Category: Travel

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contemplations New Zealand Photography

Daily Coffee Talk~ 91/365

Keri Keri~ New Zealand 1997
At this spot I buried a strand of my hair and promised to return.

Continuing with the discovery journey of scanning my old slides and negatives…

I was once in New Zealand with a very special companion and found it to be a land of magic, beauty and power, if you have never been there, please try to get there at least once…

I was totally smitten with this black sand beach on the North Island (Keri Keri) when I was there almost 25 years ago. It has a power in the waves, the jet black sand and the wind that carries the sounds and stories of far far away with it.

I was living in New York City at the time and upon my return I never stopped talking to anyone who would listen about the magic of that beach.

The years went by, I moved to Germany, then to Shanghai and whilst there I had the chance to introduce this beach to another incredibly special human, my beautiful daughter, who was 9 years old at the time.

I am not sure I will have a chance to return for a third visit, but I hope she will. And hopefully you.

Lea ~ 2013
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Photography street photography united kingdom

Daily Coffee Talk~ 90/365

I have recently started to scan my old negatives and slides from the pre-digital camera time. I remember the times when every frame counted because well, we only had a limited number of frames in the film.

I remember the excitement of seeing the images after however time it took to finish the roll, to develop it and to print it. It was magical in so many ways. I loved the anticipation and the element of surprise.

These images above are from a trip to Stonehenge and as the scans appeared I reconnected the whole magic of being there. Images link us to smells, feelings, and tastes from the time the image was taken.

Another reason why I love photography.

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contemplations Germany morning coffee talk Photography spain

Daily Coffee Talk~ 84/365

Self portrait taken in Spain by the moonlight ~

When we are confronted with life changing events or the possibility of them, we tend to go inward and see life more clearly.

With the shocking onset of a war in an otherwise peaceful Europe, life becomes more real. Our senses are honed to feel, detect, and comprehend what is and might be going on around us. For a brief time, clarity replaces the fog and we become more human.

It is strange that it takes a war to make us learn the flag colors of the Ukraine, to become aware of its people, its history, and its current state of affairs because it is brought center stage at this time.

We become sensitized to the pain of others and feel a care that we previously were not conscious to.

The human and its behavior are a deep mystery to me.

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contemplations inspiration italy morning coffee talk Photography street photography

Daily Coffee Talk~ 80/365

If we were robots, designed to be born, to live a span of life and then die, then life would have been a straight line of non-events.

But life is not like that and being human is so much more complex that straight lines are overtaken by curves. I often thought About how when you draw a straight line from point a to point b on planet earth, our beautiful globe, you end up with a curve…

Life is like that. There are ups and there are downs, there is joy and there is sadness, success and failure, and so much that makes you wonder why we were born into a duality state of affairs.

I trust in the reason why as much as I trust in my journey to ride the waves of earthly existence. I love life and its mysteries.

Good evening from Germany. The storm has passed, our heating seems to be fixed, the fireplace is quieting down and it’s almost time to slip into a peaceful night of sleep.

Let’s pray for a de-escalation in the Ukraine, because who needs another war!

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contemplations inspiration morning coffee talk myanmar Photography street photography

Daily Coffee Talk~ 72/365

Fishermen at Inle Lake ~ Myanmar

There is so much that keeps me doing photography day in and day out for the last almost 30 years, but one of the most incredible reasons is the ability of a single photograph to take me back.

An image has the ability to encapsulate the moment and keep it alive beyond our memories, past our limited recollections and allows us to relive the impressions, the smells, the light and the sights that we witnessed at that moment as we freeze it in time.

And then if someone else can connect to the image and feel what we felt, then wow, mission accomplished.

Have a good day my friends wherever you may be.

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contemplations inspiration morning coffee talk Photography street photography Travel

Daily Coffee Talk~ 71/365

A journey of self discovery… that kind of sums up to me what life is about.

We arrive without recollection of why we came, where we came from, what purpose are we serving and who we really are.

Then we begin to feel the great urge to learn, discover and find out the truth.

And some are lucky enough to swim in the shallow waves of the greater knowing, the true purpose of life, whereas others may live their whole lives avoiding the quest.

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china contemplations inspiration morning coffee talk Photography street photography

Daily Coffee Talk~ 69/365

Shanghai~ 2019

Hi my friends, today was another packed day with so much to do, most of which was done 😊.

Earlier a conversation stood out to me about our use and our reliance on devices throughout our daily lives.

How many of you actually learn people’s phone numbers by heart? Or do you, like me, rely on the stored contact list on your devices?

Take a scenario where you are traveling and you are about to check in only to realize your phone is missing. You want to show your boarding card but you can’t, you want to show your proof of vaccination, not possible, you want to call someone, definitely can’t. It’s a mini nightmare, isn’t it?

What is it that had caused us to focus our lives away from the big world into small virtual ones inside screens?

Don’t get me started on the meta verse! That’s need its own blog entry.

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contemplations inspiration morning coffee talk myanmar Photography religion street photography

Daily Coffee Talk~68/365

Monk with umbrella~ Myanmar

Today I spent a larger part of the day driving around with my daughter from home to school to extra activities, home and school again. We have come to call Monday the ‘fun day’ partly sarcastically because of all the driving, and partly because we never know how it will unfold.

On the last one of today’s drives we both realized that we forgot to eat. This started a conversation that took me to my memories of meeting the Buddhist monks in Myanmar, in Cambodia and in Shangrila amongst others. One of the special things I discovered was that they only ate one meal a day.

Of course they do have their reasons and the discipline they adhere to, but this made me realize how much time we spend obsessing about food , our choices, the preparation, diets and the rest of it.

A dose of simplicity sounds right from time to time, doesn’t it?

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children contemplations Fine art inspiration Photography street photography thailand

Daily Coffee Talk~ 64/365

I dream in color~

Do you have time periods when your dreams become vivid , alive and filled with color?

I am currently having those type last of dreams and they leave me wondering about where we actually go in our dreams and what part of our faculties is actually active?

There are so many levels of dreams that you can detect and so many different kinds, it would take a lifetime of research to get inside of this mystery.

Do you dream in color?

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children contemplations inspiration Istanbul morning coffee talk Photography portrait story street street photography

Daily Coffee Talk~ 63/365

Those moments in the street~ Istanbul

Hi from another one of a series of gray rainy days in Germany.

So many things keep drawing me back to the streets with my camera and we are now going on over 25 years!

One of those things is a memorable moment, where everything comes together to encapsulate a memory. A smile, a story, a writing on the wall and the experience gets encapsulated in an image, never to be forgotten.

This image was take in the Tarlabasi area of Istanbul.