A Chinese Taoist priest blows a ceremonial horn during a ritual. Other than this post, the photo can only be seen at 500px.

When I first started sharing photographs online, photo.net was my place. I was an active member there for quite a few years. That gave way to Flickr which came along with what I thought were better features and options at the time and I eventually started using that more or less exclusively. All good things come to an end and Flickr is no exception. I still post from time to time there, and use the groups option a bit, especially now that I’ve started hosting a weekly photo challenge for my local photography community but that’s about it. For the past year or two, I’ve been mostly without a good place to share and discuss creative photography. That’s all changed now with my discovery of 500px.

500px has been around for a while but it’s only recently that it has exploded in popularity. I first found out about it a couple of months ago, and joined for a free membership to try it out. To date, I’ve only uploaded a few photos due to time constraints from a very busy shooting schedule for me. You can get an upgraded membership for only $50 which gives you additional features including a portfolio page, statistics, unlimited uploads and more. I have the intention to do this later this month once I get a bit more time to participate.

The photography on display is of the highest quality, showing some amazing creativity from photographers in a large variety of genres and styles. There’s definitely no filler here, it’s all top notch work.

Editors Choice screenshot from 500px

If you are a photographer looking for a good community to share work among, or simply a lover of quality, creative photographs, get over to 500px.com today. Give yourself a bit of time – you may find that a few hours go by as you browse the galleries. If you decide to join or are already on there, I can be found at 500px.com/cfimages so feel free to start following me. I have a lot of new work that will be appearing there in the coming weeks.

I’m really excited to introduce another Asia-based travel and cultural photographer to you today. Shaun Taylor McManus is based in Thailand and has recently returned from a photographic journey through India. The following photographs are from his series Between The Gaps which he describes as

When I set off to India, I thought about all the photo stories that I could cover. I had seen many photographs in the past of incredible faces and colourful vibrant scenes. I knew I would see little of this, as I was going to Kolkata. My aim was to document life, and that meant spending time in as many areas of the city as possible. My theme naturally developed, it is one that stood out clearer than anything else- the huge disparities in lifestyle, wealth and living environments.

Before we get into the images, here’s a quick overview of Shaun’s bio.

Beginning his photography career at university in England, Shaun’s first assignment was capturing the diverse multicultural society of modern Britain. After graduating Shaun continued his education, receiving a Masters in Anthropology and Development- two subjects which feature heavily in his photographic work.

Travelling extensively around East Asia, Shaun continues to document the people and cultural practices of each country he visits. He has had his photographs printed in publications such as The Times and Digital Photographer magazine, and was selected as Editors choice for Photographer of the Year 2009.

Shaun has now established a base in Thailand, where he spends his time working on television documentary productions for companies such as National Geographic and Discovery channel.

Here are Shaun’s chosen images from the series with his commentary underneath.

Legs ©2011 Shaun Taylor McManus

Still iconic of the Bengal state, the Rickshaw continues to be used in Kolkata despite being banned in 2005. In a city where many people struggle to make a living, tough and grueling jobs are just a means to feeding the family. Rickshaw pulling belongs to a bygone generation, as now most doing the job are older men. I wanted to shoot this photograph in a way that juxtaposes the long thin legs of the puller with the mechanical wheels.

Carrier ©2011 Shaun Taylor McManus

The chicken carriers are hard working men, who travel into Kolkata with trucks full of wicker baskets filled with live chickens. One man passes the basket down from the top of the truck and the other man lifts it onto his head and carries it into market. For this portrait, I wanted to capture life of the working man in India and the physical nature of his work.

Clay Head ©2011 Shaun Taylor McManus

The river is still central to life in Kolkata. Only meters away from where people are washing, men are working to transport large amounts of clay from their boat onto the shore. The man carries the heavy load on his head as he balanced agilely across a thin timber plank.

Leap ©2011 Shaun Taylor McManus

I wanted a photo that captured some life and spirit. I have taken photos of people jumping into rivers before, but I wanted this photo to be shot in a way that gives it a sense of direction and a feeling of optimism.

Little Walk ©2011 Shaun Taylor McManus

A common theme in India is homeless children. Where ever I went I could see young kids walking around, or working. I wanted a photo that captured both their innocence and vulnerability in such a hostile environment.

Tweet Tracks ©2011 Shaun Taylor McManus

The railway tracks are almost a social divider. Following the railway tracks, the edges are lined with makeshift shelters and women and children collect plastic packaging that have been dropped from train carriages. At certain times, crowds of busy businessmen who have recently disembarked walk across the railway to the business district, just meters from the poverty further down the tracks.

Wash At Bridge ©2011 Shaun Taylor McManus

The river is so central to life in much of India. People wash clothes, themselves and meet with friends and relatives for a swim. Despite the installment of water pumps on the street, people still seem to choose the river. This traditional form of sanitation is framed with the backdrop of the modern world, as the busy bridge carries the hectic traffic from one side of the city to the other.

Bright Eyes ©2011 Shaun Taylor McManus

One of my main aims for the photo story was to show the differences between those with and those without. For those with just a simple house, the quality of life was dramatically improved. The thing that shocked me most about Kolkata was the amount of people without even a simple roof over their heads. The early morning streets are covered with sleeping bodies which have endured the elements of day and night. This photo portrait of a child and mother who have a better standard of living. I wanted to capture the importance of family, a bond that seems to withstand any condition.

Be sure to visit his website at www.shauntaylormcmanus.com

Boat and rocks by Selina Ferguson

Last weekend plans for a group photowalk fell through due to a combination of lack of interest, travel time and the weather forecast. Still, my wife Selina, one of our friends and I decided we’d head out to the site of the photowalk anyway for a wander around to see what we could find. We got lucky with the weather – it was raining lightly as we arrived, stopped for the couple of hours we were there and then promptly started again as we were leaving. On site we got a few decent photographs from a great location. Today I’m going to share some my wife took. She has a great eye for photography and often comes back with photos from angles that no one else even considered. She shot these on a Canon 20D and they were processed in Lightroom using X Equals Kodachrome presets for the color ones and Nik Silver Efex 2 custom presets for the black and white.

Rocks at Yehliu by Selina Ferguson

The Ball by Selina Ferguson

Queens Head, Yehliu by Selina Ferguson

Yehliu by Selina Ferguson

Coffee with Panai, one of Taiwan's leading Aboriginal folk singer-songwriters.

I’m back with another photography links round up. It’s been a couple of weeks since the last one so this time I’ve got it packed full of extra photography goodness. The photograph that leads this post is an outtake from an assignment earlier this year. I’ve intentionally warmed the white balance on this a bit to give it a slightly more distinctive look. Before we get into the links, I want to give a quick reminder about Clarion Call II that is being held in June. The first Clarion Call a few months ago attracted over 2600 photographers of of whom are likely now putting the advice into practice as they forge ahead with their photography goals so you really can’t afford to miss this upcoming online seminar. It’s taking place on June 10th and signing up is as simply as clicking the Clarion Call II banner below and entering your details. What are you waiting for?

Download my e-portfolio in PDF form today.

Tom Bourdon is in Malaysia at the moment and he’s recently posted two great blog posts covering some unique aspects of life there. The first, Clan Jetties of Penang looks at the home of some Chinese clans that live in the sea off the coast of Penang. Following that is a look at the creation of Paper Effigies. Both of those posts are worth some minutes of your time.

In the June 2011 issue of Shutterbug magazine there’s an article on the Business of Travel Photography. David Sanger has an excerpt from it on his blog that has some good guidelines and strategies. Give it a read and then go out and pick up a copy of Shutterbug.

Joseph Cristina of Allure Multimedia and Trevor Current of Current Photographer have teamed up to create a new podcast the Digital Photographer Cafe. They’ve just posted the first podcast where they talk about backing up websites, black and white conversion and more. Follow this link to listen and consider subscribing to it. It promises to be a good new series.

In some controversial news for photographers, TwitPic have signed a deal with celebrity photo agency WENN that is looking to be a lot like a rights grab. It’s making waves throughout the photography industry as they claim worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license on all images uploaded to the service. Read more about it here.

In the world of humanitarian photography, Karl Grobl is in Senegal photographing for Freedom From Hunger. He has a series of images and video on his blog. Here is the post about day two (the most recent at the time of writing).

The Patitucci Photo Story offers some good encouragement in regards to believing in yourself and following your dreams. Dan and Janine Patitucci are a husband and wife photography team who did they just and they tell you how they did it.

Finally, here’s a transcript from Marc Silber’s interview with David Hobby during one of the stops on the recent Flash Bus tour.

Don’t forget to sign up for Clarion Call II.

Wefengci waterfall in Yilan, Taiwan

I’ve not spent a lot of time behind the computer at all this week so I don’t have a lot of links for you. I do want to remind anyone in the Taiwan area that I’ll be giving a presentation on IGVP at 5pm on Saturday 23rd at Huashan Alleycats in Taipei as part of a book festival. If you can make it, come on down. The presentation will last about 15 minutes but there’ll be lots of great discussions with writers, bloggers and journalists all afternoon.

It is a sad week though with news of the deaths of Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros in Libya while covering the fighting.

Piper Mackay has been posting some excellent work from her recent trip to Africa on her blog. Rather than give you a single post to go to, I’ll direct you to the main site and you can dive in wherever you choose. Great photography and writing awaits you.

Over at the Fast Track Photographer, Dane Sanders chats with David duChemin. I’ve embedded the video below but head over to the site as well and check out a range of interviews and photography advice. There are well over 100 other interviews and bits of advice.

Ever been confused whether to choose a rights managed approach or a royalty free model? Chris Ridley presents a compelling case for rights managed with discussion of the advantages as well as some of the potential disadvantages to choosing royalty free. Useful information for both the photographer and the photo buyer.

Finally, another shout out to a site. Rear Curtain has just launched and presents photo essays and stories. It’s also open for submission if you have a story to tell. The selection of essays that appears so far is strong and I can see this becoming stronger.

There’s been a lot going on over the past week in the world of photography and the links below reflect that. First however, I have a special offer for you. The opening photograph above was taken recently on the coast of Yilan, Taiwan and made use of some day time long exposure techniques. This is very much an experiment in a number of ways. Some early feedback suggests people like it and I’m sure there are plenty others who don’t. It doesn’t really matter because it’s all in fun. I’m planning on slowly dipping my toes into the world of fine art landscape and seascape photography and this is one of the first photographs I’m making available. It’s available to purchase on a strictly limited basis. From now until April 23rd, you can get the above image at a 20% discount. The code for the discount is TAIWANPHOTOGRAPHY and you can order simply by clicking on the buy button above. The print is available in three different sizes – 16×24, 20×30 and 30×40.

Time for some links, starting off close to home with some photography from Taiwan and China.

Brent Franke has just published his third month of his daily photo project. This month’s photos are all shot on a manual Nikon FE2 loaded with Tri-X. Brent even taught himself how to develop the film himself for this. This yearlong project he has embarked on offers a great window into the evolution of a photographer and is well worth keeping an eye on.

Culture.tw is one of the most useful websites for English-language information on events, cultural festivals and travel destinations in Taiwan. It’s a joint venture between the governmental Council For Cultural Affairs and the Taiwan News. They’ve been one of my clients for a while now and have just published an article and series of photographs of mine on the Tour de Taiwan cycling race.

Tour de Taiwan for culture.tw

The peaceful rise of China is an often-heard feature of today’s news stories and indeed it is an exciting time to be in the greater China region with a front row seat on it all, so to speak. The Big Picture blog at boston.com this week published a series of images portraying daily life in China and they give you a visual insight into everyday life.

Heading west and Matt Brandon has just arrived in Lhasa, Tibet to lead a photo tour. He has posted a few images from his first day in Lhasa on his blog The Digital Trekker. I was in Lhasa almost 10 years ago and seeing his photographs makes me want to go back.

If street photography is your thing, the Invisible Photographer Asia has opened a street photography competition with prizes including a Leica M2 up for grabs. It closes on June 1st and submissions must have been shot in the past 12 months somewhere in Asia and be of the street photography genre.

Rounding up the Asia portion of this week’s links is this tutorial post from Malaysian wedding photographer Louis Pang. He shows you how to light a group of 10 using a single speedlight. Check it out and get a glimpse at why Louis is rated as one of the world’s premier wedding photographers.

Scott Kelby’s weekly guest blog always offers some great photography and photographers. I was honored to be a contributor back in February and I’m especially happy to see one of my favorite photographers, Chris Orwig, featured this week. Chris is the author of the excellent book, Visual Poetry, which I highly recommend.

What Would Ansel Do is a post from pro nature photographer Ian Plant that should prove thought provoking to a lot of photographers.

Finally this week here’s a post that I’ve just discovered but is actually a couple of months old. The Rise and Rise of iPhoneography is a lengthy essay on the iPhone as a camera, covering retro apps, social journalism and alternative perspectives.

Paints laid out in an artists studio.

Before getting into this week’s round up of all that’s good, a quick note for any photographers in Taiwan. The 2011 Dajia Mazu pilgrimage begins this weekend. This is a photographically rich opportunity for anyone interested in this vibrant aspect of Taiwan’s culture and I urge you to get down to the Mazu temple in Dajia on Saturday if you can.

As someone who comes from Australia, the sport of cricket is in my blood but probably not to the extent that it is in the Indian subcontinent. With the recent World Cup having just concluded – congratulations India on your win – The Big Picture at boston.com has put together an excellent photo series of images of fans and cricket amongst the general public in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. If you’re a cricket lover, you’ll really enjoy this and if you aren’t familiar with the sport, it will give you some idea of the passion it can arouse in fans.

Over at the Manfrotto School of Excellence, photographer Jerod Foster has a great post on Finding Pathways To Strengthen Composition. He talks about attracting a viewer to and leading them through an image. Well worth a read.

Travel photographer Chris McClennan has a new interview up on YouTube talking about his experiences as a travel photographer. It’s an excerpt from the local NZ TV documentary on “the arts” and was filmed and produced by Ashley McKenzie. If you haven’t seen Chris’ work, head over to his website and prepare to be amazed. Some really incredible global photography is waiting you.

Sticking with the video theme for a moment, F Stoppers have a great piece showing Mark Silbur taking a tour of Ansel Adams’ home studio and darkroom, with Ansel’s son Michael. It’s a must watch.

Rounding off this week’s links is one from Brian Hirschy taking a look at Beijing’s Hutongs with photographer Jonah Kessel. Jonah had been working on a multi-month project for the Asia Society and Brian asks him about the project as well as sharing show photographs and videos from the series.

If you’re in the market for any new gear, B&H have some rebates on at the moment for items such as the Olympus PEN E-PL1 camera, Epson Stylus Pro 3880 printer, LaCie 2TB network drives and more.

Next week may be a little light on the blogging as I have a deadline approaching but I’ll endeavor to at least share some photographs from the Mazu festival.

A Buddhist Temple in Tainan, Taiwan

Another month rolls around at the same time as another work week comes to an end so it’s time for a quick look around the photography world to see what’s what. Before I do that however, let me remind you that the desktop calendar for April was posted yesterday. You can get at by following this link where you’ll find a choice of 8 different sizes. The photograph is of the East Mebon temple in Cambodia.

Starting of this week’s links is Mitchell Kanashkevich with the post entitled Dear Aspiring Travel Photographer. In it he looks at three common questions he often receives via email – Can you give me advice on how to become a travel photographer and how to make a living from it? Can you look at my photos and tell me what you think, give me critique? Can you share your story? Tell me how you got to where you are? Most travel photographers probably receive similar questions at times – I know I do – and Mitchell provides some good answers that anyone interested in this field of photography should take note of.

Over at the International Guild of Visual Peacemakers (IGVP) Mario talks about community connections. Suggesting that collaboration is part of our DNA, he offers suggestions and invites discussion as to how this can be better facilitated.

The Importance of Play is a post by Sabrina Henry on a topic that is all too often overlooked. In fact, having fun can often be the best way to learn as Sabrina shows in her excellent blog post.

On the funding side of things, the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund is now open for 2011 applicants. The W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography is an annual grant of $30 000 presented to provide photographers with the financial freedom to carry out or complete major photographic essays. Applications close May 31st.

Still on the theme of funding, Rob Haggart at A Photo Editor chats with Tomas Van Houtryve about his project 21st Century Communism and its funding via emphas.is. There are still a few days to go for pledges to be made to enable Tomas to reach his goal. I was one of the early backers of this project and urge you to contribute a bit as well.

Finally, Jeffrey Chapman and David duChemin have just announced the first Within The Frame tour for 2012. They will be heading to Lalibela, Ethiopia, along with more than 50,000 pilgrims, for Orthodox Christmas. More information and details can be found at the link and I’d suggest you book early as this will surely sell out quickly.

Food at Jiufen, Taiwan

The photograph that opens today’s blogpost comes from Jiufen, a favorite destination of Taiwan photographers. It’s a little town in the hills above the north coast of Taiwan that is usually crowded with photographers, day trippers and tourists. The old market street where this was shot is a popular place for wandering and snacking. Before I get into the links for this week, I just want to put a call out looking for anyone who wishes to contribute to my Evolutions series. Yesterday’s post featured a fellow Taiwan photographer who took us through his evolution in photography over the space of 7 years and 3 trips to Angkor. If you missed it, head over to Evolution of a Photographer – Nick Kembel and give it a read, and if you’d like to send me a story of your own journey, get in touch.

Housekeeping out of the way, it’s time to look at a few links that have crossed my path over the past week. If you’ve ever been looking for a decent and relatively cheap method of stabilizing your DSLR for shooting video, head over to this forum post at Camera Labs where Gordon Liang posts some pictures showing how you can use a GorillaPod Focus as a filming rig for video. It looks like a great idea.

Cultural and humanitarian photographer Karl Grobl has won the USAID Frontlines Photo Contest with an image he shot for the Education Development Center. Congratulations Karl.

Letter From A Young Photographer by David Harry Stewart answers some questions put to him from an 18 year old photographer looking for advice on how to proceed in regards to having a career in photography. There’s some fine advice in the answer that makes great reading no matter where you are in your photography life. Thanks to Rob Haggart of A Photo Editor for the original link.

Related to the previous link comes this one by Laurence Kim. Titled For Love Or Money it offers some reasons as to why it may be better to stay an amateur and earn your living elsewhere. Making a living in photography is not easy, and I know from personal experience that most of my amateur photographer friends earn more money than I do, have more camera gear and have more time to shoot. Thanks to Mark Olwick for the tweet that lead me to that link.

Finally, Chase Jarvis has a 5 day long (so far) Diary of a Shoot, detailing everything about a commercial photography gig on location. If you’ve ever wondered how these things work, head over there and give it a read. The link goes to day one.

Giant Buddha Face at Bayon, Cambodia. ©2008 Nick Kembel

Last month I created a blogpost called Evolution of a Photographer – Hampi in which I talked about part of my journey to becoming a Taiwan photographer of travel, culture and environment. In that post I put the call out to other photographers globally who wished to share their stories. One who responded from the community of Taiwan photographers was Nick Kembel. Nick is an English teacher, writer and photographer who has a book coming out mid-2011 entitled “Taiwan – From The Eyes Of A Foreigner”. He was keen to contribute a blog post talking about his journey through photography and decided to concentrate on three trips he’s made to Angkor Wat over the past ten years. What follows is Nick’s guest post. If you’d like to contribute a post of this nature, get in touch with me and we’ll take it from there. Now, over to Nick.

After reading Craig Ferguson’s Evolution of a Photographer – Hampi, I decided to take a look at some of my own photos from the past, and see how they have changed over the years. I chose Angkor Wat as my focal point for analysis. The millennium-old ancient Khmer capital has some of the most impressive and visually stunning ruins in all of Asia. With magnificent sunrises viewed from the summit of the largest religious structure in the world, saffron robed monks strutting about, and giant trees sprouting up from the ancient walls themselves, Angkor Wat is like a dream setting for practicing photographers. I have visited Angkor Wat three times in the past decade, so that my photographs from each visit provide a perfect source for observing my development as a photographer over the years.

My first visit to Angkor Wat was in 2001. I was 19 years old, and had just finished high school. Pol Pot, the Cambodian leader who had committed genocide against his own people, had only just died in 1998, and his Khmer Rouge army had still been active right up until his death. From 1975 to 1979, the Khmer Rouge killed over 2 million people in Cambodia, roughly a fifth of the population at the time. The nation was only considered relatively safe for travel again after Pol Pot died, and when I showed up 3 years later, there was still very little tourist infrastructure.

Monks resting on the ruins. ©2001 Nick Kembel

Crossing the border from Thailand into Cambodia felt like stepping into a previous century. The roads were not paved, beggars lingered about and pulled on my sleeves, and there were no buses available to get in to Siem Reap, access point for the Angkor ruins. I was herded with a sprinkling of random backpackers to a single pick-up truck, where they placed our luggage into the back and then instructed us to sit on top of it. For the next 8 hours red sand blew in our faces as the truck sped across the countryside, and the oppressive sun scorched us from above. In every village we passed, kids with no shoes shrieked and ran alongside the truck, and passing vehicles overloaded with locals erupted with choruses of hellos. Twice we were held up at rivers where the weight of large trucks had collapsed through the poorly constructed bridges, and locals began to construct miniature boats to ferry their motorbikes across. The roads were also full of giant holes from land mines, forcing our driver to detour into rice paddies.

At the time, I was carrying a cheap, mechanical, point and shoot. This was ages before digital cameras were standard, and my recently purchased camera was barely a step up from the archaic hunk of plastic that I had been using since I was a young boy. For this journey, I was on the road for 6 months, and was shooting what seemed like a lot of photos at the time, perhaps a roll of 24 every few days. I would then mail the rolls of film home to my family, who would print them off and send me e-mails saying how beautiful they were. In fact, my parents got their first e-mail account so that they could keep in touch with me on that trip. I did not even see the photographs until I returned home.

Truckload of backpackers that accompanied me from the Thai border to Siem Reap. ©2001 Nick Kembel

When I took photos in those days, I did not really feel that I was ‘creating art’. Rather, I felt that it was a sort of duty of mine to ‘get a picture’ of every single place that I visited, so that I could later show my family and friends, most of whom had not yet left Canada. I paid little attention to composition, direction of light, time of day, or other standard details for taking passable photos. Despite my lack of awareness, poor equipment, and inexperience at the time, I feel that I still had a good eye, and as a result managed to capture a few decent shots. The overwhelming majority were however quire poor, and the fact that my printed photos were also later scanned using an ancient copier renders them even more dated looking, and living on the other side of the world, I no longer have access to the originals.

Attempt at a classic Angkor Wat shot. ©2001 Nick Kembel

My second journey to Angkor Wat was in 2006, and part of an extended journey through Southeast Asia. Things had changed significantly. The road from the capital city, Phnom Penh, to Siem Reap was paved and buses made the journey in an impressive 4 hours, as opposed to the 8-12 hour river ferry journey that was once standard for backpackers. Siem Reap was overflowing with cheap guesthouses, and buses carrying tourists from all over Asia and the world crowded the various temple parking lots at the appropriate viewing times. The locals were still in-your-face friendly, and aggressively persistent in their sales techniques, but no longer so shocked at the sight of white skin.

My camera on this trip was a step up from the one used before, barely. Digital was just beginning to really catch on, and a few of my travel companions dazzled us with their ability to actually see their photos right after they took them. We spent evenings in our guesthouses marveling at their shots over countless ‘Angkor’ beers. I hadn’t yet splurged on the new technology, but was very jealous about my friends’ ability to instantly determine if a shot had worked out or not, and try again. I was still relying mostly on luck.

Young local children who are paid to collect butterflies for the Butterfly Bar, Siem Reap. ©2006 Nick Kembel

At this point I was still years away from even considering myself an ‘amateur’ photographer, but I was beginning to pay a little more attention to what I was doing behind the lens. For this visit to Angkor, I shot in black & white, a technique that seemed to make even the most average photos look pretty cool. I tried squatting low to the ground, climbing walls, or sneaking into places I wasn’t supposed to go, in order to get a more unique angle.

It was on this journey that I think I began to see the world around me in the same way that most photographers do: through the camera lens. All around me I regularly look at beautiful scenes, objects, and people, and imagine how I could put a frame around them, even when I don’t have my camera in my hands. Therefore, I started to take more notice of the elements that I was choosing to include or exclude from my photos. I increased my shooting volume, but also became more selective of what I was shooting. Instead of always focusing on the standard shot of the famous site, such as the main temple of Angkor Wat reflecting in the pond out front, I began to linger in places that I previous would not have even noticed, like the food markets, temple parking lots, and crowded streets. I was no longer shooting to record the famous places I had ‘done’, but rather to capture something aesthetically beautiful in the ordinary; things that others might have glanced over.

Mother and daughters inside a small, family-owned restaurant. ©2006 Nick Kembel

By my third journey to Angkor Wat, in 2008, I had finally graduated to digital but didn’t yet possess a DSLR. For years I had been focused on working hard and saving up money, which I would spend entirely on the journeys themselves. I had already managed to travel to over 30 countries in the process, but for some reason still hadn’t bothered to invest in a decent camera. Part of me arrogantly believed that my pictures would just be good because the places I was going were so beautiful, and friends’ comments on my previous photos had been so positive (though none of those friends were actually photographers). Another part of me actually lacked confidence that my ability was worthy enough to allot a larger portion of my already limited funds to an expensive camera. So, I chose the Canon Powershot S5IS, a super zoom which was just a step below DSLRs, with which I could still manage, on occasion, to pull of semi-professional looking shots. I had also never bothered to get any real training or even do research on how to take professional quality photos. Instead, I just traveled and shot non-stop for several years, developing skills and my own style through practice. However, to this day I still regret having never properly trained myself, even in some of the most basic aspects of photography, at the natural points of my progression as a photographer, when it would have been most useful.

With my sister and her husband to be, Srah Srang Lake, an ancient water reserve for Angkor Wat. ©2008 Nick Kembel

On my final visit to Angkor Wat, the spillover of tourists from Thailand in Cambodia, both more popular than they had ever been before, was huge. I was amazed to find that to this day, they still have not repaired the road from the border of Thailand into Cambodia. There are however plenty of travel options these days, such as buses and share taxis, not to mention the ultra cheap budget airlines flights. I heard once that some of these companies have actually paid off the relevant officials to keep the road in a state of disrepair.

Having been to Angkor twice already, I felt a little more relaxed and free to focus on my pictures instead of just trying to see the entire site. However, the purpose of my journey this time was to meet up with my sister and her future husband, both of whom I hadn’t seen for a long time. Like I always say, pictures always turn out better when you travel alone or with another serious photographer. With other companions, you must always make sacrifices in the amount of time you are going to linger trying to get photos without annoying your friends too much, not to mention the fact that more time simply goes into socializing, partying, and waiting for each other. Nevertheless, during this visit to Angkor, I was beginning to experiment more with depth of field, intentional blurring, and visualizing the photographs I wanted before I actually executed them. I also began to do some very basic editing with my photos, such as cropping out unwanted features and adjusting exposure levels.

Cambodian children hanging out inside Angkor Wat ©2008 Nick Kembel

More years have now passed, and these days I take my photography more seriously and frequently travel with the sole purpose of taking pictures. When I look back at even my most recent set from Angkor Wat, I can’t help but wish I go back and retake all of them. I could even fix up a many of those old shots now with a more advanced editing program, but prefer to keep them as they are, as a record of my own ‘evolution of a photographer’. This is a story that has no end, and that is its greatest appeal. I still have so much more to learn. The work of other photographers continues to inspire me, giving me the push I need to move forward and continue looking at my own work with a critical eye. Putting this article together helped me to look back at my journey as a photographer, see how far I have come, and give me hope that my art will continue to progress in times to come. I would encourage other aspiring photographers to do the same thing!

To see more of my photos, travel blog, or for info on my book, please visit me at www.nickkembel.com.

At the Bayon ©2008 Nick Kembel

If you want to be a guest blogger in this series, send me an email or let me know in the comments below. It’s open to anyone, anywhere not just Taiwan photographers.