The idea for a book took a long time. Maybe eight years or more. I had such a vast collection of images and writings that it seemed like a book was the perfect publishing outlet.
I had used a Nixon FE for decades and that was the camera I used on a trip to Bali and Maldives. When the iPhone became a good tool that could take excellent images and not hang around your neck, it was an easy to go.
I have always loved photography.
The play of light on a face, a wall was an instance waiting to happen. One had to only look. It was there.
Photographing people can be trickier. I was in Paris and a group of models were outside a museum smoking—all elegantly dressed and I was too shy to ask for a picture. You can regret those moments, for a long time.
Travel photography was a calling. I needed new and unique places. I loved visiting elegant hotels and parts of the world rarely visited. I tried to avoid cliches. I sometimes succeeded, But I made this book of the hopefully unique. moments to share.
My family rarely left the country. Other than some road trips to Tijuana,
the National Parks, and Crestline, we never left the country.
At an early age, I did visit San Francisco and Palm Springs frequently, and after
high school, trips to New York City were frequent. But it wasn’t until that first
flight to Hawaii the notion that travel could make you feel different happened.
It’s not easy to know just what it is because, until you’ve been there, you’re only
speculating.
As I think about it, having grown up and still living in Los Angeles, despite that
sojourn of eight years in New York City, I know this town, maybe too well.
A trip to Bali in the 90s convinced me that what I was seeking was “otherness”,
something other than American culture. When a bare-chested woman was walking
down a dirt road in Ubud with fruit on her head, I thought, I am not an American
anymore. Later, a bloody cockfight would cement that notion.
Heat and humidity could not wrest my love of traveling from me. I went to Bali.
Australia, Europe, the Maldives, Mexico, Belize, and many other countries
I didn’t always have a camera. I missed what I am sure would have been an
award-winning photo (Paris 2015, Vogue’s 95th Anniversary Party) and numerous
other “moments” where people shifted, the light changed, or a car blocked the
view.
Some pictures were taken with a 35mm camera—most with an iPhone, which
in many ways is the better camera—certainly when traveling, it is the more
convenient tool.
Traveling creates stories. All places have their stories and the people you meet
on a journey have their stories. We engage with a culture other than the one we
know—language, cuisine, and dress come together to create a story vastly unique
and, for many, wonderous. It can be arduous, it can be boring (airports, delayed
flights and toll tickets from other countries
