photography by wasim.

Tag: travel

Bearing Witness to History and a Country Evolving – 360˚ Journeys Through the Heartland

A pair of Buddhist monks cross the bridges at Keeper of the Plains, Wichita, Kansas.

It’s been a pretty wildly eye-opening last couple o’ months.

Recently, my virtual reality company, Superswell VR, was blessed with the opportunity to work with Miles Partnership, a marketing company that specializes in the tourism and travel industries. They contracted Superswell VR to shoot 360˚ Google Streetview campaigns for various destinations, including Oklahoma’s Chickasaw Nation, the Kentucky State Parks, and Kansas’ Visit Wichita.

Over the course of about 4 weeks, I went from Confederate strongholds on the Mississippi, sipping through parts of the Bourbon trail, elk calling at sunrise and exploring underground caves in Kentucky, to sacred Native American sites, natural springs, more than your fair share of old train depots and historical museums showing off everything from attempted bank robberies by Bonnie & Clyde to the history of John Deer tractors in Oklahoma, to feeding rhinos, touching the Berlin Wall, freakin’ out over real Egyptian mummies and Meso-American shrunken heads, photographing the first house ever built in Wichita, a Frank Lloyd Wright structure and learning about the African and Native-American histories of Kansas.

Because of this, I’ve had the chance to spend a good amount of time in parts of the country I’ve never visited, and to be able to do it, one, for work, and two, since we were working directly with those destinations, basically with a ‘backstage’ pass to some of the locale’s most awesome attractions and points of interest.

It’s been a whirlwind of amazing.

While travel and the unknown and experiencing new locations is basically what gets me up in the morning, perhaps with this trio of locations, the curiosity was magnified, especially, as much of it was during midterm voting season, during a time in which this country feels more divided than it may have ever been. I was most enthused to get a first-hand feel for the people and the culture of part of the country I did not have much experience in at all.

Yes, some it was what I expected, like driving for hours through areas of several straight miles of flatlands of nothing, or like the old lady in the train depot who had never, in 84 years of life, left that area in the middle of Oklahoma who made it a point to let us know that ‘white folks sat over here and negroes sat over there,’ (to be fair, it seemed through no sense of bigotry, but rather, as it was a museum, just pointing out a part of their history). Some of it, however, left me incredibly surprised and charmed.

Take, for instance, the solar panel farm in the middle of Kentucky, mere miles from coal country where a park ranger was explaining to us the steps they were taking to save the bees from chemical pesticides.

Or the 13 year old black girl and 13 year old white girl who laughingly shared a sandwich together in a Subway staffed by an Indian man and a white woman just 4 miles down the road from a Confederate stronghold where teenage soldiers and slaves were waiting to die just over a mere century ago.

Or the young rancher who was employing social media to attract a new tech-savvy demographic to his family’s horseback riding business less than an hours’ drive from an early printing press on display at that very aforementioned train depot.

Or, simply, Wichita. It was one of the most charming cities I’ve been to in the country, and I would never have expected that at all. A row of museums and parks and beautiful bridges and artworks that line the riverbanks, a wide variety of delicious food options, and incredibly interesting attractions covering everything from colonial history to Native American history to African American history to toys to science.

I don’t know, but to me, those all seem like major pieces of the progress puzzle.

This yin and yang of comfortable tradition versus conscious embrace of what is to come was an incredibly constant theme of my travels through the heartland, and left me with a strengthened conviction that we, as a country, and as a whole, are actually in MUCH better shape than mass medias may make us out to be.

While there is an enormous sense of pride in their history and culture, we must all recognize that, for better or for worse, it was that history that has in large part crafted this nation and planted those seeds for progress to flourish. Furthermore, despite our obvious flaws, if we really look at the American experiment, one that has never been attempted anywhere on the planet ever – throw everything and everyone in the same pot and see what happens – we’ve done remarkably well over 241 short years (that’s just three 80-year old people ago!).

Yes, I spoke to several southern and heartland ‘lifers’ who are more than well aware of some of the uglier parts of our history and ancestors’ roles in it. But it was many of these very same folks, who ranged from the ages of 18 to 80, who went out of their way to welcome a middle-eastern dude named Wasim and made a concerted genuine effort to expose themselves for who they really are: the warm, smart, beautiful, friendly and (mostly) tolerant core of our modern nation.

If I learned anything, it was certainly to let go of all ‘expectations,’ because once you do, you begin to realize that while the hysterical glut of media may make it seem like we’re on opposite sides of the fence, we’re really not. Sometimes we may find ourselves playing offense, sometimes defense, but always on the same field.

Furthermore, we all need the same things, feel the same things and want the same things. While we may have different ideas of how to get there, that’s exactly the sole condition necessary for negotiation.

Regardless, the country is absolutely changing, and there are signs of it all over. Even, as I found out first-hand, in the backroads of our nation’s hinterlands.

And all of it, ALL of it…for the better.

Patience.

Persistence.

Progress.

We got this.

And for more wacka wacka wackas:
instagram: @wasimofnazareth
ello: @wasimofnazareth
google+: +WasimMuklashy

Finally, if you enjoy these posts, please feel free to subscribe to my mailing list at top right of this page, and I’ll deliver each post to you as I publish them, and if you support the kind of work I’m doing and the things I’m sharing, please consider ‘subscribing to me’ on Patreon.com. Yup, subscribing to ‘me.’ You can even set the price. Literally, $1 per month if you want. No joke, I’m a poor bastard, so your little helps me a LOT.

November 20, 2018
The Columbia River Gorge and Mount Rainier National Park: A Great Pacific Northwest Smoke Out

The last couple of weeks are exactly why I now find myself living in the Pacific Northwest.

Sort of.

So it’s no secret that this region of the country has some of the most incredibly beautiful and inspiring fodder for landscape and nature lovers and overall wanderlusters.

If anything, the region is known for its copious amounts of water and incredibly liberal natural display of every shade of green known to man.

It’s what I moved up here to explore and embed with.

Between the forests, the waterfalls, the rivers, the coastlines, the almost-religious focus on sustainability and conservation and nature-worship, and perhaps the world’s most concentrated populations of tree-huggers on the planet (myself proudly and unapologetically included), it’s enough to occupy infinite lifetimes of discovery.

What we didn’t see coming (well actually we did) was the supercharged effects of climate change, not surprisingly, affecting some of the most heavily forested areas in the country.

From Portland all the way up to Seattle, the Pacific Northwest has been covered in a thick layer of smoke and haze from the wild megafires flanking us in every direction from California up to Canada.

Image by Mark Graves for The Oregonian

It’s just marinating over the city like a modern-dust bowl, and oftentimes visibility is no further than the building across the street. In fact, over the past 2 weeks, this has been a recurring news-story:

“Air quality in Portland ranks fourth-worst among major cities worldwide according to a data visualization tool that tracks air quality.” –KGW

Think about that for a second…that’s worse than Beijing. And that has been the increasing trend for the past half-decade.

And this has now gone on for exactly one month.

Furthermore, we’ve seen more over-90 degree days this summer than not, which is NOT typical for this region. It’s a very disturbing trend that, in speaking to several locals, has increased dramatically over the past several years. Being as how this area is the hub of forestry, I’ve attended (and worked) several symposiums and talks and panels and events centered around this very topic.

However, not one to spread doom and gloom, I wasn’t going to let this hamper my exploration of the region, so while Mother Nature was busy taking care of herself, I figured we’d use the incredible light provided by the fire-smoke-diffused sky for photography and sunsets and sunrises that look like sunsets and over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been able to put a good dent in my list of ‘things to do’ up here in the Pacific Northwest. First off, a cousin came to town to escape the big city life of Los Angeles, and wanted some ‘nature time.’ We only had 48 hours, so figured we’d make the best of it.

We started off in Beacon Rock State Park along the Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area, where we hiked by the Pool of the Winds up to the semi-treacherous trek to the summit of Hamilton Mountain. While it was a fairly decent burner, about 1700 feet elevation over the course of 3 miles, the air quality certainly had a hand in it hurting as much as it did. We did, however, get some pretty incredible views and colors because of it. After that, we made our way through Hood River’s fruit loop and picked up some fresh cherries for the ride back down the mountain through Mount Hood to Portland.

Then, just last week, along with a photographer friend Rob Dweck (check out his stuff…seriously…especially his black & whites!!), I made it up to one of the locations that has been on my photographic bucket list for a decade – Mount Rainier National Park.

Typically known for crystal clear summer skies and crisp contrasted majestic mountain – peak, driving into the park, due to the thick haze, we hardly even knew it was there.

Legend has it a majestic mountain lies in there somewhere…

Even at sunrise the following morning, I had to use a polarizer on my lens just to cut through enough haze to identify that a mountain even existed over Mirror Lakes. It eventually cleared enough for her to show off her grand self, but throughout much of the rest of that day, we were avoiding the grand viewpoints because…well there were none.

This did, however allow us to focus on the forests and waterfalls and use the haze to the best of our advantage as we can – contrasty black & white images and landscapes, more focused compositions in heavily forested areas as we hiked down portion of the Nisqually River and up through the forest towards Comet Falls, the park’s largest waterfall.

On our final day, we got somewhat lucky. We arose for sunrise again to try to catch Mount Rainier in all her beauty from Paradise. Unfortunately, the fog, mixed with the haze, covered her up completely and we were unable to get a glimpse. That unfortunately turned quickly to fortunately because due to those very conditions, I did manage to capture what turned out to be my favorite images from the trip. They weren’t the images I imagined I’d capture from Rainier, but I can’t complain at all – with the fog slowly lifting and the tops of the trees ever-so-gingerly monochromatically poking their way through – I feel like they were pretty unique images.

And, well, it was fun.

Finally, on the day we were leaving, the haze lifted enough to show us Rainier in the glory she was meant to be seen in. We figured we’d hike the Sunrise Loop, a 7-mile loop trail that took us through the forests, above the treelines, almost up to the basecamp of where the crazy-folks that climb the whole mountain prepare and acclimate to the elevation before beginning their awe-inducing ascents up to the summit, and back down through the idyllic meadows and streams and wildflowers caused by the glacier runoff back down to the Paradise Lodge.

Easily one of the most beautiful hikes I’ve ever done.

And can’t wait to do again.

Anyhow, below are some images from that trip up to Mount Rainier National Park. Hope you enjoy:

And for more of the riff raffs and scabber dabbers:
instagram: @wasimofnazareth
ello: @wasimofnazareth
google+: +WasimMuklashy

Finally, if you enjoy these posts, please feel free to subscribe to my mailing list at top right of this page, and I’ll deliver each post to you as I publish them, and if you support the kind of work I’m doing and the things I’m sharing, please consider ‘subscribing to me’ on Patreon.com. Yup, subscribing to ‘me.’ You can even set the price. Literally, $1 per month if you want. No joke, I’m a poor bastard, so your little helps me a LOT.

August 24, 2018
Guanajuato – Millions of Gallons of Happy

I hate dogs.

I’ve always hated dogs.

And if you were living with the trauma of being been bit by numerous dogs as a child, you’d hate dogs too.

So when a friend’s friend asked if I wanted to dog and house-sit for her, my immediate internal reaction was ‘NO chance!’

Then she threw a curveball – a Google Images link for ‘Guanajuato.’ This triggered my self-diagnosed compulsive wanderlust disorder (and unreasonable addiction to tacos) and my fingers found themselves frantically replying “YES ME!”

It was beyond my control.

Regardless, I was now faced with the reality of a stranger’s dog, in a foreign country, under my supervision and responsibility.

A half-week of self-pep talks, frantic Googling, revived attempts at meditation and Tony Robbins clips helped quell my nerves enough to reach out to a friend who happens to run a professional dog-training and sitting service. I asked him to draft a ‘How to Love Dogs for People Who Hate Dogs” handbook, to which he borderline-begrudgingly, yet thankfully, obliged.

48 hours later there was a ticket with my name on it from PDX to BJX.

I (think) I was ready.

When I landed, I was greeted by Mosa, the dog, and the wonderful woman whose house I’d be sitting, Miriam de Uriarte, an extremely prolific and well-decorated writer, poet and artist, who also founded the Berkley Child Art Studio during her time in the Bay Area. She has called Guanajuato home for the past 15 years, and there’s absolutely no wonder why.

If you’ve never heard of Guanajuato, upon first sight, your immediate reaction might be a quaint Spanish town was airdropped smack dab in the middle of Mexico, then carpet-bombed by millions of gallons of red, blue, orange, pink, purple, yellow, and green happy sauce!

Founded in 1558, this UNESCO World Heritage city has a rich mining history – at its height, over two thirds of the world’s silver came from the veins in these very hills, and with mining, came money.

Lots of money.

And with lots of money came ornate haciendas scattered amongst seductive theatres, fountains, churches and museums.

The colonial influence is inescapable, and with manicured tree-lined plazas dotted with courtyard cafés surrounded by centuries old rainbow-colored sandstone structures, conjoined by an endless matrix of cobblestone pathways, roadways and alleyways, why would you want to?

However, lots of colonial influence eventually led to lots of inequality.

And with lots of inequality came revolution.

And Guanajuato was ground zero for revolution – it was here the first battle in the Mexican War for Independence was fought.

The Monumento a el Pìpila, where the following 360˚ image was taken (if you scroll the picture around, you’ll see the statue of Juan José de los Reyes Martínez Amaro, better know as El Pipila, overlooking the city) pays homage to one of the heroes that led that battle.

Though its prime mining days have waned, the region’s draw has not. The old mining tunnels are now an impressive network of roadways beneath the city. There are tunnels upon tunnels leading to more tunnels that start new tunnels as each tunnel ends into a tunnel. Heck, even the river that used to run aboveground was diverted into…yup…a tunnel underneath the city.

What this does is help lessen the congestion of cars aboveground in the city, which is absolutely necessary being as the city is so old, most of the roads are of the small cobblestone variety that don’t exactly allow for most of today’s cars to even fit through them – they were designed for donkeys and small carriages and mining carts and such.

Regardless, that just adds to the charm of the modern-day version of Guanajuato, as this leaves most of the aboveground for walking.

In fact, when you arrive and first lay eyes upon her, the first, and only, thing you want to do is walk.

Every vibrant path, plaza, twist and turn just leads to another insanely stunning all of the above.

Each day, I would just drop myself off at some corner or plaza and just start…walking. It didn’t matter which direction and there was never a destination in mind, and that was the absolute beauty of it. Where you ended up wasn’t the goal, concern, focus, or even part of the plan. The best plan in Guanajuato is to have none, because you will discover something, somewhere, everywhere, all the time.

And if you happen upon something that you particularly like, chances are you’ll never find it again, so you better stop and grab that enchilada or torta or sopa or those zapatos or that shot or whatever it is that caught your eye (or other senses), for once you turn that corner and you find yourself in a whole other beautiful maze to navigate, that location will be long gone.

The colors, the charm, the aromas, the food, the food, the food. Oh my.

This was an absolute photographer’s, and curiosity seekers, and hopeless romantic’s paradise.

How Guanajuato isn’t a more popular destination absolutely blows my mind. At the same time, I’m hesitant myself to divulge the secret that is this gem simply for blowing its cover and contributing to turning it into something that it’s not. This is not only one of the most stunning destinations in Mexico, but one of the most beautiful locations on the planet. Period.

It’s as authentic as authentic gets, and if you’re not charmed by Guanajuato, have the carnitas. And if you’re still not charmed, then, well, you’re just not human and I simply don’t trust you.

Needless to say, the last thing I expected was for a dog to be the impetus that led me to one of the most beautiful destinations I’ve ever been.

Oh, by the way, did I mention, I love dogs…

A full gallery of images from the trip is above (including the lovely Mosa bidding me farewell…)

Here’s a panorama taken from the Monumento a el Pìpila (check this one out in full screen!):

And not to worry, a 360 video in virtual reality for Superswell VR is coming soon as well…

And for more nonsensical yehawwws and weeheewaas:
instagram: @wasimofnazareth
ello: @wasimofnazareth
google+: +WasimMuklashy

You my dawg Mosa!!

And if you enjoy these posts, please feel free to subscribe to my mailing list at top right of this page, and I’ll deliver each post to you as I publish them, and if you support the kind of work I’m doing and the things I’m sharing, please consider ‘subscribing to me’ on Patreon.com. Yup, subscribing to ‘me.’ You can even set the price. Literally, $1 per month if you want. No joke, I’m a poor bastard, so your little helps me a LOT.

April 2, 2018
Gettin’ To the Heart of the Art at San Jose del Cabo’s Hotel El Ganzo

Back in September, I was EXTREMELY lucky to have the opportunity to spend a week at Hotel El Ganzo in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico. It sits on the other, quieter, more civilized side of the Baja peninsula from Cabo San Lucas and it’s no ordinary place. Not only have artists like Thievery Corporation and Telefunkt recorded in their underground recording studio, but they have an artist-in-residence program in which they invite artists of different disciplines (including NBA star Desmond Mason…who knew!?) to stay in the rooms and decorate them however they please.

Needless to say, we ran into some pretty unique stuffs!!

Anyhow, I was out there with Joan Jetsetter and our virtual reality production company Superswell VR shooting 360˚ VR videos for the property, which we’ll be sharing soon. But this post is about another of my assignments while I was out there – to write an article about the resort for Palisades Magazine. I just received a copy and wanted to share it with you, so if you’d like, click the magazine cover image for a PDF version of the article. Hope you enjoy…

Also, this seems like a good time to share all the images from that trip. Here’s a slideshow gallery of the insanely inspiring creativity that we ran across while out there shooting!

And for more riff raffs and crockolockers, find me at:
instagram: @wasimofnazareth
ello: @wasimofnazareth
google+: +WasimMuklashy

And if you enjoy these posts, please feel free to subscribe to my mailing list at top right of this page, and I’ll deliver each post to you as I publish them, and if you support the kind of work I’m doing and the things I’m sharing, please consider ‘subscribing to me’ on Patreon.com. Yup, subscribing to ‘me.’ You can even set the price. Literally, $1 per month if you want. No joke, I’m a poor bastard, so your little helps me a LOT.

January 4, 2018
My Homage To The Mountains That Made Me ‘Me.’ In All Its 360 Video Virtual Reality Glory!

This one is very very dear to my heart. When I made the choice to move up to the Pacific Northwest a few months ago, I knew that I had to pay homage to the Santa Monica Mountains – the mountains that made me ‘me.’

So I figured during my final weeks living in the Santa Monica Mountains, I’d take along a 360˚ VR video camera on the remainder of my hikes and excursions and cut together my gift back to the mountains…hoping it’ll get at least a few more people to discover the magic of those hills, and a conscious relationship with nature in general. Because if there’s one thing I’m 100% sure of, it’s that no one would regret a single second of it.

No question about it, that range played one of the most pivotal roles in the development from one version of me to another. From living in the city all my life, the transition from a destructive reactionary existence to one where I suddenly found myself with the luxury to process my thoughts and existence and directions was the greatest gift life could have given me at that stage. I learned more about who I was and the relationship I wanted to have with myself, my environment, and the people that I choose to surround myself with, that at any point in my life, and I attribute it all to being in those mountains. Furthermore, it was being up there that re-kindled my love for photography as a means of capturing, savoring, and sharing the ‘special,’ and that has essentially guided my path since.

Anyhow, you can watch the video below in YouTube and drag around to see everything in all directions at all times, but the best way to enjoy it is definitely in a Virtual Reality headset for a fully immersive experience (just make sure to sit in a swivel chair…). If you’ve got a Google Cardboard, hit the little headset icon in the bottom right of the screen on your mobile device, if you’ve got a Samsung Gear VR, use this link: https://samsungvr.com/view/r_kopT9C4iE

Thank you Santa Monica Mountains Recreation Area, Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council, National Park Service, California State Parks, Malibu Creek State Park Docents and all those who contributed to my journey, inside and out.

Humbly,

me.

<br />

For more of the jibber jabbers and wabber wibbers, catch me at:
instagram: @wasimofnazareth
ello: @wasimofnazareth
google+: +WasimMuklashy

And if you enjoy these posts, please feel free to subscribe to my mailing list at top right of this page, and I’ll deliver each post to you as I publish them, and if you support the kind of work I’m doing and the things I’m sharing, please consider ‘subscribing to me’ on Patreon.com. Yup, subscribing to ‘me.’ You can even set the price. Literally, $1 per month if you want. No joke, I’m a poor bastard, so your little helps me a LOT.

August 7, 2017
My Love Letter(s) To Our National Parks – Happy 100th National Park Service!

Our National Parks and outdoors spaces have done more for me than I can ever possibly express. I have learned more about myself, more about all of us, and more about what and why matters and drives me and all of humanity in those parks than anywhere and anytime else in my adult life. I cannot think of anything that has helped to heal my psyche over the past decade and put everything into necessary perspective more than our natural world and outdoors spaces, and while it’s absolutely impossible to express all of those sentiments in a blog post, the most appropriate attempt would be to simply rehash some of my favorite scenes and stories that I have been blessed to see with my own eyes and experience with my own being over the years. So below is a gallery of 100 images from within some of our national parks and some links to some of the stories behind those images. Hope You Enjoy.

That Time Yosemite Got Me Onto Some Of My Favorite Photography Podcasts!

That Time I First Attempted To Explain What It Was About Nature Photography That Had Me Hooked

That Time That Subaru And The National Park Service Picked My Image To Represent Their Zero-Landfill Park Cleanup Initiative

That Time I Did The 3 National Parks, 2 Weeks, 1 Crap Bag Trip of 2013!

That Time I Decided To Publish The Most Personal Thing I’ve Ever Put Out Publicly, An Explanation Of How Photography & Nature Helped Me Deal With Depression

That Time I Got To Spend A Weekend With Friends While On Assignment Shooting A Cabin At The Edge Of Sequoia National Park

That Time I Convinced My Family To Spend Thanksgiving In Joshua Tree National Park

That Time I Sold My First Physical Print! Yup…T’was Of A National Park!

That Time I Was Convinced To GIVE A FREAKIN’ SPEECH About How I Fell Into Nature Photography

That Time I Got To Spend A Week In Yosemite Helping My Cousin And Her Family Introduce Their Two Children To The Majesty of The Valley.

That Time I Drove To Mammoth For A Job That Got Cancelled As Soon As I Got There So Frolicked In Yosemite’s Tuolumne Meadows Instead!

That Time I Headed To Acadia National Park After A Job In Maine.

That Time I Ended Up On The Same Walls As Ansel Adams and Art Wolfe!?

That Time I Paid Homage To The Mountains That Made Me ‘Me.’ In All Its 360 Video Virtual Reality Glory!

That Time I Finally Made It To Olympic National Park For Some Zen (And Some Not So Zen) Moments – Backpacking the High Divide Loop

With that, I thank you National Park Service. You cannot begin to understand what you have done for me and how much you have meant to me. Thank you for all that you are and all that you do. I look forward to another century of stories, adventures, meditations, and realizations. Happy 100th. Here’s to 100 more!

Oh so humbly,

wasim.

And if you so wish, for more of the blah blahs and what whats, find me at:
instagram: @wasimofnazareth
ello: @wasimofnazareth
google+: +WasimMuklashy

And if you enjoy these posts, please feel free to subscribe to my mailing list at top right of this page, and I’ll deliver each post to you as I publish them, and if you support the kind of work I’m doing and the things I’m sharing, please consider ‘subscribing to me’ on Patreon.com. Yup, subscribing to ‘me.’ You can even set the price. Literally, $1 per month if you want. No joke, your little helps me a LOT.

August 25, 2016
Turning Over A New Leaves – A Pacific Northwest Autumn Meditation

I recently spent an incredible week in the Pacific Northwest, the reasons of which will come in a more detailed post next week, but while I was up there, I couldn’t help but capture a few scenes of the foliage beginning to turn. Coming from Southern California, it’s always a treat to be able to capture some fall colors, and just wanted to share those with you here as a bit of a peaceful meditation. Best viewed if you click on one, a lightbox will open. I recommend scrolling slowly through them – at least 15 seconds on each. Hope you enjoy.

1. samsung galaxy note 5
2. samsung nx1 | 100mm | f4.5 | 1/60s | iso320
3. samsung nx1 | 150mm | f6.3 | 1/250s | iso640
4. samsung nx1 | 150mm | f6.3 | 1/160s | iso250
5. samsung nx1 | 150mm | f7.1 | 1/20s | iso100
6. samsung nx1 | 150mm | f6.3 | 1/60s | iso250

For more of the things and the stuffs:
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October 16, 2015
A Whirlwind Summer 2015 Trip Up The Coast Of Maine And Through Acadia National Park

As I mentioned in the previous post, I just got back from a few weeks in Maine. The main purpose of the trip was to work on a video for Camp Skylemar, one of the most beautiful, efficiently run sleep away summer camps in the country. I’ll post much more about this insanely incredible experience once we’re done with the video in a few weeks, but this post is a quick focus on the 5 days after we were done. Since I had never been to Maine before, I tacked on some extra time at the end of the job to explore the State for a few days.

I had reservations at an inn just outside Acadia National Park, about a 3 hour drive from Portland, Maine, and the idea was to immediately drive up the coast to fire a few shots of lighthouses and coastlines. While circumstances prevented me from driving up the first night, this offered me the opportunity to explore the “most photographed lighthouse in the world,” the Portland Head Lighthouse in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, just outside downtown Portland. I entered Fort Williams Park, the property upon which the lighthouse stands, just as the fog was rolling in and the sun began to make its descent. Unfortunately, they kicked everyone out of the park before the proper sunset, but I was still able to set up the tripod and capture a few shots of the lighthouse as the beam cut through the increasingly dense fog. The header to this post is that image, which is actually two exposures. I took one at 1/80s (samsung nx1 | 16mm | f2.2 | 1/80s | iso500), fast enough to freeze the light beam, and then another at 6 full seconds (samsung nx1 | 16mm | f22 | 6s | iso500} in order to capture a smooth milky water.

The next morning, I grabbed a cup of coffee and got on the road. Acadia National Park, here I come. While it added an extra couple of hours to the drive, I opted to take the Highway 1, which tended to stay close to shore, rather than the 95, which would have had me on a highway through the center of the state. Well worth it. I was able to roll through towns like Rockland and Camden, stopping along the way to appreciate the classic New England architecture, feel, ice cream (yeah, I said it), and vibes of these classic New England towns. Not to mention my second lighthouse of the trip, Owls Head, just outside of Rockport.

I ended up pulling into Trenton, the town just at the tip of Mount Desert Island, home to Acadia National Park, where my room was, around 6pm. I checked in and had just enough time to try to capture my first sunset in Maine. When I realized that I was within striking distance of Bass Harbor, just 20 minutes away, I knew that’s where it had to be. I picked up a delicious pesto chicken sandwich at the Cafe Drydock & Inn in Southwest Harbor, about 10 minutes from Bass Harbor, and continued on my way.

The Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse is one of the most popular lighthouses in Maine. It sits right outside Acadia National Park and is situated along a steep rocky outcropping right on the coast. It’s absolutely beautiful and, although it’s one of those token iconic images, I knew I had to capture it to get it out of my system. And for good reason. Just as I made my way down the trail to the shoreline, I saw about 8 or 9 photographers already set up. And there wasn’t much room to maneuver. So I had to settle for perching on the top of a rock overlooking the other photographers as well as sharing the space with a family vacationing in the area. In the end, this turned out perfectly OK, especially since, as the sun broke through the early evening clouds, we were treated to a perfectly stunning cotton candy sky. The colors ran the gamut from purple to pink to orange to magenta to red to yellow. And the streaks couldn’t have been more perfect, as they mimicked what would normally have been radiating beams of lighthouse light.

Now that I had my ‘lighthouses’ out of my system, I had the next 2 days to completely explore with absolutely no agenda, and Acadia National Park to do it in. Those 48 hours included driving around the park on Park Loop Road to get acquainted with the premises. Spent about 90 minutes hiking a part of Cadillac Mountain, the highest point on the North Atlantic seaboard and the first place in the U.S. to see the sunrise (sadly I did not get the chance to capture a sunrise there this time around) before heading into various parts of the park including a walk around a sizable portion of Jordan Pond, a trip down to the Wildwood Stables where I began a 3 hour hike on the old Rockefeller Carriage Roads – a 57 mile network of stone gravel roads designed especially for hikers, walkers, and horse drawn carriages by John D. Rockefeller in the early 1900s, a drive down the bayside Sergeant Road, snaking through the various harbors, from Northwest Harbor to Southwest Harbor to Fremont, and a final sunset in Maine which I enjoyed and captured at the end of the Wonderland Trail at the southernmost tip of the island.

My first foray into New England will absolutely not be my last. Maine was everything I imagined it to be and more. Beautiful. Charming. Quaint. Comfortable. Spacious. Green. Perfect. The uniquely vibrant aquatic architecture, the fenceless neighborhoods where you could rarely tell where one grassy property ended and the next began, the creamy home-churned ice cream on every corner, the stacks of lobster traps and buoys dotting the driveways, the random 5 minute outbursts of rain, the village-like atmosphere and old-school red-roofed Post Office on every Main Street up and down the coast, the smell of fresh seafood everywhere you stepped, and the wide smiles of those well out of the throughs of the winter months happily serving it all to you.

Maine, you had me at hello. I can’t wait to get back.

Below is a set of images from those 5 days, all of which were taken on Samsung NX1 and Samsung NX500 cameras. Click on any of them and it’ll open up a lightbox slideshow.

And if you’re looking for yet more instagoogastuffs:
instagram: @wasimofnazareth
ello: @wasimofnazareth
google+: +WasimMuklashy

If you enjoy these posts, please feel free to subscribe to my mailing list at top right of this page, and I’ll deliver each post to you as I publish them, and if you support the kind of work I’m doing and the things I’m sharing, please consider ‘subscribing to me’ on Patreon.com. Yup, subscribing to ‘me.’ You can even set the price. Literally, $1 per month if you want. No joke, your little helps me a LOT.

July 26, 2015
3 Weeks In Sri Lanka – Part 6 : The Solo Journey Continues. Next Stop: Kandy – The Cultural Capital Of Sri Lanka

So this was it. I had 3 more days left before I had to make my way back to Colombo and begin my 36 hour journey back to U.S. soil. I had two choices…I can head down to the beach and just marinate for a few days, or I can continue the cerebral stimulation and head to Kandy, “The Cultural Capital of Sri Lanka.” Against most of humanity’s better judgement, I chose the latter.

To get there from Nuwara Eliya, I had to bid farewell to the gorgeous valley of the tea, tuk-tuk down to the Nanuoya train station 8 miles down the road, and find myself a seat. This turned out to be one of the most beautiful train rides I’ve ever been on. We started and ended by slowly snaking our way through 90 miles of the same lush green tea-infused hillsides we drove up to get here, only this time, we were away from the people and the commerce-driven hustle bustle of the road that led up and down the mountain. This time, we hugged the mountainsides as we periodically rolled through tiny track-side villages, many of which consisted of nothing more than 5 or 6 small structures and a store. This is a train ride I think should be added to just about everyone’s bucket list. It was that stunning.

Kandy is quite significant on so many levels to the history and present of Sri Lanka. It served as the last capital of the ancient kings era in Sri Lanka, and, among some of Buddhism and Hindu’s holiest sites, houses the Temple of the Tooth, an enormous and religiously significant temple in the Buddhist faith. Additionally, Kandy, the second largest city in Sri Lanka behind Colombo, serves as a major and important commerce route linking all quadrants of the country, not surprisingly, playing a major role and hub for operations during the 3- year civil war I spoke of in the first few parts of this series. Since then, they’ve put a major focus on tolerance and integration amongst populations, from the Buddhist population to the Hindu population to the Muslim population, Singhalese and Tamil alike, with wonderfully vibrant charming results. While the population of Kandy is listed at about 120,000, it truly feels like a much smaller, quaint town, much of which has to do with its topography – pockets hidden and tucked into hillsides and valleys.

I rolled into town in the early afternoon, got a hold of my host in Kandy, another Airbnb reservation, and another one that I got super lucky with. I landed a spot in Alex Home Stay. The reviews were off the charts, so I wasn’t sure I’d get in, but I was fortunate enough to catch him during an open window. Not only did I have my own entire apartment in the hills just above the town, but Alex, who lived upstairs, was also a certified tour guide in Sri Lanka, so he was able to put together an itinerary for me based on what I wanted to see and do. I got in early enough to have a full afternoon and night in which he led me right. I took a tuk-tuk downtown, had my driver find me a Muslim jewerly shop (apparently that’s where you’ll get the best currency exchange rates), and then drop me off right in front of The Temple of the Tooth. The Temple of the Tooth, a World Heritage Site, and one of the holiest places in the world for Buddhists, is perhaps best known for housing one of Buddhas teeth in a shrine in the center of the temple.

I walked onto the opulent grounds and as I crossed the bridge over the moat and into the compound, immediately felt a calmness come across me. I was instinctually possessed to be quiet, aware, and introspective, a feeling that was only magnified as I walked into the temple and up the stairs that led to the shrine. It was filled to the brim Buddhist devotees sitting on the ground throughout the room, all chanting in unison, led by a monk dressed in traditional orange robes at the center of the room facing the shrine, which was shroud with lotus flowers covering the color spectrum.

I was here.

This was happening.

I was part of it.

So for a few moments I could call my own, I sat down and just listened. It wasn’t long before I found myself entranced and almost hypnotically chanting along with them. I won’t lie, there was something there, an energy, something I wasn’t quite used to, and I know this might sound contradictory, but I don’t know how else to put it…I freaked out a bit at how calming it was. This struck me enough to get a sudden twinge of anxiety, leading me outside of the room. It was a bizarre feeling, one I still can’t describe, but I’m fairly certain it had a lot to do with the inexplainable discomfort of facing yourself upon finding yourself suddenly vulnerable in a completely unfamiliar environment. I wasn’t ready for that. And looking back, I now wish I had stayed and worked my way through those feelings to see what was on the other side.

In any case, I spent the next hour or so meandering through the rest of the grounds, which included everything from the Sri Dalada Museum, which explained the story of the tooth relic through pictures and ancient scrolls, imagery, and statues. Apparently he who holds the sacred tooth relic, which was fought over for centuries, holds the governance of the land. I also got to check out the outlying gardens which played host to a glass room full of prayer candles, in which an endless stream of devotees walked in, lit their candles, made their offerings, and quietly prayed before making their way out.

After this, I found myself walking on the other side of the temple, where I heard dancing and music and drums, and as I followed them, found an old Red Cross building that was hosting a Kandyan dance, essentially a traditional Sri Lankan dance recital. This I could not pass up. It had just started so I bought myself a ticket and walked in to a packed house and balcony watching this display, not unlike what you’d see at a traditional Hawaiian luau, but with the story, dance, costume, and garb illustrating Sri Lankan history. The recital is performed to percussion only, and through costumes depicting different animals, tells the story of shamans that came to cure the king of a mysterious illness caused by black magic of the king’s first wife.

After this 90 minute show, I figured it was time to call it a night as I had a long day ahead of me, for tomorrow, I’d be heading deeper into the hills to see something I could not leave Sri Lanka without seeing…elephants!

To see those magnificent beasts, click here for 3 Weeks In Sri Lanka – Part 7 : The Solo Journey Continues – The Elephants & The Elements , & The Shoulder of Buddha. Or you can always sign up on the right with your email address and I’ll send each new post directly to your inbox.

For now, below is a gallery from that first day in Kandy. Click on any one of them and it’ll open a lightbox slideshow.

If you missed the beginnings of this journey, be sure to start off with 3 Weeks In Sri Lanka – Part 1 : The Most Meaningful Work I’ve Ever Done.

And if you needs you some more wanna wannas, there’s always:
Instagram: @wasimofnazareth
Ello: @wasimofnazareth
Google+: +WasimMuklashy

All images and videos for this series of blog posts were shot with a Samsung NX1.

If you support the kind of work I’m doing and the things I’m sharing, please consider ‘subscribing to me’ on Patreon.com. Yup, subscribing to ‘me.’ You can even set the price. Literally, $1 per month if you want. No joke, your little helps me a LOT.

May 27, 2015
3 Weeks In Sri Lanka – Part 5 : The Solo Journey Begins. First Stop: Nuwara Eliya – The Heart Of Tea Country

Not again. No way was I going to miss my ride this time. It was pseudo-palatable to eat the 10 bucks for ticket I bought for the missed train ride they day before, but after not being able to secure another ticket for the next 3 days, if I was to stand any chance of making it to Nuwara Eliya in the highlands, I would be forced to hire a private driver to take me the 100 miles up the mountain. And that, let me tell you, cost a wee bit more than 10 dollars. So yup, this time, I would NOT miss my ride.

I met my driver outside the Airbnb rental at 7am, bid farewell to my host and Pradeepa, who I wouldn’t see again until her return to the states a few months later, and hopped into the Prius to begin my solo journey through as much of the country as I can comfortably see in 10 days. What was so striking was how quickly everything around me changed. The difference of topography and climate within such a short distance in this country is uncanny. Within just a few miles of being in warm, humid, flat coastal lowlands, I found myself entering a colder, more temperate mountainous climate that I’m more used to seeing in the midst of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the midst of Spring than what I expected on an island 50 miles from the mainland of India. The one thing that didn’t change at all was the constant rush of people everywhere! You figure that when you’re heading into ‘the highlands,’ that the route there would be sparse and barely populated, but, no. Not here. The entire drive up was jam-packed with people and villages methodically going about their business, albeit it in a gorgeous natural setting.

This made much more sense the more I thought about it. Tea is the country’s biggest export and industry, and these mountains were jam-packed with tea plantations. Everywhere. Look left, right, up, down, everywhere…tea. It was beautiful! And it was where the work was. And since this was really the only road to and from the capital and port city of Colombo, business up and down the mountain revolved around the tea industry. This tight two lane winding mountain road was essentially a major corridor in the trade route that sent tea from these mountains to the rest of the world. And this tight two lane winding mountain road, chalk full of blind curves, did NOT stop the drivers, including those of big trucks, from adopting the same practices they did in the city, swerving in and out of each other’s lanes, into oncoming traffic, on blind curves, dodging tuk-tuks and pedestrians, it didn’t matter. Yet, somehow, everyone seemed to make it out unscathed…

My first taste of this tea took place about 2 hours into the ride. We were getting deeper into the mountain and pulled off to take my first sip at a roadside tea stop in Walawala, Sri Lanka. (How great is that name? Walawala!) Anyhow, that first taste gave me my first ever experience with what fresh, real, unprocessed, untreated, direct-from-the-source tea was. The flavor popped out of the cup and danced around on the palate like no other cup I’ve ever had. Now I get it. Heck, the leaves used to brew this cup, as I’d soon learn, were picked less than a handful of days before they arrived in front of me.

We continued on up the road for a bit before I got a glimpse of my first of what would be many waterfalls in the country and the next 90 minutes or so gave me a proper showing of what many call the most beautiful part of Sri Lanka, and it wasn’t hard to see why. The landscapes were blanketed by green rolling hills reminiscent of California wine country, however, instead of grapevines, here it was all covered in lush fields of tea with cascading waterfalls and rivers snaking their way between. It was gorgeous. While, for the past 2 weeks, I often wondered why I even bothered to bring a long sleeve shirt and hoodie with me, this was the moment I was glad to dig them out from the bottom of my bag. The climate was like night and day, easily dropping 15 degrees during the day and 20 degrees at night from what I’ve grown used to.We arrived into Nuwara Eliya in the late afternoon. The driver dropped me off at my hotel, the quaint, hillside Richmond Inn, where, after putting me in a gorgeous room overlooking the entirety of the town, 5 minutes later, they pulled me out of there and threw me in the small dark dingy windowless manager’s break room down the hall. They literally had to remove piles of clothes and quickly make up the bed for me as I stood on the sidelines waiting, but they more than made up for it the next morning, when they moved me into a spacious and comfortable corner suite with french doors opening up to a balcony that overlooked the entirety of the Nuwara Eliya valley. Apparently they had a mixup with my reservation, so they fed me and didn’t charge me for that night. Works for me…

Over the next 60 hours or so I found myself walking, hiking, and tuk-tuk’ing through this picturesque valley and city. I got a chance to tour the Pedro Tea Factory, seeing exactly how the process is carried out from field to cup before enjoying a tea tasting on a wooden deck that overlooked their tea-covered hillside. One thing that you can’t help but notice is the level of poverty that also existed in this area. While it was quite evident all throughout the country so far, I didn’t expect that when I’d walk into the estate, one of the region’s premiere tea plantations and factories, that I’d find shanty towns and corrugated housing for the workers all the way up until I reached the entrance gate. This is when I really got to see what a society looks like when there’s an upper class, a lower class, and a seeming complete absence of a middle class. Despite this, they all seemed to be in good spirits and extremely courteous and generous and warm, as evidenced by my trek up to Lover’s Leap, a relaxing moderate hike up a moderate incline through tea fields that led to small shrine and one of the region’s popular waterfalls. This is where I ran across a sweet family all working in the tea field. They curiously stopped me, we chatted (as well as we could), we took pictures, and they wouldn’t let me leave without a hug and a handshake.

The next day was spent walking around the town center, getting a feel for the local life. Nuwara Eliya is not a big city at all. The city itself is about 5 square miles with a population of about 25,000, while the total population of the entire region is about 50,000. But you could walk through the city itself in a day. The street scenes were vibrant and plentiful as it’s a bustling town with a never-ending turnover of visitors. The main market is located right next to the bus station and is the area I spent most of my time, soaking in the wares and fares. Everything from fresh tea to fresh fruits and vegetables to, well, fresh meat. Just hanging there. Meat.

During an afternoon stroll through the outskirts of town, I found a beautiful old church. I”m not much of a religious person but something drew me in. It was completely empty when I walked in, and just took a seat in the back pew. It wasn’t a particularly special church, but, admittedly, it was very soothing and relaxing to be sitting in such a quiet cavernous chunk of stone while random people sporadically came in to offer a quiet prayer, grant me a smile, and make their way out. As I was leaving about a half hour later, that’s when I was compelled to make the following image of this child, who had just got out of school and was holding onto the bars to the gate of the church. He just stood there, curiously looking at me, and as I snapped, he started to smile. It ended up being one of my favorite images of the trip.

One place that gave me the complete opposite feeling happened, perhaps not so ironically, right after leaving the church when I walked into The Grand Hotel just up the road. The structure was originally built in 1828 as a holiday home for Sir Edward Barnes, the fifth governor of Sri Lanka during the times of colonial rule, and I immediately felt the air change. It got SUPER stuffy. I mean, I understand history and all that, but, when you step outside the gates and see how tough life is for the indigenous inhabitants of this land, then step inside these gates and immediately run into the stiff upper lipped upper class…you know the type…polo shirts with sweaters tied around their necks, looking down at you from the bottom of their beady eyes as you can’t help but overhear their golf and tennis plans for the afternoon. This was all in an environment which also harkens back to the glory days of The Hill Club just up the road, now known for its daily high tea ritual, the grounds didn’t allow women or local native Sri Lankans on the property until 1967. Needless to say, I felt extremely uncomfortable and quickly made my way off the grounds back into the real Sri Lanka.

As I only had the afternoon left before embarking to Kandy, the ‘Cultural Capital of Sri Lanka,” the following morning, I figured it was a good time to find a vantage point for my final Nuwara Eliyan sunset. I grabbed my gear, stopped for a strawberry & whipped cream pancake at the Adma Agro Strawberry Farm (which was quite baffling in that despite the insanely delicious and gluttonous offerings, the beautiful view of Gregory Lake, and the high recommendations of everyone from our friends in Colombo to the hotelier in Nuwara Eliya, was completely empty except for me), and started trudging my tubby tummy up the hill into the tea fields to find a spot to marinate as the sun began its descent. Unfortunately, I miscalculated my timing and how long it would take to get to the sunny side of the hills. However, as I looked before me, it was hard not to where I was, what I was doing, and how fortunate I was to be in this position. So I just stopped, watched, and enjoyed. It wasn’t the view I had in my head, but, well, it was still a view I couldn’t have imagined.

After marinating in those moments, and the final bits of twilight began to disappear, I gathered up my gear, and quietly hiked back down the hill as the chimney smoke began dotting the hillsides and the pleasant aroma of dinner time spices filled the valley. Today…was another good day.

In the next part of this series, Part 6 : The Solo Journey Continues. Next Stop: Kandy – The Cultural Capital Of Sri Lanka, I make my way from Nuwara Eliya to Kandy, “the cultural capital of Sri Lanka” which I’ll be posting in a few days.

If you missed the beginnings of this journey, be sure to start off with 3 Weeks In Sri Lanka – Part 1 : The Most Meaningful Work I’ve Ever Done.

And if more wanna wanna gimme gimmes are desired, there’s always:
Instagram: @wasimofnazareth
Ello: @wasimofnazareth
Google+: +WasimMuklashy

All images and videos for this series of blog posts were shot with a Samsung NX1.

If you support the kind of work I’m doing and the things I’m sharing, please consider ‘subscribing to me’ on Patreon.com. Yup, subscribing to ‘me.’ You can even set the price. Literally, $1 per month if you want. No joke, your little helps me a LOT.

April 28, 2015