In 2006 I visited Thailand for the first time as an adult.  This photo was taken at Wat Kaek, a unique sculpture park near the city of Nong Khai on the Mekong River.  The sculpture park was filled with hundreds of strange, surreal concrete sculptures which fused a stylistic blend of Hindu and Buddhist iconography with (then) modern folk art.  The story goes that a Laotian spiritual leader named Luang Pu had a dream filled with wonderful, bizarre images, and when he awoke he commissioned dozens of folk artists (possibly his disciples) to materialize his imaginary creations.  The result is a fantastic and engaging collection of sculptures that, when you are surrounded by them, take you into another world.  It’s easy to spend hours in the park, absorbing the various details of each piece (and there are hundreds of pieces!).  This photo depicts a 90-foot tall sculpture of the Buddha sitting peacefully before a ferocious 7-headed naga, a legendary Thai serpent-snake that features in a lot of their art and sculpture.  The sculpture is huge and towering, causing quite a stunning visual impact.

This was taken last week during our vacation in Southwest England.  We spent a few fun days poking around Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, glimpsing a side of England that I had never seen before.  I had previously spent most of my time in England in Brighton (about an hour south of London), which has a completely different atmosphere and pace of life than what I experienced in the Southwest.  Brighton is bustling, busy, throbbing with culture and counter-culture.  The areas I visited in the Southwest were comparatively much more quiet and rural, with a relaxed, easy-going atmosphere.  Granted, we did tend to spend more time during our vacation touring the national parks, rather than seeking out big city life.  

During this trip I really fell in love with the moors.  The first time I saw moorland in Wales, I have to admit I wasn’t very impressed.  It looked scrubby and boring, with not much vegetation.  I much preferred towering trees, falling leaves and wild bushes of edible berries.  However, the moors grew on me over time.  I’ve come to really love the sense of bleak desolation and moodiness that accompanies the moorland.  The colors of the vegetation are often beautiful, ranging from burnt orange and crispy yellow to drab olive green and patches of violet.  Add to this the atmospheric hues of washed out blues, greens, and blue-greens comprising the undulating hills in the distance, along with the often grey bundles of clouds trundling above, and all-in-all it becomes a rather impressive, thought-provoking environment.  Flocks of grazing sheep and wild ponies are often sprinkled around the hills, alleviating the desolate atmosphere with their lively and innocent presence.

I also have to admit that I fell in love with the moorland even further after seeing the 2006 BBC adaptation of Jane Eyre, which was aired recently on the weekends just before our vacation.  I haven’t read the book yet, but I really enjoyed the BBC version, and felt there was something endlessly beautiful about Jane’s desperate and tragic wanderings through the empty, unwelcoming moors.

But, tragedy and desolation aside, I managed to snap a slightly more happy photo of the moorland in Exmoor National Park.  This shot was taken near Dunkery Beacon after rainfall.  It was a perfect rainbow, and I’ll save the shot of the other end of it for another day.

Brighton Beach Carousel

I took this photo in 2006 whilst living in Brighton, UK.  Brighton Beach was unlike any other beach I had seen before, having grown up in Florida amidst smooth, silky sand beaches.  Brighton Beach consists of seemingly endless layers of smooth pebbles.  In some ways it’s more preferable than sand, because it doesn’t get stuck between your toes (unless of course you’re wearing sandals) or to your damp skin.  The downside is that you can’t make sand castles.  I like this shot because of the kitschy, nostalgic aura of the carousel amidst a bright blue sky and pebbly shore.  The lack of people adds a layer of eeriness and emptiness.

Barjac, France

I’ve decided to start doing a Photo of the Day feature, in which I sift through the photographs I’ve taken over the years (and also recent ones) to find and share something interesting… photos that evoke a particular emotion, or present a certain view of the world, or perhaps an image that reveals something more about me as a person.  These photos will most likely be tweaked by me in Photoshop, to add a further element of intrigue and/or mystique. 

This photo was taken last year in Barjac, France, near where I lived.  Barjac is an immensely quaint French village of old buildings and cobbled streets, with some magnificent views across the countryside.  For 11 years it was also the home to the eminent artist Anselm Kiefer, who lived and worked in a vast 35-hectare studio just outside Barjac.  I read last year that he had donated his Barjac property to the Guggenheim, but in the latest article I found on the topic, it appears that the plans have not come to fruition.

With this shot, I was inspired to capture the geometry of the buildings and the windows, accentuated by the hanging street light on the leftmost building.  To me this image is somehow whimsical and quirky, with an Olde World nostalgic feel.  It’s easy to imagine that this scene stepped out of a different portal of time than the one we currently inhabit.  The lack of humans causes a sense of wonder and curiosity; who lives here?  What are their lives like?  What do the insides of their houses look like?   The emptiness of the photo also gives me the sense of being watched, either by people hidden behind the curtains, or by the silent buildings themselves, who are ever the witness to the drama unfolding within their walls and on the streets below.  Old buildings always seem to retain a sense of having absorbed history, impartial to events both momentous and mundane.

In the meantime, here is a shot of the Welsh countryside. I particularly like this photo for the strong sense of isolation, and almost desolation, that I feel it evokes… a thin (one-lane) stretch of road snaking across empty terrain on a grey, overcast day. I feel it conveys the sense of quiet beauty that comes with open, empty spaces.