I’m preparing for my last big trip of 100 country challenge coming up in March, a trip that will cover 7 countries and take me to the total of 99, I can smell the finish line, but I’m not there yet.
I knew it will not be easy or cheap when approaching the end, what I did not know was that I’ll be living in Australia, upss.
In march I plan to go to Sri Lanka, several Middle East countries, such as Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and on the way back finish up in Maldives. This trip will be by far the most expensive short term (less than a month) trip I’ve ever taken, not only flights are ridiculously expensive, I have no close by countries left, and those who are left are not only far but also require visas, which unfortunately are needed for Latvians in most Middle Eastern countries, even UAE (Dubai). There was a point when I regretted not getting UK citizenship and staying proud Latvian, after having that opportunity living 5 years in London. But that weakness is over, you’ve got work with what you got.
So now my focus for next month is to get 4 tourist visas via quite complex requirements to ensure the trip runs smoothly. Wish me luck, I will definitely need it. Will keep you posted how my preparation goes. And keep traveling, world is such a beautiful place.
If the road is not challenging, it’s not worth going
Published January 24, 2012 Life , Travel 2 CommentsTags: 100 countries, big trip, challange, middle east, Travel
Waran @ Potts Point
Published January 12, 2012 Photography Leave a CommentTags: 52 suburbs, photo shoot, Photography, portrait, potts point, sydney, waran
Meet Waran, yoga instructor, writer, dancer, performer and all in all a very nice person. Originally from California, but living in Australia for quite a few years. I had the opportunity to work with him as part of my project for Sydney suburbs. We were shooting in Potts Point which is amazingly chilled area with spectacular views of Sydney CBD, only few steps away from gritty Kings Cross. Waran had access to roof terrace where we could see all of Sydney’s down town as the summer sun was slowly coming down, most pics in the set where shoot against this backdrop. We even got some curious visitors in form of parakeets and cockatoo looking for some snacks, looked like they’ve done it before, unfortunately we did not have any food at hand.
Photo shoot was retro themed as Waran had quite a few pieces of original clothing from early and mid 20th century such as this navy jacket and cap among other things. So here you go, again, another part of amazing city that is Sydney. Here is full set from the photo shoot.
Tasmania without the Devil
Published January 4, 2012 Travel Leave a CommentTags: australia, devil, island, Tasmania, Travel
Prior to going to Tasmania, a tiny island (actually Tasmania is slightly bigger than Latvia, 68k vs. 64k square km, so not that tiny) off Southern Coast of Australia, the only thing I knew about was the famous little animal – Tasmanian Devil, that only lives on this island. After 7 days on the island that remained the only thing we did not see in the whole trip. Funny how it works. But here is what we did see:
Amazing beaches – Wineglass Bay, Binalong Bay and many others, white sand and deserted most Tasmanian beaches are as good as they come, with a little bit of sunshine they are the perfect place to be.
Amazing wineries – we visited 3 or 4 of them, most offer up to 8 wines for tasting free of charge, my favorite was Bay of Fires winery. Also I totally changed my opinion about Riesling. In Tasmanian cooler climate they do it very fresh and dry, nothing in comparison to sweet stuff you’d normally expect from German/Austrian ones.
Lots of animals – dead and alive. There is so much road kill in Tasmania that it makes me sad, but that is just a further proof how healthy the eco system of this island is, as animals are everywhere. On our hikes and early drives, we saw plenty of wombats, wallabies, opossums and other random things, crawling, jumping and just sitting lazily around in the wild, its definitely their territory and we are just the visitors.
Art – MONA art gallery in Hobart is privately owned and definitely in my top 3 in the world, probably only Saatchi gallery in London would come close. If you like modern art, this alone is worth a visit to Tassie.
Food – there are some top notch eateries for foodies. We had steak from Black Cow in Launceston and it honestly is as good as any top NY or London eatery.
So that’s that, I can highly recommend visit to this far out place, if you get a chance to come to Australia. Here are a few pics for the trip. Hope you’re having good start of the year!
Wedding @ Wolfies
Published December 20, 2011 Photography Leave a CommentTags: australia, Photography, sydney, wedding, wolfies
Last weekend I did something I have not done in a while, a photo shoot for wedding. It was last minute gig with not too much preparation and planning, but still lots of fun. Quite challenging settings, all indoors with limited natural lighting, continuous rain outside and venue at maximum capacity with not much room to juggle my camera and get the right angles, but think I managed to pull it off quite OK, you can be the judge. As always, for me the most exiting part is informal banter and emotions on the day, not the formal exchange of bows, but all has its place.
5 years of taking pictures
Published December 10, 2011 Photography 1 CommentTags: 5 years, hobby, Life, taking pictures
It’s been 5 years since I’ve been doing photography, not just taking travel snaps, but working with models, doing projects and assignments, a real deal so to say. Picture above is my first studio attempt I was really proud of, I got my then flatmate Mariola to pose for me. As it was my first time in photo studio on my own and it was her first time as a model, we decided to share a bottle of wine in the process, and 10 minutes in, wine became the focus point of the shoot, not sure what on earth we were thinking, but at the time it seemed like a good idea.
Also, since there’s nothing like a bit of statistics, I thought I’d share some numbers. In last 5 years I have:
- worked with more than 100 models
- spent more than one full year of travelling (and taking pictures)
- taken 56,000 pictures, on average I keep 5% or 1/20 pictures that I take, so in last five years I have taken 2824*20=56480 pictures, not bad.
- spent $10k plus on photo gear. Photography is expensive hobby. In last 5 years, I have gone through 3 Nikon cameras (D50, D80 and now D7000) and 10 lenses, whilst I still own 5 of them: Nikon 18-200mm VR, Nikon 50mm f1.8, Nikon 24-70mm f2.8, Tamron 70-200mm f2.8, Tamron 90mm f1.8, plus flashes, tripods, stands, umbrellas and other collateral
And of course, it’s all nicely cataloged in my Flickr photo stream, have a look at the sets to travel back in time.
Roller skating round Marrickville
Published December 1, 2011 Photography Leave a CommentTags: 52 suburbs, living in Sydney, Marrickville, photo project, roller skating, shay, sydney
On Tuesday I was roller skating with Shay. Well, more precisely, Shay was roller skating and I was taking pictures, especially trying to capture the awkward moments like falling, which she refused to do, so we had to fake it to make it.
Marrickville is one of my favourite Sydney suburbs as it has so much character. Like a safer and cleaner version of Hackney in London, but just as cool. If I could afford a photo studio it would be here. It’s mostly industrial, with lots of warehouses that serve small businesses during a day and throw a mad party during night.
My model for the day was Shay, who took me up on bringing something weird to the shoot, so out came the roller skates. That is something I’m always on the look out for, but rarely rely on. It only happens by chance and planning a roller skate shoot is like planning chameleon shoot. A year ago I posted on all kinds of pet forums for weeks to find owner with Chameleon who would allow me to shoot his friend, but no luck. So from that day on, I take the opportunity when it presents itself, but do not count or pre-arranging something random like that, as it never works.
Full set of pics.
Can you close that tap off for God’s sake
Published November 18, 2011 Life 1 CommentTags: art exhibit, free, living in Sydney, sculptures by the sea, sydney
It’s not that easy, you see this tap is a big bugger. That’s just one of the amazing artworks exhibited as part of annual hoopla in Bondi – Sculptures by the Sea.
Went there last friday, actually this post should have gone up a week ago, but as I was writing it, I dozed off. Waking up later that night I forgot that I was mid way before shutting down and happily thought that it’s been posted, only realized it now its been sitting in the drafts for a week. And week is a long time in this real time update world of ours. Nevertheless, the sculptures are still there this week, if Sydney local go see them while you can, if far away, just look at the cute pic and have a warm feeling in the left upper arm, at least I do when I see something l like. Have a great weekend.
Bondi surf in black and white
Published November 8, 2011 Photography 1 CommentTags: 52 suburbs, bondi beach, living in Sydney, photo project, surf girl
Hello peeps, this week I have a nice surf shoot gallery in black and white, check it out here. Bondi beach at 7 am on Saturday morning was spectacular, hazy horizon as a backdrop, summery 25 degrees, not too busy, all in all, perfect conditions for some surf action. Too bad come 10am all the backpackers wake up and Bondi becomes living hell, so do what you can whilst others sleep, then get the hell out of there, before you get stuck in hour long traffic jam.
I also have to thank Naomi for rocking up nice and early for the 7am shoot and giving tips on good coffee places in the hood.
This shoot reminded me how effective simple black and white pics can be, you can really focus on the story and the message with no distractions, note to myself, should do it more.
Hope your week has started well, live your dream.
look mum no hands!
Published November 2, 2011 Photography 1 CommentTags: 52 suburbs, anastasia, look mum no hands, Photography, project, sydney, waterloo
What started as improbable gymnastics around old pipes in Waterloo, ended up with bike ride around balcony. Anastasia is my Waterloo model from 52 suburbs project. She’s originally from Ukraine, with 2 masters degrees, 10+ years of modelling experience and body of 18 year old. She’s fitness fanatic, that can bend her body in all kinds of random positions, 5 minutes into the shoot, Anastasia was like “I can pull my leg backwards up to my head, you want to see?” I had no time to answer, just keep on snapping.
All in all good times and a great session, besides the obligatory Waterloo landmarks and old water pipes, we also managed to squeeze in dress change and get some bored housewife looks, bike ride, and kiddie swing shot, all in about hour and a half, not bad.
Full set of pictures from the shoot can be found here.
p.s. there actually is amazing bike cum coffee shop in east London, called ‘look mum no hands!’, now every time I take a pic of someone on the bike, that is the first phrase coming to my mind, the power of branding.
What do you do when you need to change a passport?
Published October 23, 2011 Travel Leave a CommentTags: 100 countries, 92, armenia, challange, georgia, new passport, south korea
If you are are a Latvian living in Australia, you spend $2000+ on tickets and sit on a plane for 25 hours (each way) to go home. My latest trip was triggered by very practical reason of not having enough free pages in my passport to travel, so I had to go home to get a new one. You see, passports are normally issued only in the country itself or its legal offices of representation – embassies. Slight problem with being Latvian citizen is that we only have about 15 embassies around globe, most of them in Europe, and from Australia, the closest embassy is, wait for it, Japan, only 10 hour flight away. I figured if I have to fly to Tokyo to get a new passport, I might as well go home and on the way add some new countries. So I did, result – 2 week holiday, 7 flights, 3 new countries and a new passport.
I already posted about South Korea stop-over, this one is about more detail on adventures in Georgia and Armenia, where I was lucky enough to spend 8 days. Georgia gets my vote, super easy to get in (no visas, quick customs), great food (khinkali, khachapuri, lobio), welcoming people (60 year old dude on marshruthka sharing his headphones with me to listen to some Georgian dance music) and amazing nature, such as Kazbeki mountain range that I explored a bit, not to the top at 5033m, of course, only to about 3000m or so, here’s a complimentary snap.
I thought Latvia has had bad run in 20th Century, but look at Armenia. Not only had they endure Genocide from Turks that resulted in death of more than 50% of Armenian population, they lost most of their territory, and now have no access to sea, no minerals underground, little arable land, two aggressive neighbours with locked borders and Armenian pride and joy, mount Ararat, sitting on the Turkish side of the border. Look but don’t touch, how cruel is that, here is a picture from Yerevan, Armenian capital with Ararat in the background.
Full set of pictures from the trip are here.
