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After my first post on Made In USA, a reader sent an email to point me at a local company (local meaning with a shop in San Francisco) making hoodies, vest, and other nice apparel for the same price as the Gap. So I ordered one of their hoodies and I was again pleasantly surprised by the quality, the feel and the softness of the garment. The company is American Giant and has factory in South San Francisco and in North Carolina. There is a level of attention to details that is quite nice, especially for $90 hoodie. The zippers are metal zippers, not the cheap plastic ones. There is a metal loop where the string for the hoodie goes. And a very discreet logo. The making of this hoodie: The best part is you can get 15% discount at American Giant by using this link....

Up to this point, we had done a fairly standard Burma trip. Two destinations on our itinerary were off the beaten path. First, on our way to Inke Lake we stopped for one day and one night in Pindaya. The second one was the Kyaiktiyo pagoda also known as Golden Rock, which was an extra two days trip after coming back to Rangoon. Based on my previous post about the food and the lodging you could think it was a luxury trip (and it was) but these two locations were a little to a lot more basic in the food and accommodation. Pindaya The attraction of Pindaya are the caves that are filled with buddhas. On our way to the airport, we stopped on the side of the road to take pictures of the low fog in the Mandalay valley. Pindaya is a small town and after visiting the...

Debbie Omariba is a friend and a great actor and model. She has been on commercials for  Starbucks, Luminosity, LinkedIn, Apple and Garmin. I’m her go-to photographer when she needs new images. To be honest, she was one of the first models I photographed in 2011, when I was avoiding humans on my pictures as much as possible. In 2011, I made a conscious effort to be more confortable with shooting people. Several artists (like David Duchemin, Zack Arias or David Hobby) will tell you to get out of your confort zone to be more creative and a more complete artist. Actors want their pictures to be relatively close to reality, they don’t want their pictures to be altered in post-production too much. Remember those headshots are their calling cards, if...

At the beginning of the year, I spent a few days in Nice before going to Ethiopia (more on this in another post). I knew that Monaco has nice fireworks for the New Year celebration and I had enough knowledge where they would be fired from to pick a nice view from a higher elevation as I wanted to capture the harbor, the Monaco Castle and the fireworks. There are only a few places that are public accessible to catch that view. The next evening, I went to the Chateau de Nice (castle). From the Castle, there is only one tower left and the city made a park from the land where the Castle once was. The Castle was located on the closest hill from the sea, with the Old City at its feet. During Christmas time, a gigantic Ferris wheel is installed in nearby downtown. From...

One of the most common questions about Burma I get is about the food and/or the hotel or lodging quality. So let’s talk about our trip and our experience. First we went with a small group and with a very experienced travel agency: Insider Asia. They have been organizing custom trips to Asia for many years. While this trip to Burma was their first one, they did a lot of research and selected a very good local guide. Both of those attributes made our trip amazing. The lodging was always excellent as most hotels were 4-5 stars equivalent. My favorite hotel was the Myanmar Treasure Resort Inle. Here is a couple images of what our room looked like. We had a patio with view of the lake, a cool private outdoor shower, and a fantastic bed. In Burma, they make their...

I wish you an amazing new year that includes a lot of travels and a lot of photography. Last week we had an incredible clear day after a quick rain. The two combined events made the atmosphere exceptionally clear. I drove to the East Bay hills to capture a panorama of the city of San Francisco. The sky was so clear, I was able to see the Farallon Islands from the Berkeley hills. For information, the Farallon islands are 30 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge and I was 14 miles away from the Golden Gate. You can see more of the images of San Francisco here (including new images I took that evening). If you want to capture the fireworks of San Francisco, read this post. All the images presented here are available for licensing or as fine art...