“I have looked into your eyes with my eyes. I have put my heart near your heart.”
John Crescenzio
One of the characters that always makes me smile at a Khmer market we visit on tour near Kompong Phluk.
The white patch on his head is we think a paste of crushed water snail, it makes a good glue for cuts!
This gentle nun of sorts with vitiligo lives and chants with the monks at Wat Bo, Siem Reap
Inside stillness
I climb inside the trunks of giants trees to find you,
cool in the shade,
your gentle smile.
A relief,
encased by nature’s ancient timber,
I am.
Still.
© TG
Increasingly my guests are not photographers but artists of other disciplines, this week I was joined by a sculptor from England, a painter from Scotland and a poet from China.
I love how we inspire each other, the painters slowing the photographers down, the poets finding their words shaping future sculptures. Green Tours are really happy to open their arms to travelers who want to take their time to study and be inspired by the arts, carvings and ancient histories of this country.
An independent traveler finds a peace filled corner for a water colour of Ta Prohm's great tree temple.
Whistle stop tours are just not our thing and getting to the green heart of creative Cambodia is. Giving you time to create your own work in these amazing locations is a joy for us too!
If you would like to join a Green Tours Cambodia Tour or book Tori for a private tour please email your travel dates, locations and wishes to :: greenbynamephotography@gmail.com
A few spaces available! Book now!
Last Sunday on a hazy afternoon a keen photographer friend Daniel and I took a tour out to 10th century Banteay Srei Temple. As well as marvelling at the ‘red’ sandstones intricate carvings, which I believe were renovated by the french in the 1920′s, we particularly enjoyed hanging out with the local children in the glowing sunset light. The temple dedicated to Shiva has a cordoned off central shrine that is protected for heritage and conservation reasons but I was lucky enough to be able to go inside and burn a little incense for a friend. The light sadly was too dark and with a temple guard hovering over my shoulder I didn’t get a great image this time but I know I will be returning.
The kids at Banteay Srei, citadel of the women, or citadel of beauty, do what they can to earn a few dollars by jumping over the walls (when the guards aren’t looking) to try and sell us postcards. Hawking photographers postcards can be a bit tricky but the little girl in the orange t-shirt fell and cried holding a bloody knee, with a hug and a handy anti bacterial wipe we got her smiling again for some photographs. I look forward to returning with some copies for the kids to keep.
As much as I am enjoying exploring the more unusual temples it is the people of the temples, the sacred mountains and the wild water villages that are really starting to captivate me and I look forward to making some deeper photo essays in the near future for exhibition.
It has been a week filled with monks, tall ones, short ones, smiley ones, thoughtful ones, old ones, young ones, kind ones and playful ones but the below are my favourite ones!
On tour recently assisting Nathan Horton we were wending our way to the river at Kampong Chhnang when this cheeky face, with a Paul Weller haircut, asked if anyone needed a trim. There’s only one way to get engaging close up photographs and that’s to get to know your subjects so in the spirit of the photography tours I settled myself into his rickety, red leather chair resting on ten foot stilt poles where thick batches of anothers freshly cut, jet, black hair fell through the floor boards into the rivers rubbish below.
I don’t get many photographs of me these days so thank you to Alex and Alissa for capturing one of the lighter moments of going on photography tour!
PS ~ I have his number if anyone wants it?!
This amazing bloom was as large as my hand and the huge towering tree from which it hung was coated in them and their cannonball like fruit. Known as the ‘Nagalingam’ flower, which we think directly translates as the ‘snakepenis’, the local women tell me that a tea can be made from the petals that is good for a woman’s womb after having a baby. So now you know!
On Sunday morning some people wash their cars. This chap on Koh Dach, more commonly known as Silk Island, was washing his cows…
‘My joy is the golden sunset’ ~ Jonathan Lockwood Huie
On a mad and very mysterious moth hunt for a book jacket commission (so mysterious a moth that I cannot find it!) I was riding a tuk tuk past a lake I have stopped at before for sunset when I caught this image of a little khmer boy leaping in joy through the golden light. A beautiful spot away from the crowds it is ideal for Green Tours guests to take in the beauty and peace of the Angkor landscape away from the hordes of coach travellers as well as photograph stunning sunsets. I think I may take a picnic blanket and a bottle of something appropriate next time!
Inspired by last post the blue boy somewhat but with a little yellow for jollity these were taken on a great weekend tour working with National Geographic Traveler recommended www.nathanhortonphotograph.com. Working part-time with Nathan is starting to really improve my photography and working with the guests, helping them gain confidence, spot shots and relax in their new surroundings is really a rather enjoyable way to spend ones day!
All of the shots below were taken on Nathan’s Phnom Penh weekend tour which I can highly recommend for teaching aesthetics and technical photography, with five different locations shot over the weekend I am still working my way through what I have but I hope that you enjoy these for now and they inspire you to visit wonderful places and learn to make great images and memories too.
Bye for now, I move towns again tonight, heading to Siem Reap to launch Green Tours Cambodia and have some silly fun with new friends. This will be the third place I have made home since my time in Cambodia, think of me on the dusty, bumpy road in the dark on the 7 hour sleeper coach won’t you. It’ll be a ride!
