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In #Mongolia at the October Eagle Festival in the far west of the country, in the Altai Mountains in 2016, I was surprised and delighted to see a local gentleman with his camels, all three of them smiling for a camera. Posing with his hand held up high over the camels head reminded me of every sassy kid I ever knew in school. I still smile every time I look at this photo. I hope you do too. This is cropped on left by Instagram, check out my FB pg for correct crop It was a long trek to get there from New York, half way around the world and then some, but well worth the effort. I flew alone with two small carry on bags to Beijing on a 32 hour flight from NY, then slept for a day and a half in a 5 star hostel in Beijing. Figured out how to buy a Chinese/Mongolian train ticket and then took a sleeper train nearly 1000 miles through the Gobi desert to #Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of #Mongolia. I met up with #KevinPepper, and a small group of photographers in UB, and after a couple days shooting in UB, Kev got us the 800 miles to the west by airplane, something I just couldn’t figure out how to do from home no matter how I tried. I think a Mongolian or Chinese travel agency is the only way to book the airfare. When we arrived in Bayan Ulgii, Kev prepared us for the festival, with an afternoon photographing eagles and their owners as they practiced their competition skills, so we would know a little better how to deal with the real thing the next day. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but the bright and colorful clothes and the genuine warmth and humor of the Mongolians and the Kazaks was a happy surprise. Forty-plus years of travel photography has given me the opportunity and inspiration to see places and people in a way I never would have otherwise. It’s taught me to look through my lens at people, strangers, as if they were my old friends. Young or old, makes no difference. Everywhere I go, I am always conscious of the fact that I could have easily been born there rather than in NY, so I look for the things that not only make us different, but also the same. What do you look for when you travel? I’d love to read any feedback you leave in the comments be https://www.instagram.com/p/B9lbPgdAoeZ/?igshid=y5n59hl9mr66

#mongolia #ulaanbaatar #kevinpepper

Eagle hunters arrive to the October Eagle Festival outside of Ulgii, near the Altai Mountains, in the far west of Mongolia. 2016 My awesome-photographer guide, Kevin Allen Pepper from Ontario Canada, insisted we get there early, even though it was barely 20 degrees, still dark and the wind was blowing when we set out. There wasn’t a person around when we arrived, and so we had our pick of spots Kev had been there a couple times before, so he knew the drill. His team had coffee, water, snacks, blankets and small folding stools for us to sit and huddle around while we waited for the fun to begin. I love traveling with a great guide when I go to a new place. Kev is the best. Kev took the rest of his group back to UB once the competition was over. I stayed in the Altai for another 3 weeks traveling alone to visit eagle hunters and their families with a private guide arranged for me by Agii Makhsum at Kobesh Travel. These guys came riding across the stretch of barren land full of enthusiasm for the day to come, with the majestic Altai mountains behind them. All I had to do was pray that my frozen fingers would be able to shoot without shaking the camera too much. Located about 50 miles south of the Russian border, and 50 miles east of the Chinese border, near the intersection where Kazahkstan borders both China and Russia, the locals created a festival, comprised mainly of traditional Mongolian and Kazak tests of skill, strength and training, hoping that the few tourists they could entice to pay the $30 entrance fee, would cover the cost of what they’d pay the eagle hunters to compete. One thing led to another and now a few years later there are several new hotels opening up to house the tourists and it’s becoming a hot ticket. I was there in 2016, before the movie The Eagle Huntress had made it into the theaters. The beautiful young woman Aisholpan was still the only girl competing against the men. There were 94 hunters with their horses and eagles, many with friends and family to cheer them on. I can’t imagine there were more than 150 tourists, though I’ve read some clearly exaggerated claims that there were 800 tourists there that year. https://www.instagram.com/p/B9i9QPCAhQU/?igshid=1368uykls0bn7

Only in Bali - Antiques Made to Order. https://www.instagram.com/p/B9bZexWAQYA/?igshid=zxi76kqzudmp

Cremations in Bali involve entire villages. It is one of the most culturally interesting occasions you can both see and participate in if you dress properly and pay respect by following the cultural norms. This was taken through our car window as we passed by a cremation about to be parading through the village. As in any culture, there are many rituals that go along with dying. Here, the men are waiting patiently before they will lift the large bamboo frame with the remains of the departed held high in the air. The higher they are, the richer and higher in caste they were in life. They run through the streets twisting and turning, in order to try and fool the bad spirits, so they will get lost and can’t block the way to heaven once the funeral pyre is finally lit. I attended several cremations over the years. But there was something about this photo that spoke to the everyday-ness of life. Do you seek to photograph the things that are unusual to you, but normal elsewhere? Could you find those pictures of yours in two minutes if you needed to? Thankfully I’ve developed a method for keeping track of all my photos. If you’re interested in knowing more, leave a comment or send me a message. https://www.instagram.com/p/B9YOoMDgUVG/?igshid=1u5toipwfvbma

Ducks in a Balinese rice terrace not long after the rice has been cut. The ducks are happy to scavenge for the ripened rice that fell to the ground during harvesting. I love watching their animated excitement as they move through the field together. Later when I looked back through all the photos I shot that day, this one stood out in spite of its monotone feeling. https://www.instagram.com/p/B9V0zH6gz9N/?igshid=1lke6261orrqw

Meditasi Bungalow, Aas Beach, Bali. The view from my bed. The cottage was entirely made of bamboo. The wall facing the ocean would slide open half way. I have stayed here several times over the years. Whenever I want to just relax and take a few days off from my travels, this is the best. Do you schedule in down time when you travel? A couple days to just sit and do nothing? I always do. https://www.instagram.com/p/B9TcjQmA7Zb/?igshid=1iff1fhu76igc

A gas station in a less traveled area on Bali may have just a few glass bottles of petrol, from which you pour using the funnel. My version of travel photography is often shot from a moving vehicle, as was this photo. Sorry the quality isn’t the best but I just stuck the camera out the window and fired off a couple shots as we flew by, on a busy road late one afternoon. https://www.instagram.com/p/B9QnblZgm3Q/?igshid=1b8nfzgbhsuo8

Fishing in Bali. I marveled as these young men balanced themselves carefully at the top of the falls for an afternoon of fishing. Funny how surprising it was to me, and how commonplace it was to them. I love seeing how other people solve problems. The things I want to remember about a place spring easily to mind when I look back at my photos. Do your travel photos tell stories about the people and places you have seen? https://www.instagram.com/p/B9OOFnJA5KL/?igshid=1t6uf7qxt8pv9

Decorative roof tile in Bali. As a travel photographer, I look for the details that define a place. That make it unique and special. The clay tiles at the end of the ridge-lines on buildings all over Bali, were delightful. When you travel, do you look for architectural details in every-day places? And when you get home, do you tag or keyword your photos with detailed descriptions so that you can easily find your photos again, even after they are buried under another 5000 new photos? https://www.instagram.com/p/B9LVDgGgH99/?igshid=3rtknjswvbgl

Balinese children coming home from school, walking next to tarps covered in peanuts that are fresh from the earth and are drying in the sun. https://www.instagram.com/p/B9JJX9gAr3V/?igshid=1ww33wpfkncrb

The ubiquitous Balinese canang sari. A daily morning ritual offering of flowers with a bit of rice, a cookie and incense in a small handmade woven basket with a twisted edge. Everything in the basket has a meaning. There will be a flower representing each of the major Hindu Gods of the Trimurti – Shiva, Brahma and Vishnu. On top are placed four flowers that symbolise sincerity and love: white petals in the east of the little box for the God Iswara; red for the fiery Brahma in the south; yellow flowers – usually jepun, or ‘frangipani’ – for the God Mahadeva in the west; and blue or green for cool Vishnu in the north. The average Balinese family compound requires about 15 canang each morning – the small square or round, daily offerings are placed in strategic areas around the home and family temple. Each location is symbolic and meant to provide thanks to the gods and to appease the demons and lower spirits. They are set in place with prayers of gratitude and requests for protection. The incense allows the prayers to be carried to god on a fragrance. Only by honoring both the higher and lower spirits of a household can negativity be balanced with positivity – thus ensuring family harmony. In the beginning I saw these rituals as beautiful and charming. After many months, I saw them as tremendously time consuming requirements made of women that I surely would have rebelled against if I had been raised there. The colors are beautiful, and the incense is a lovely fragrance, but a day later, the ground is littered with dead flowers and the small bits of rice or other food meant to appease the low spirits appear to just make the rats and mice bolder. Someone once said to me that you can’t revolt against a brutal regime if you’re busy each day in your small amount of free time, making flower offerings and praying to god to protect the world. So it seems that all that time consuming ritual enslaves rather than frees them. Photos bring me back to the wonder and awe of watching the offerings each day. They cement the images in my brain and keep the connection clear. I can almost smell the incense if I close my eyes for a second... Do you have images like that? https://www.instagram.com/p/B9GUzNKgial/?igshid=1n20ghr5mlxc5

Laundry day on Bali. It’s just as often men who do the wash as women. Once you leave the tourist areas for the small villages, you will see that it’s mostly done in outdoor streams and ponds. Clothes dry in bushes. No dryers in a place of blazing sun. I had the chance to make a donation to my driver for his service over and beyond. When I offered to buy a washer and dryer for his wife, he was horrified. No, you cannot. That would be a terrible thing to do to her. What? How could that be a terrible thing, I asked. If you bought a washing machine, no woman in the village would ever speak to her again. They would all be angry and jealous and it would change all her relationships. And besides, we don’t have any water anyway, so she’d still have to go to the river with the women to get the water, and then she’d have to carry it back alone to put in the machine and it would just be a terrible thing. She would be isolated.…. It took me a while for that to sink in. How could her friends a her? How would that make her isolated? But, the longer I thought about it, the more I realized the truth in what he said. I had been to his house, met his wife and both of their parents. Ten of them lived in a traditional Balinese compound house. Luckily it was near a stream, only a couple hundred yards. He took me there to see it. Travel teaches you about all kinds of things you might not think much about otherwise. In this case, not only water and laundry, but community and how simple things can change your basic every day relationships. Seeing him standing in the stream washing clothes on a well worn stone, it is once again instantly clear how hard life is in other places. Photos remind you in an instant of all the things you learned. I took this on my 4th trip to Bali in 2008. Each trip I spent a month there and each time I saw another layer of their culture that differed drastically from my naive first impressions. I’m so glad I can easily find these images and share them with you. What places changed your ideas about what life is really like? Post your thoughts below. I’d love to hear about your trips and if your photos have helped preserve those memories for you https://www.instagram.com/p/B9EBXhQgmGG/?igshid=11b47nz599rbm

The Tegallalang area in central Bali, north of Ubud is lush with rice fields. It is steeply stepped with clay walls that hold in the water. There is a Water Authority that decides how the water is distributed among the different fields. Each village has a representative to speak regarding their village’s water needs. It is well organized, but in times of drought the meetings can be very important to make sure that each of the fields are receiving enough water for their rice crops. The farmers may squabble sometimes, but the overall result is one of making sure that everyone has enough. https://www.instagram.com/p/B8-cSSkgN3T/?igshid=2se8hebew9dt

Rice farmers on Bali, the Island of the Gods, work harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. During the growing season they are often standing in mud up to the middle of their calves, with live eels swimming around in the watery mud. They spend long days in the brutally hot Balinese sun, mostly alone for hours at a time, from before sunlight until after dark. They have little in the way of modern equipment, instead using water buffalos to plow through the deep mud. I have watched them methodically planting small rice plugs with their hands in the water while being bent over at the waist for the entire day. It’s brutal hard work, and all for a meagre living selling rice on the open market. The thing I found consistently true was that they will always wave and smile at you if you wave or smile first. https://www.instagram.com/p/B80e4Njgb19/?igshid=1b44a5urjcjn1

Vanilla beans drying on the side of the road, in Bali. You’ll see lots of things on the side of the road in Bali. Large tarps covered in rice is pretty common. So is salt. Vanilla was surprising. But the one thing I’ll never forget was driving through a small village and literally begging my driver to pull over so we could just sit and enjoy the thick intoxicating scent of thousands and thousands of cloves spread out on tarps on the side of the road drying in the sun. He thought I was a little crazy. I wanted to stay there forever. We rolled down the windows and I just breathed it in. I’ve never smelled anything even close to that before or since. I’ve often thought about going back there again (half way around the world) just to find that spot again. Sigh... https://www.instagram.com/p/B8x_xiDAaB0/?igshid=1amwr1401w457

The head of the mythological Garuda bird carved on the yoke of a water buffalo drivers cart at the Governor’s Cup Race in Negari, Bali The winner’s purse was the equivalent of $10,000 US. And in a place where $400 would feed a family of 10 people for a year, that kind of money was a big deal and made it the most important race of the year. I noticed rather quickly that I was the only woman there that morning among the hundreds of men as I walked through the staging area while they were preparing for the race. I stood in the middle of the muddy race track to photograph the water buffalo as they came racing directly towards me. Wayan would shout at me to get out of the way, if he thought I was about to be run down. Water buffalo yoked together in pairs, festooned with ribbons, bells and decorative headpieces, came charging directly at me as I held my ground for as long as possible, then leaped out of the way to safety behind a large tree at the last minute of each round. Each pair of buffalo pulled a small, brightly painted, carved and gold leafed wooden chariot, carrying a driver who stood in the small cart holding the reins while beating the poor creatures to make them run. Once the drivers passed the finish line and stopped beating them, the buffalo would immediately stop and nose around in the mud for some grass or something to eat, many of them with blood running down their flanks from the small nails hidden in the leather straps wrapped around the sticks they’d been hit with during their run around the track. https://www.instagram.com/p/B8vX8J5gbdq/?igshid=1czphz8nd2o28

Lagoza’s daughter, Aas Beach, Bali 2003. Kids are the same everywhere you go. Shy, inquisitive, playful and beautiful. She grew up living on the back side of a volcano in a very, very, small traditional Balinese fishing village with no paved roads, no phone service and little electricity back in those days. Her dad was, and probably still is a dreamer. He envisioned his little plot of land on the waters edge to be a gathering place and a haven for tourists. He built a home for her and then for her brother. More and more people came and stayed. They prospered. She’s now a beautiful young woman, goes to university, lives in the city of Singaraja and I saw a music video with her on youtube earlier this evening. Also, selfies of her and her family taken using her mobile phone. A far cry from the last time I photographed her. Funny how the world changes, yet stays the same. https://www.instagram.com/p/B8s0dauAxns/?igshid=xmry1hjyg7e7

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