Losing My Religion?

Bethesda Fountain, Central Park, New York City

Losing my religion? Hardly. More like losing my mojo. After a brief burst of activity towards the middle of the year, it should be obvious that I have again become a lapsed blogger. It's not that I have run out of things to write about. God knows I have plenty of ideas to flesh out and expand upon, and hundreds of photographs filed away on my backup drives with which to illustrate those posts, but I just can't seem to motivate myself to do the work. 

However, lately my thoughts have again begun returning to this blog, and today might just be the start of another revival. We'll see. 

Last week, I grabbed an early bird ticket for Europe, flying with Emirates on a return flight from Adelaide, Australia to Athens, Greece. The ticket purchase got me thinking about travel in a concrete way, and this may be the motivating factor in getting me back to writing. After all, the thought of accumulating several thousand more photographs on my upcoming trip - photos I may never make use of - seems pointless if I don't at least use some of them on this site.

U.S. Capitol Building, Washington, D.C.

As sketchy as my travel plans are at this point - seven months out from my departure date - what I do plan is to spend a couple of months back on the Greek island my parents emigrated from in the 1930s. I have written about Ikaria extensively on this site, and will hopefully write more as time goes on. Two of my sisters have returned to live on the island with their children and grandchildren, and it always feels like 'coming home' when I return to the island.

Following my stay on the island, I hope to return to New York City in either July or August for another apartment sitting stint at a friends apartment in Washington Heights. I have watched over the apartment and the two house cats on two previous occasions (in 2010 and 2012), and if the opportunity allows I will be there again in 2014.

Village church, Kampos, Ikaria

From New York City, I hope to travel once more within the United States before again returning to Greece, although it would be good to include a visit to Canada if time and money permits. After that, who knows. Certainly not me. Not at this point anyway. But I'll keep you posted. 

No, really. I will. See you next time.

TED on Tuesday: Camille Seaman: Storm Chaser

Image courtesy TED and Camille Seaman

As a keen traveller, I have taken more than my share of photographs at each stop on my extended journeys. As good as some of these photographs are, I still don’t consider myself a real photographer. I am more the happy amateur who occasionally gets lucky and is able to get the lighting and the angles right to come away with some half decent images.

Camille Seaman on the other hand, has been taking photographs all over the world, and since 2003, she has focussed her eyes (and cameras) on some of the worlds most fragile environments. Seaman's photographs have been published in Newsweek, Outside, Zeit Wissen, Men's Journal and more, and she has self-published many books on themes like “My China” and “Melting Away: Polar Images” through Fastback Creative Books, a company that she co-founded. In 2008, she was honored with a one-person exhibition, The Last Iceberg, at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC.

In today’s TED on Tuesday, I am featuring two short presentations made by Camille (who was raised as a Shinnecock Indian), at TED conferences. The first, highlights her nascent career as a storm chaser hunting down and photographing supercell clouds―some of which can be 50 miles wide, reach sixty thousand feet in the atmosphere and release grapefruit-sized hail. The second short video features stunning images of those fascinating monoliths we know as icebergs.

“Storm-chasing is a very tactile experience … The colors in the clouds, of hail forming, the green and the turquoise blues. The movement, the way they swirl … As I stand under them, I understand what I have the privilege to witness is the same forces, the same process in a small version, that created our galaxy, solar system, our sun, this very planet.” ~ Camille Seaman

Camille Seaman: Photos from a storm chaser

 “It is not a death when [icebergs] melt; it is not an end, but a continuation of their path through the cycle of life. Each iceberg has its own individual personality. Some refuse to give up and hold on to the bitter end, while others can't take it anymore and crumble in a fit of dramatic passion.” ~ Camille Seaman

Camille Seaman: Haunting photos of polar ice

More Information

TED Online…

Camille Seaman…

Friday Photos: Monument Valley, Utah

Click images to view full sized

Friday 19, October, 2012 was the day I ‘died and went to heaven’, and here are the photos to prove it. Ok, so my idea of heaven may be different from yours, but I will take Monument Valley’s stunning landscape any day, over some mythical landscape in the hereafter.

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The area is part of the Colorado Plateau. The elevation of the valley floor ranges from 5,000 to 6,000 feet (1,500 to 1,800 m) above sea level. The floor is largely siltstone or sand derived from it, most of which was left behind by the rivers that once carved out the valley. The vivid red colour comes from iron oxide exposed in the weathered siltstone, while the darker, blue-gray rocks in the valley get their colour from manganese oxide.

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A very modest $5.00 will get you entry into the park, where the adventurous can embark on a 17-mile (27 km) dirt road route that passes some of the largest and most spectacular land formations.

The buttes are clearly stratified, and reveal three main layers. The lowest layer is known as the Organ Rock Shale, the middle is de Chelly Sandstone, and the top layer is the Moenkopi Formation.

More Information

Wikipedia…

Discover Navajo website…

Official Navajo Nation website…