Stones on grass, Tajin ii

El Tajin, Papantla, Veracruz. December 2005. Pentax K-1000.

Stones and Sky, El Tajin

I had some film processed this past spring after shooting my Pentax in Costa Rica and Peru. I was happy to find some shots from a trip to Mexico in December 2005.

New Year

Charlottesville, 1.1.2012

A beautiful day. Sunny in the morning, upper fifties. Clouded over with a nice breeze late morning, refreshing rain in the late afternoon. It felt more like a warming spring day than the second week of winter.

The sun began to break through the cloud cover. After the rain, before the dark. I biked through the empty streets of Charlottesville on my way to the gym, catching glimpses of a beautiful sunset here and there when the rise of the land and the break of the building lines were just right. Everything was washed clean with rain.

Heliconia

Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica.
January 2011. Pentax K-1000.

Oil Palm

 
One driver of deforestation in the tropics is conversion of rainforest for oil palm production. An issue worth reading about, but I'm not going to say much about it here.
A good place to read about oil palm? Mongabay dot com. Rhett covers many of the topics that we're working on from illegal mining to oil palm.

Cusco

Cusco, Peru. March 2011. Pentax K-1000.

Costa Rica: Fronds

January 2011. Osa Peninsula. Pentax K-1000.

Costa Rica: Buttresses

January 2011, Pentax K-1000. Osa Peninsula

Dropping off the edge: from Andes to Amazon

Back in July I posted some elevation profiles traveling from Cusco to Manu National Park on the edge of the Andes down to Hacienda Villa Carmen in the Amazon Basin. Those profiles were created from readings on a GPS unit I had with me as we made the drive. The drop from 10 thousand feet above sea level to 1 thousand feet over 50 miles driving is pretty dramatic, so I went into Google Earth to see what the elevation profile would look like in a straight line. Taking out all the twists, turns, and switchbacks- it's really only about 25 miles from Manu to Villa Carmen- making the drop off twice as rapid as I had gathered from the GPS (and cutting in half the amount of land needing protection). The amount of wildlife and plantlife in that 25 mile stretch is unbelievable. On my last trip down, we stopped at the Wayqecha Biological Station and talked to researchers who were finding new, undescribed bird and insect species almost every time they went out. Anyway, that 25 mile wide ribbon from Andes to Amazon extends all the way through Peru- and we're working to protect it in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.

Straight line from Manu National Park entrance near Tres Cruces to Hacienda Villa Carmen:

Driving:

The empanada oven

On the road leaving Pisac, Peru

Morning mountains near Wayqecha

 

Morning halfway between the Andes and the Amazon

A road to the Andes

Morning near Wayqecha Biological Station, Peru

Portraits of Tibet

When I was 24.

Seven years in and out of Tibet

Well, that marks the end of my month of photos looking back to summer 2004 in Tibet. That was a wonderful and transformational time for me, and one that I will never, ever forget. If there was a word to sum it up, it would be magical. God has been good to me to give me big dreams and in turn provide the opportunity to live them out. Life rarely looks the same when we're in it everyday as it does when we're dreaming- but no matter what angle I look at it- I've been truly blessed by the pursuit of Tibet. Thanks Dad.

Portraits of Tibet

Film crew

A white horse and a hill in Tibet

Flags

Over Repkong (Chinese: Tongren). 2004.

Hills of Tibet