeiro.<br />
The geography and people of Rio have created a unique urban sprawl, whereby some of the wealthiest people in Brazil live next to or even beneath some of the poorest. The poor have taken to illegally building favelas or shanty towns on any available space that clings to or straddles Rio’s magnificent mountains. The irony of course, is that it’s the people of the favelas that have the most magnificent views of their Cidade Maravilhosa or Marvelous City. Constantly watching over this marvelous city and all who inhabit it is the enormous statue ofCristo Redentor, Christ the Redeemer. Perched on the tip ofCorcovado, or Hunchback mountain at 2,329 feet above the city, it can be seen from just about anywhere and offers a breathtaking view from it’s base.<br />
Even though this image is on postcards all over the city, I wanted to fulfill my childhood vision to see it and photograph it for myself. After experiencing a week of Carnaval and a month in Rio I hadn’t had the opportunity to get my photo on a clear day. Miraculously, on my last morning in Rio I woke up to this heavenly, clear, blue sky. Risking missing my flight, I raced to the helicopter pad and fulfilled my vision.
    ChristTheRedeemerWatchingOverRio.tif
  • Odds are, if someone asked you to name the top five most famous beaches in the world, two names near the top of the list would be Copacabana and Ipanema. Justifiably so. After all, Copacabana is credited as being the birthplace of the bikini and Ipanema, well, who can’t at least hum the chorus to the Jobim/Morais masterpiece, “The Girl From Ipanema" that single-handedly put Bossa Nova on the world map of musical genres? What’s really amazing is that both of these beaches are in the same city! Indeed, this could only occur in the hedonistic beach culture of Rio de Janeiro.<br />
With an estimated population near ten million people, Rio has most of the things that go along with a city of that size anywhere in in the world, i.e. traffic, etc. However, two things that really set Rio apart from any other urban metropolis are it’s stunning geographic beauty and the “Cariocas" (Residents of Rio) belief that leisure time at the beach is a birthright. Wanting to illustrate this uniqueness I headed down to Arpoador, which is the rocky outcropping that separatesIpanema and Copacabana. This turned out to be a good choice because not only did it afford me this beautiful view looking all the way down Ipanema Beach to it’s spectacular mountainous end, it also had plenty of locals engaging in their favorite seaside activities. Whether it was working out to maintain their “body beautiful”, surfing or in the case of these four men, fishing right off the rocks into the ocean. Facing West in the late afternoon gave me the opportunity to silhouette the men, thus turning them into the representative “everyman” and the perfect composition to illustrate the lifestyle of this unique mega-city.
    FishingWithAViewOfIpanema.tif
  • As the largest religious structure ever built and proprietor of some of the world’s most magnificent stone carvings, Angkor Wat is considered by many to be one of the greatest architectural achievements in human history. Divided into the three main levels of the Hindu cosmos, it features an 800 meter long gallery of magnificent bas-reliefs depicting epic stories from Hindu mythology, four stone block swimming pools and five central towers. These towers depict the peaks of Mount Meru, home of the gods and the center of the Hindu universe. At over 180 feet high, they can not only be seen from the town of Siem Reap six kilometers away, they can also be seen all over the country as the main symbol on the Cambodian flag.<br />
The Wat is the crowning achievement of the Khmer civilization which, in it’s prime, ruled over most of Southeast Asia. It was commissioned by and built for the god-king, Suryavarman II who was worshipped as an incarnation of the protector god Vishnu. The only temple in the Khmer empire facing West into the setting sun, a symbol of death in Hinduism, it is an accepted belief that it was built as a mausoleum for Suryavarman II. The fact that it took 50,000 artist and laborers nearly 40 years to complete is a testament to the Khmers power, wealth and devotion.<br />
To make this photograph showing all five towers, I walked off of the main causeway and joined the cattle that still graze in the fields contained within Angkor’s vast complex. Taken just before sunset, it illustrates why we photographers refer to this time of day as “golden hour”. Taken at any other time of the day, the wat wouldn’t have this beautiful golden color of the sunset, but rather it’s natural stone-grey color.
    AngkorWatAtGoldenHour.tif