Posts Tagged "bagan"

It’s this time of the year when you reflect on what happened to you this year? First and foremost I spent two extraordinary weeks in Burma. Seven of my top ten images are from Burma and I could have easily have more. I have started to find that challenging weather environment can result in unique, more interesting images than fair weather. My last three images illustrate this point: a thunderstorm in Burning Man, a very strong dust storm or a foggy evening on the San Francisco Bay.

This blog is now 2 years old. Time flies when you are having fun. Honestly it started as an experience for sharing some of my images more quickly. I’m not a writer at all, but somehow I kept updating my blog. Thanks in no small part to my wife, who is spellchecking each and every one of my posts. Overall it’s a success, I wrote 78 (including this one) posts which is way more than I had even dreamed of. As a thank to you my reader, I would like to give you my favorite image of 2014 in high resolution (3440×1280) for your own computer wallpaper: Among the most popular posts, if you have missed one:   Short Trip Series: Antelope Canyon (Las Vegas to Page, AZ) San Francisco Photo Spot series: The Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco Photo Spot...

Monks are very present in Myanmar, there are between 400,000 and 500,000 professional monks in a country of about 50 million people. Our photo leader (Tuan) had arranged that we could photograph some young monks (called novices) during an entire afternoon.  Monks rise very early for the alms offering and then have their lunch quite early (around 11am). Since we went and photograph the sunrise that morning, we went to visit a monastery right before their lunch. Monks raised at the monastery were, I guessed, between the age of 5 to 12.  Novices were generally pretty happy to have their photo taken. Their lunch is mainly composed of rice and vegetables. When the gong rings, they form a line from the youngest to the oldest. Each brings his bowl in which he gets a...

After landing in Bagan early in the morning, we went directly to the Shwesandaw pagoda, which offers an impressive view of Bagan and makes you understand why it is so popular. From the upper terrace, you can see hundreds of Buddhist temples and monuments. Bagan was once the capital city of the first Kingdom of Pagan. During the kingdom’s height between the 11th and 13th centuries, over 10,000 Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries were constructed in the Bagan plains alone, of which the remains of over 2200 temples and pagodas still survived to the present day. To give you an idea, it’s like starting a new temple or monument EVERY week (on average) for 200 years. While in Bagan, we went to the Shwesandaw three times (mid-morning, sunset and...

Our trip to Burma is winding down. It was an amazing experience, this country is really a photographic wonderland. My friend QT Luong summarized it well: “Burma will spoil any of your future southeast Asia travel experiences”. In 14 days, I shoot more than 3500 images. Last night we had our group photo sharing session where I show the pictures below: Supa Pagoda in Yangon. Hot air balloons at sunrise over Bagan Capuccino in Burma Portrait of a novice monk. Young novice monks in a temple (Bagan) Burmanese umbrella Sunrise over Bagan’s temples. Golden buddah Ceremony in Mandalay Mandalay fort at sunrise Alm offering in yangon. Inke Lake fisherman Woman ferrying people across a small stream in Yangon Hide and seek monk One of the many Bagan temple...