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CHINA inspiration Photography street street photography Uncategorized

Wanderlust~

yanghsuo portrait 2.jpg
an image of me meeting a local woman and child,  taken by a good friend on an adventure in Yangshuo, China, a few years back.

How gratifying it is to explore the spinning sphere we call home. Each time I plan a new trip, I feel a bubbling of excitement at the unknown that would undoubtedly meet, the amazing people who cross my path and the images my camera would capture. It is as soul nourishing journey when I am far from my routine, away from the usual comforts of home and when I get the chance to push the limits of what I know. It makes me think of how knowledge was collected prior to the industrial revolution and the schooling systems that created machines for the industry; before that time knowledge was sought through experience, apprenticeship and exploration. What an incredibly esoteric experience.

Where is your next journey taking you?

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CHINA contemplations inspiration life Photography shanghai street

sliding by~ Shanghai

sliding by~ Shanghai
sliding by~ Shanghai

Sometimes the world has this strange way of sliding by as thought we are sailing smoothly on a still lake. It allows us to watch time pass in slow motion and a great stillness embraces us. Those are the photographic moments I treasure and wish for every day in the big fast city.

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art CHINA inspiration life Photography shanghai street

All that remains unsaid

as we zip through our busy lives
as we zip through our busy lives

You always hear stories of people on their deathbeds wishing they had said this or that to a loved one, wished they had expressed an emotion to someone that they know they should have, and wished that they would be allowed a second chance to say what they wanted to say but had no chance to. We design our lives in a way that creates valid excuses for our silence. We trade comfort and avoidance for confrontations and human expression. Where is the freedom in that?

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art CHINA Photography shanghai street

A taxed soul

When life demands so much~ Shanghai
When life demands so much~ Shanghai

Shanghai’s migrant workers leave home, province and family to come to the big expanding city, to join the working force and help build China into the giant it wishes itself to be. They are the simplest of people in the city, the ones that have a smile ready on their faces to give to any who looks their way, the hardest workers and those whose lives are the most difficult.

This is a tribute to them, these wonderful people.

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celebrations CHINA contemplations inspiration Photography shanghai street

One day left till the year of the Snake

She battles the snow in her unique way~ Shanhgai
She battles the snow in her unique way~ Shanghai

It seems so appropriate for the year to end and a new one to begin with a blanket of fresh snow, a clean slate, a new start. A stillness fell over the city today as more than half the population leaves for their homes away from Shanghai or to holiday destinations leaving a haunting sense of quiet and empty streets where normally life is buzzing noisily. Shanghai got its second day of snow today, it wore its beautiful white dress and it goes to sleep now getting ready for the big night tomorrow when fireworks will light the city streets.

Xin nian kuai le and Gong xi fa cai from Shanghai!!

 

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art CHINA inspiration Photography shanghai

Anonymity~ the great gift of urbanism

Because you don't want everyone to know your name
Because you don’t want everyone to know your name

The most difficult thing about change is to not be allowed to do so. In a big city change is a way of life and conformity can be easily pushed aside to make room for a journey of personal development. But then there are some rare villages and tribes where personal development is championed above all else. I have seen one or two.

 

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children CHINA contemplations inspiration life Photography shanghai street

On curiosity

curiosity makes you go on tiptoes
curiosity makes you go on tiptoes~ shanghai

It is curiosity that makes each day different to the one before, the search for new stimuli, the interest in what is hidden and unseen, the search for something intriguing, the things that makes us go exploring. Most books and researches point to curiosity as a brain function and an instinct that we share with apes and other animals, but I wonder if it isn’t so much more in humans. I wonder if it is not connected to our innate drive to search for the unknown and to be with the unseen. Losing it or ignoring it would be almost like giving up our mission for personal development for the comforts and certainty of the already known.

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CHINA Guilin inspiration Photography Travel

Day 8~ December 8th~ Guilin

riding in a green world
riding in a green world

To find inspiration is to live that much closer to the truth~

woman on her way to work~ Yangshuo~ Guilin

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art contemplations New York Photography street

Day 7~ November 7th~ New York

expression and reflection

Everyone has something to say, a message to relay, an opinion to voice, a word to put in, that’s how a city gets its unique urban color.

photo~ Dumbo~ Brooklyn

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inspiration life Photography street Tuscany

Day 27~ September 27th~ Tuscany

love recorded

Have you ever been so in love that you wanted to shout it to the whole world and scribble it on every surface, carve it on every tree and note it in every diary? Isn’t it the greatest gift of all to feel that at least once in your life?