Our Water World in 30 Travel Photographs

“You’re going the wrong way” An endangered green turtle rises to the surface for air, while a SCUBA diver descends upon entry into the water

The calendar has turned to October, and if the crisp air in New York is any indication, autumn has kicked summer to the curb. I want to say thanks for a very busy September here at The Gentleman Backpacker, where you visited us more than ever before. It’s a nice feeling to see people viewing what we put out. I’d like to encourage you to please leave us comments and ask plenty of questions. I want to help make traveling as enjoyable for you as it is for me. I’ve been busy the past few weeks as some big changes are coming in my life (stay tuned), but I’ve also been swamped with selecting entries for some photography contests. “Water” was the topic of one of these contests, and as broad as that one word is, there are so many meanings. If we take the frozen kind, for example, the Inuit People of the Arctic are famously known to have 50 words for snow. So I took to thinking about water from different perspectives as I sorted through some 30,000 photographs to weed out perhaps 5,000 water photographs, before culling my list down to 30. For the contest, I finally submitted just a handful from that penultimate list of 30, but I thought I would share these with you in the form of a post. I was surprised at just how many different places these photos came from, and they made for a very interesting look at our world. I’ve included a few lines about each photo to describe to you the place and time, and what I felt as I captured the scene. If you had to enter a contest and submit only five photos, which ones would you pick? Please let me know in the comments section below! Please note I worked really hard and traveled to many places at great personal expense to capture these photos. If you want to use one, please contact me at gentlemanbackpacker@gmail.com and we can discuss the matter. Please don’t just download them for your own commercial use. They are copyrighted and all rights are reserved.

“The Landing”: The Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary in Delta, BC, Canada is one of the most important urban sanctuaries in the world, protecting migratory birds from 22 countries (3 continents). August 2014

“Hungarian Pool Party”: Budapest is known for its gorgeous pool facilities, where it’s a big family activity for all to share. June 2008

“Spiny creatures”: I was shooting this old, broken bridge in the Florida Keys when this iguana crawled up the embankment. His spines perfectly matched the “spines” left on the bridge. Memorial Day Weekend, May 2012.

“Follow the light” : A diver swims into a school of jackfish, seeking to get a photo. Sipadan, Malaysia. July 2013. A few years back, a group of tourists was kidnapped by armed Philippine rebels, prompting the Malaysian Government to close all the resorts on the island itself.

“The Pipe”: Surfers welcome the start of the winter swell at Banzai Pipeline, North Shore of Oahu, October 2012.

“The Angel’s Hair” Iguazu Falls, Argentina, May 2008.

“School’s canceled!”: A major snow day in February 2013 in New York brings out the kids and their sleds. Central Park, NY

“Portuguese Colours”: Net floats are hung in festive fashion for Portugal Day at the Tower of Belem, a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its importance in Portuguese (and global) maritime history. June, 2008

“Jimbaran Tradition”:Tourists sit down to dine at one of the many restaurants that line Jimbaran Bay in Bali, Indonesia. Locals play around in the water and hawk their wares, such as fruit, live music, and balloons. June, 2011.

“Longing for Louise”: I felt transported to another era, at the Cheateau Lake Louise, August 2009.

“Dramatic Entrance” Iguazu Falls, May 2008.

“Blue Lagoons and White Sands”: Lencois Maranhenses, Brazil. Rivers deposit fine sand at the Atlantic, while ocean winds whip the sands into moving dunes, meaning this particular view will never exist again. June, 2010.

“The Land of Hanalei”: People enjoy the sunset in this land made famous by “Puff the Magic Dragon,” on their boats, on the pier, in the water, and on the sand. Kauai, April 2013.

“No place to hide”: An endangered green turtle swims in a school of yellow-tailed fusiliers, Sipadan, Malaysia. Conservationists and divers weigh the balances of tourism vs. preservation by using a daily quota of dive permits. July 2013.

“Columns of Water” : Columns from the cloisters of St. Guilhem de Desert, near Montpellier, France were carved in the late 1200s to resemble water. The Hudson River flows by in the background at the Cloisters Museum, NY, September 2014.

“Paradise Lost”: A desperately poor shantytown sits in an idyllic setting on Mabul Island, Malaysia. July, 2013.

“That feeling you’re being watched”: A giant school of jackfish at Barracuda Point, Pulau Sipadan, Malaysia, July 2013.

“Beauty Overlooked”:The cherubs at the base of the Bethesda Fountain in Central Park are overlooked because of the more famous angel above them. August, 2014.

“The Blue Yonder”: A lone turtle swims in the deep blue sea off Sipadan Sea Mount, Malaysia, July 2013. The daily limit for divers is 120, which seems like a lot, but isn’t when they are spread among more than a dozen beautiful diving spots.

“Purity”: White sand and still waters. Lencois Maranhenses, Brazil, June, 2010.

“In Search of Sipadan”: At dusk, dive boats sit in the bay at Pulau Mabul, gateway to Sipadan, the holy grail of SCUBA diving off the coast of Borneo, Malaysia, while the sun, already below the horizon lights up the clouds.

“Barracuda!”: Ironically, not at Barracuda Point, Sipadan, Malaysia.

“To be or not to be”: Spotted Lake, BC. The First Nations Group that owns the land battled with the question of turning this unusual alkaline deposit into a spa facility to attract tourist dollars. August, 2014.

“Creation of Life”: A storm rolls in over the sand dunes of Lencois Maranhenses, Brazil. The rainy season creates temporary fresh water lagoons and locals farm fish in them in order to survive.

“Two Worlds Collide”: Colorful boats at sunset float between a destitute shanty town and an ultra-luxurious floating villa resort on Pulau Mabul, Malaysia. Villagers live on $1 a day, while tourists spend as much as $400 a night.

“Peering into the abyss”: What does the future hold for sea turtles and other endangered species in our oceans? The sea wall at Sipadan falls 6,000 feet to the ocean floor below.

“Mosi Oa Tunya (The Smoke that Thunders): Ghostly figures emerge from the mist from Victoria Falls, Zambia. They are revealed to be children, using the bridge as a water slide on which to play. Zambia, May 2010.

“Abiquiu Waters”: A summer thunder and lightning storm rolls in over Abiquiu Lake, a manmade reservoir in New Mexico. July, 2014.

“The vortex”: A giant school of jackfish at Barracuda Point, Sipadan. Divers look on, just before a white-tip reef shark emerges from beyond the school. Sipadan, Malaysia.

“A Day at Bloubergstrand”: Windsurfers and kite surfers enjoy the choppy seas at Bloubergstrand, Cape Town, South Africa, which is rebranding itself as a world-renowned sport-tourism destination in the post-Apartheid era, capped by the World Cup hosted in 2010. April, 2010.

Remembering the World Trade Center through Photographs

Clockwise from top left: View of East River from WTC, Twin Towers, View of Lower Manhattan from WTC, WTC Plaza, View of Statue of Liberty from WTC, View of Eastern Manhattan from WTC, View of Lower Manhattan and WTC from Liberty Island

Today, we remember. Thousands of others have used millions of words to express their feelings better than I ever can. I distinctly remember where I was, what I was doing, and how I reacted when I learned of what happened that day, thirteen years ago.  Doubtless we each have our own memories and thoughts on this day, and I feel I am in no place to offer anything new or insightful. What I offer instead are some photographs I have. I took them in March of 1998 on my first trip to New York. It was a strange spring: during our ten days there we saw everything from snow to 80 degree (F) temperatures.

A collage of images from or of the World Trade Center

The Twin Towers

Lower Manhattan as seen from the Observation Deck of the WTC

New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty as seen from the Observation Deck of the WTC

The Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges span the East River, as seen from the WTC

The World Trade Center Plaza, ca. 1998

A lot of people talk about how the Twin Towers weren’t the most beautiful of New York’s buildings; while that may be true, when looking at these photos, especially the one of the closeup of the people by the Plaza below, I still think the towers had an under appreciated, industrial elegance to them. The other photos are of various views from the observation deck, and one taken from Liberty Island hidden in one of the collages. Of course, the photo quality isn’t great as they are photos of photos, although I tried to arrange them in a meaningful way. I may scan these some day to keep better care of them.

The three below were taken tonight from the Top of the Rock. (Note: The first time around the photos were mistakenly uploaded in lower resolution. I’ve fixed that now. )

In memoriam.

Moonrise over Manhattan: Supermoon 2014

Supermoon rises over Manhattan, as seen from Chelsea, NYC

 

The last of 2014’s supermoons occur tonight and tomorrow. I took this photo tonight from Chelsea’s famous High Line Park, without the use of a tripod.  The moon rises to the east and traffic whizzes by on the avenue below. I love the old, brick apartment buildings of Chelsea, the tree-lined side streets, and the tops of the towers of Madison just peeking over the tree-line.The Empire State Building is blue, green and yellow tonight for the US Open Finals weekend. Congratulations to Serena, and go Kei Nishikori tomorrow!

How to Take Unique Photographs of Common Subjects Part 1: Bethesda Fountain, New York

Plenty of subjects to choose from, plenty of boring ways to shoot them

Living in New York, I benefit from having many great urban muses to shoot. The flip side is, of course, that “It’s been done before” comes up a lot. We’re all entitled to our postcard-style, “I was there,” shots. However, whether you live in New York or not, I’m sure you’ve asked yourself how you can make your photographs different from the rest. It can be a conundrum, but a fun challenge at the same time. There are many different ways you can tackle this issue: framing, angles (get down low or get up high), etc., but today I want to talk a little about using light and synecdoche.

Summer in New York comes to its unofficial close

Dear Friends,

Labor Day long weekend has come and gone, and with it the traditional marker for the end of summer in the U.S. and Canada. It was a good weekend, with friends and family visiting here in New York. We went to the US Open, ate good food, saw a Broadway show, surfed a bit, and I showed my guests a few good photo spots by incorporating them naturally into our movements around town (perhaps one day I can show you some of the spots, if you have interest).

Anyway, this weekend my role was a little different than usual in that I served as host and guide, rather than traveler. Anyone will tell you New York City is a great walking town, and I think my guests did this City the right way, rather than trying to cram in every tourist spot possible into their schedule. Here’s a tip: it’s impossible to see everything in New York, so slow it down, do what comes easily to you, and have a good time.

The photo in this post is from the same day I captured the lightning photo. It was a glorious, but hot day in Brooklyn. Although summer has departed, the weather remains today, as it is very hot and humid at the moment. If you’ve had a long weekend as well, I hope it was a good one. If not, well, welcome to September anyway.

Yours truly,

The Gentleman Backpacker

A valet stands at attention at the River Cafe, Brooklyn Bridge Park, NY: So long, Summer

 

 

New York City: Summer Storm and the Statue of Liberty

Dear Friends,

As I work on my follow-up post on Iguazu Falls this weekend, I thought I’d share with you a photo I took about a month ago during one of New York’s notorious summer evening thunderstorms. I was out on a photo shoot in Brooklyn that day and it was very hot out (97F or about 35C), one of the hottest days of the summer. I was just about to go home when a very intermittent lightning show began to the south in New Jersey. I set up my camera and tripod and waited. This was the culmination of 2 hours of trying to get the perfect lightning shot, and was the very last one I took that night. The dotted lines you see from the right are the lights of a helicopter that took off from the South Street Seaport Helipad in downtown Manhattan, and the helicopter took a route that perfectly intersected with the lightning far in the distance. If you look closely you can see clearly an American Flag in the distance on the right, and I kind of like the way the buoy sits on the surface of the water in NY Harbor, which is the glassy carpet you see in the foreground. I hope you enjoy this photo and I will be back soon with more on the wonder of the Falls.

Best,

The Gentleman Backpacker

Lightning strike behind the Statue of Liberty

“A Summer Evening in New York”

 

A Summer Evening in New York

“Out-side the window,

Is that the sound of crickets?

No, a chirping fan.

At last a siren afar,

And all is normal again.”

 

If you’ve ever been to New York City, you know how loud it is at night with all the traffic and horns and sirens and people. If you’ve ever lived in New York City, you know how startlingly quiet certain August Saturday nights can be when the city empties out for the weekend. Tonight is such a night.

 

Good night,

The Gentleman Backpacker

P.S. A tanka is a form of Japanese poetry written in the format of 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5, 7, 7.