Midnight Ride
Fresh, wet flakes came to an end just before midnight. A Yamaha was parked out front.
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Station Stairs
In a break between the traffic flows at the Aldershot GO Train Station, a look up to the last platform.
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Kipling Bound
Train storage and maintenance yard on the east side of the Bloor line.
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Sharp Right
1:30am, somewhere in the middle of PA, out of cell phone range, on a route that was anything but direct (thanks, Google).
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Mini Subway
The tilt-shift technique of faux-miniaturization has seen a lot of use in the past year, with amazing still subjects and short films like The Sandpit. So while my wheels are turning to shoot my own tilt-shift film, I’ve been looking for locations to give it a try. This overpass near Eglington West was a great location to catch cars and trains. Too bad I ran out of daylight.
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Exit at Eglington
Going up.
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Mountain Tunnel
Along I-76, in the western part of Pennsylvania, is the Allegheny Mountain Tunnel. I’ve tried to photograph it before (while driving), but this is the first time I’ve taken something I’ve liked.
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Careful Where You Stand
The runways at the San Diego airport push right up against traffic lanes, sidewalks and buildings. This was taken from the sidewalk during busy evening approaches. I had hoped to shoot from about 40 feet higher, on top of a parking garage at this corner, but there were signs saying “NO PHOTOGRAPHY” and attendants actually paying attention, so I shot from the street.
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Back to Basics
I awake to long blasts of the ship’s horn. Figuring the ferry is pulling into one of the first stops, I grab my camera and head above deck. Expecting to see Ios or Naxos, I instead recognize the rock walls and caldera of Santorini, the last stop. Passengers are pulling luggage through the halls and toward their cars on the vehicle deck. A family is applying suncreen at the stairs to the exit. It’s not yet 8 am but I’m not the only one salivating for gyros on shore.
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Rainy Relief
By noon, the gears of travel finally begin to grind. I head to the airport, but with a brief stop at the FedEx terminal to retrieve the new camera lens that had arrived this morning. With an uncharacteristic smoothness in my travel plans, I arrive at gate C8. I think – maybe – that I might even have brought everything I intended. It hasn’t happened yet in eight years, but without any glaring packing errors, I consider the possibility.
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Breakfast in Tunis, Lunch in Milan, Dinner in Athens
A monstrous day of travel brought me from the Sahara desert oasis town of Tozeur back to the Mediterranean’s capital of apathy and pissedoffedness: Athens, Greece.
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Magic Carpet Ride
In the interest of space and internet cafe time, I’m going to leave this one out. But suffice to say that a train ride aboard a beast called The Red Lizard, into a place where there are no roads, was one of the most amazing rail trips I’ve ever taken.
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You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em…
Things have been, surprisingly, rather free from catastrophe as of late. But there will be much less to say after this email — I’m packing it in and heading home early. Plans for the Czech Republic and Italy have been abandoned and Poland had to be curtailed.
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Not Istanbul, It’s Constantinople
With apologies to They Might Be Giants, I’ve been spoiled by Morocco. Again. In Istanbul, I was hoping for, and indeed expecting, a city teetering on the edge of two worlds. Straddling Europe and Asia, on the edge of the Middle East (Turkey’s neighbor to the east is Iraq), I expected crazy.
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Ride on, Cowboy.
It’s awful. Really. So impossible looking is this, well, thing, that seeing it in person has served to shatter the mythical tales of its triumphant use.The legendary Trojan Horse is probably the most ridiculous looking thing I have ever seen.
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Love Potion Number Three
Geographically speaking, that is. The aquatic edition of Planes, Trains and Automobiles has brought me to the third continent of my trip. From Santorini, Greece, I spent 18 hours sailing eastward to Asia. Well, I’m in Turkey, but technically it’s still Asia.
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Getting Lucky(‘s)
Santorini was meant to be a one-night stand: a quick reunion with an island I loved my last time in Greece, while en route to the uncharted territory of Crete and Rhodes. My first visit to Santorini sold me on a place with fabulous volcanic beaches (take your pick of red, black or white sand).
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You’re Toxic, I’m Slipping Under
Winning the prize for Most Stunningly Modern and Attractive Metro System is Athens, an achievement that would normally be fabulous. Except in Athens, it is a subway system designed to deliver passengers around a disgustingly rancid hellholeish cesspool of a city.
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Buda, Pest and The Cure
Death was imminent. I was sure of it. It was so humid that the word “air” could be used only sparingly. And it was so hot that there may as well have been an onion on my head and a tomato in my mouth: I was being roasted alive. The thermometer pegged the temperature at 72oC (162oF).
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The Dictator Next Door
The first bombs fell about 10 pm. Their arrival was no surprise — journalists left the city two days prior. Residents gathered in Cold War-era shelters as the air raid sirens wailed and radio reports warned of the need for gas masks. The state-run television station blinked out. Explosions erupted around the city and the lights went black.
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