Journal Entries

So i just finished up a tour through Australia, about to fly down to New Zealand for the second leg of my trip. I had an absolute blast. It was my first trip back down here since i was 8, which i barely remember, so it was almost like visiting a new country. As a half-kiwi myself, Australia holds significance due to the close connection with New Zealand. A lot of New Zealanders end up living here, including a few of my old mates from Tauranga, attracted here by it's warmer/dryer weather and opportunities …

For years after I started photography I struggled with getting quality wildlife shots. But after about a decade of shooting it's starting to click. The wildlife photography tips below serve as both future reminders to myself and as tips for others delving into this challenging branch of photography.   For years I was trying to photograph wildlife with the slow film which happened to be loaded in my camera, which was great for landscapes but it wasn't fast enough for movement of animals. Many species …

This weekend was a much needed retreat in the desert of Joshua Tree National Park.  It had been a bit of a rough week as I just found out my granddad had passed away. My flight to head back down to New Zealand a few weeks from now to catch up with family had already been booked, so you can imagine it was a bit upsetting to learn that I'd never be able to see him again. Sometimes it can take a while to work though big life events like this, but for me I tend to pull inwards to work through such things.…

If you happen to visit Redwood National Park during the early autumn you may have a chance to see the seasonal Elk Rut. Within the aptly named Elk Prairie, this impressive bull elk actively defends his harem of up to 20 cows from challengers. In order to maintain his peak position within the heard he quickly chases them off any other males who wander too close. The juvenile bull being pursued in these photos has just reach the age where it's seen as potential mating threat, and is forced away by the …

Paco De Lucia - Zyryab Paco de Lucia - Tico Tico Isaac Albeniz's Asturias, played by Ana Vidovic Bulerías - Manolo Sanlucar La Puerta del Príncipe - Manolo Sanlucar Tomatito - Bulerias Francisco Tarrega's Capricho Arabe, played by Andrés Segovia Frederico Moreno Torroba's Fandanguillo, played by Andrés Segovia Malagueña - Pepe Romero Manolo Sanlucer - Solea La Catedral, by Augustas Barrios, played by Ana Vidovic

I wrote the Mayan Kingdom ebook after my 2008 trip down to see the Mayan archeological sites of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Their civilization really interested largely because it reached a height as technological advanced and social complex as ancient Rome, but somehow their culture was completely decimated and largely forgotten, and never really made it into most history books. Today there is a lot of renewed interest in Maya, largely due to the 2012 prophecy. While I do have an opinion on this, I f…

Singing Bowls Hang Drum Gamelan Taiko

"The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness." - Albert Einstein

"The Earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the Earth.All things are connected, like the blood that unites us all.Man did not weave the web of life, he is a strand in it; whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."- Chief Seattle ... Modernities commodification of nature stands in such sharp contrast to native peoples vision of a living, breathing earth.