Out of the last year, I’ve spent over four months travelling in order to photograph.  I spent a month of that time in Tibet, where I was able to stay in guest houses sipping yak butter tea while watching the sun rise on Mount Everest.  I spent two weeks on a road trip to California with my wife, during which time, I alternated between days of photography and rock climbing.  For nearly two months I explored New England during the peak of the fall colors. I have photographed 2 weddings in Nepal, one in Washington D.C., another on the beach in Southern California, not to mention countless weddings across Colorado.  This to me is what living the dream is all about.

Sometimes, I need to remind myself of how this is all possible.  Part of that is realizing that photography is only a small part of the equation.  There are many things that most people don’t know about that are required in order for me to be a successful photographer.  So much time is spent on budgeting, it borders on ridiculous.  For instance, when I traveled to Asia this past year, I incurred a lot of expenses.  I had to weigh the option of having a magazine pick up the tab, or paying for the trip myself and having more freedom to photograph what I want.  Then there is the question of whether or not I could pay for the expense with income earned from the project.  This is an exceedingly impossible task due to all the variables involved.

Also, there is this illusion that photographers are self employed.  People say that it must be great to make my own hours.  A lot of time it is, but I also work pretty hard.  It isn’t unusual for me to work 20 hours each day when on a project or photographing a wedding.  With wedding photography there are no second chances, do overs, sick days, or good enoughs.  It has to be perfect the very first time.  With each wedding, I photograph, hours of time is devoted to planning every detail ahead of time, because I know expectations are nothing less than perfection.

That all being said, I do love my job.  I am getting to live my dream, but sometimes I need to remind myself of all the work that goes in to it, because the last thing I want is to become complacent.

Related posts:

1. My favorite wedding
2. Walton Ward Wedding
3. Rose Taguchi Wedding

Related posts:

1. Asher’s Three Month Portraits
2. Breckenridge, Colorado – Ullrfest 2010
3. Asher’s First Day

Ullr Nordic Party and Bonfire

Ullympics and after party at Salt Creek

Ullr Parade and after parties at Ullr’s and Gold Pan

Related posts:

1. Lewis Family Portraits in Breckenridge
2. Andrea and David’s Wedding
3. Faces of the Himalaya Show January 9th, 2009 at Altitude Gallery.

In spite of living in relative poverty, the people of Tibet were friendly and open.  They had a sense of humor about life that I was immediately inspired to photograph. The same held true for the people of Nepal.  And although I was there for a relatively short time, I ended up returning home with hundreds of portraits of the people of the Himalayas.

Returning with all of these images made me feel like I had took something of value from the Himalayas without having given much back. While I was there I had the opportunity to visit a school for the blind built by Braille without Borders. It was amazing how little money it took to put a person through the school in Tibet. Equally amazing was just how much it could change a person’s life there. In a country like Tibet, a disabled person has few opportunities outside of begging.

My doctor here in Breckenridge had often told me about a clinic he had helped to build in the Langtang region of Nepal while he was there.  And although I didn’t have time to travel there myself, I decided to donate the purchase price of the portraits I created to help benefit the school and the clinic he had built through Doctors to the World.  The show, Faces of the Himalaya, has travelled to other galleries before finding its way back to Altitude Gallery this January, 2010.  The sale of just a single print can put a student through the school for several months.

Event Information:

For more information, visit www.altitudegallery.com

Related posts:

1. Faces of the Himalaya
2. Living the Dream and Remembering to Work
3. Tripod Trepidations

Last spring I had spent a few weeks in Nepal.  One morning I went on a tour of the small village of Banepa.  Afterwards, instead of taking the bus, I decided to walk with our guide back to the town of
Dhulikhel, where I was staying.  He returned to the hotel, and I decided to head back to the main area of town to use the internet.  As so often happens in Nepal, the electricity was out, and the internet cafes were closed.  Since I had my camera with me I decided to make the most of my time and explore some of the back alleys of
Dhulikhel. Once I got off the main street with the never ending auditory assault of the constant car horns, things became much quieter.  I could hear some people playing instruments down another alley and I decided to investigate.

When I found the source of the music, I wasn’t sure what was going on. There were about a dozen musicians dressed in red in the street, and maybe another 100 people in the yard of a large house. I didn’t speak much Nepali.  And what I did speak was mostly limited to arranging a hotel room or ordering a meal.  So, I looked for a someone who looked like they were school aged.  When traveling abroad, I have found that most people have studied english in schools, but tend to forget it as they get older.

I met a boy who told me that there was a wedding happening, and he then introduced me to his father.  It turns out his father was related to the groom, and he invited me to join the wedding party.  It was really a huge honor to find myself in a small town in a country that I had only just arrived in, being allowed to join in such an important moment in this family’s life.

One of the best ways to experience another culture is to actively participate in their lives and ceremonies, and I’m pretty sure there isn’t a better way to do this than to be involved with a wedding. My favorite thing about photographing weddings is being allowed in to one of the most important things that two people will likely experience together. However this wedding was truly a new experience for me.

Weddings in the West are typically happy affairs in which the couple has known each other for years, and they can’t wait to finally get married.  I had found out that this couple had only met a few weeks before the wedding, and only briefly.  The groom looked nervous the entire time, and the bride was practically in tears during the ceremony.  It was a little unnerving to say the least, but I tried to keep an open mind. A few days later, when I met up with some Nepalis my age, they were able to better explain what was going on.  First they had explained to me, how much they appreciated their families finding there spouses for them, and how terrifying it must be to have to find our own here.  I hadn’t really thought of things that way before, and I recalled how terrifying it was to propose to my wife.  They also explained the crying bride.  In Hindu culture, when a woman is married, she ceases to become part of the woman’s family and becomes part of her husbands family.  So, her not being upset at the wedding would be a sign of disrespect to her family. In fact the woman is usually very happy about the marriage, but showing happiness on the wedding day is considered unacceptable.  I did get the chance to see the same thing at another wedding I was at in Nepal a week later with a better understanding of the culture, and it was a lot different.  Particularly because I was able to meet the bride the next day, and could see how happy she was compared to the day before.

I would have to refer to this as the “ultimate destination wedding.”  At least it was for me. This wedding really let me experience the culture of Nepal first hand.  I got to meet people and see things that I might not have otherwise had the chance to.  The family welcomed me like I was one of their own.  I got to experience traditional Nepali food (the taste as well as the consequences,) as well as the local homemade liquor, roxi, which not surprisingly after tasting it was brought to the wedding in plastic bottle which looks suspiciously like antifreeze containers.  Best of luck to the Srestha family who really made my first few days in Nepal ones to remember always.

Related posts:

1. Rose Taguchi Wedding
2. Living the Dream and Remembering to Work
3. MJ and Pete’s Wedding – Laguna Beach California

During the spring of 2009, I travelled to Tibet and Nepal to work on a documentary portrait project.  For six weeks I photographed people living in the Himalayas.  While I mostly worked on portraits, I also went about photographing people in their day to day lives.

This 10 minute slideshow, available in HD, is a small sample of the images I made while travelling over the roof of the world.

Related posts:

1. Faces of the Himalaya Show January 9th, 2009 at Altitude Gallery.
2. Living the Dream and Remembering to Work
3. My favorite wedding

For best results, follow these suggestions:

1. Call ahead to find the best spots for wildflowers.  Moab Ranger District (435) 259-7155, Arches National Park (435) 719-2299, or Canyonlands National Park (435) 719-2313
2. Photograph at sunrise.  The heat will cause flowers to close up in the afternoon.
3. Use a tripod and get low.  Getting down near ground level will give you more interesting composition.  A tripod will allow you to carefully evaluate the edges of the frame.
4. Wear sunscreen and dress appropriately.  Much like here in the mountains, the dry air causes a warm day to quickly change into a very cold night.  Be prepared for changing weather.
5. Watch your step!  Crypto biotic soil crusts abound in the desert.  Plant life depends on these crusts for survival.  It’s important to stay on established trails, in sandy washes, or on slick rock to keep from stepping on this crust.

Travelling in the early morning will provide the best light, and the best possibility of finding flowers, but don’t stop there.  Moab offers excellent opportunities for landscape and action photography.  Take your camera on a mid day bike ride along the easier (by Moab standards) Bar-M trail.  Have and late lunch at Eddie McStiff’s, and then drive to the Delicate Arch trailhead, in Arches National Park.  Make sure to get to the trailhead at least two hours before sunset and hike the moderate trail 1.5 miles to Delicate Arch for some great sunset photography.  Make sure to bring a jacket and a good flashlight because you will be hiking down in the dark.

Related posts:

1. So What’s all this White Balance Suff? (From Summit Daily News, May 23, 2008)
2. Tripod Trepidations