Blog

In my previous post, I told you that the number of tourists coming to Myanmar is increasing at a rapid rate. In some area, like the Shwedagon Pagoda or in Bagan, it was very obvious. In other area, like the Sule Pagoda it was not that obvious as we only saw a few tourists. However I believe this will change quickly. The Sule Pagoda was next to our hotel in Yangoon, our trip was only starting at 8am, so we woke up 1.5 hours before sunrise and went to take pictures of the Pagoda. Tuan, who had been there a couple mornings earlier, gave us a...

In January, I traveled to Myanmar (also known as Burma) for a 12-day trip. Myanmar is a controversial country and while travel is extremely safe and pleasant, the country’s image still suffers from bad reputation. But Burma is the crown jewel of Southeast Asia. It’s the second largest country by landmass in Southeast Asia and one of the least visited. In 2013, a little over 2 millions tourists went to Myanmar, compared to 26 millions that went to Thailand. The Myanmar government is trying to encourage tourism and the number of...

Last night, it was going to be full and to rise above the North tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. After looking at the moon position, I did conclude that the moon would be aligned with the top of the tower with the Transamerica tower in the middle of the opening. The image above shows what my vision was. A very unusual hot weather is in effect in San Francisco right now, which meant that it was still in 70s at 9pm last night and there was no chance of fog and clouds to block the view of the moon. The combination of those factors had attracted...

Angel Island is a California State Park in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. It has incredible views of the Golden Gate Bridge, the city of San Francisco and Alcatraz. In a previous post, I made a day trip there but this post is about spending the night on Angel Island. Depending on the season, the last ferry leaves the island between 3:30 and 5:20pm (make sure to check the schedule online) and unless you have your own boat that’s your deadline. But for a few hard core planners, it’s possible to secure a camping spot on Angel...

After more than two weeks on the island of Java, we crossed the Bali strait (1.5 miles) from Ketapang to Gilimanuk. I had 3 days left before my departure to San Francisco. Bali is a mystical destination for many but after 2 weeks in rural Java, it felt busy, touristy and more expensive. Suddenly restaurants were more expensive and offer pizza and pasta on their menu. Hotels were defintetly nicer and I’m not going to complain about it. It’s interesting to note that while the people of Java are in majority Muslims, the people of...

This is the third part of my Indonesia trip (read part 1 and part 2). The program was to climb Semeru (an even harder hike than Merapi). Unfortunately a combination of a tired knee (really painful) and failing hiking shoes made me skip the hike. Instead I spent two days resting while Stephane and Christophe climbed Semeru. The view from Semeru was fantastic but the climb was grueling. Both Stephane and Christophe skipped dinner that evening and slept for 12 hours straight. Durring those two days, I explored the town, taking pictures of...

This is the second part of my travel to Indonesia (read part 1). We left Yogyajarta for the North face of the Merapi. It was time to get serious about hiking. The second volcano on the menu was the Merapi (2,930 meters), our base camp was at 1000m. The plan was to get to the summit one hour before sunrise (5am local time). It’s a very popular hike among locals, who take two days to climb it. Unfortunately, we choose to do it in one long day. We left our camp at 10:30pm and we hiked the entire path in the dark. We had a local guide, who...

Four months ago, I went to Indonesia to photograph some of the most spectacular volcanoes on the planet. Indonesia has over 150 volcanoes and 127 of those were active (in 2012). My plan was to visit only five on the island of Java; they were Ana Krakatau, Merapi, Bromo, Semeru and Kawah-Ijen. In this first part, I will focus on the first couple days and the visit of Anak Krakatau and the temple of Borobudur. Indonesia is composed of 17,500 islands, the biggest islands are Sumatra, Celebes and Java. The island the most known  is probably...

A couple weeks ago, I was invited to take part of a collective photo shoot in an equestrian farm in Sonoma Valley. It was the first photo shoot of a group called: The collective model. The idea behind the collective is to have a group of talented models, make-up artists and photographers who get together to help each other out. Nobody gets paid (except maybe the location) and everyone benefits from the shoot. Everyone gets new images for their portfolio. For this first shoot, the location was a farm in Sonoma Valley, where we had access to...

Hearst Castle was the home of William Randolph Hearst and is now a California State park. Hearst Castle is located near the unincorporated community of San Simeon, California in the Central Coast of California. Despite being relatively far from majors cities (San Francisco or Los Angeles are both 250 miles away), it attracts about one million visitors a year. So don’t expect to be alone when visiting the “Ranch”. We spent a couple days in Paso Robles, so one day we drove to Hearst Castle. On the way, we saw wild zebras....