The tour to Laos/Vietnam/Cambodia was promoted as a scouting trip by Mehmet. However he scoped out many of the places in advance to ensure that our small group would be comfortable. As always, no one ever goes hungry on these trips. Food in SE Asia is amazingly affordable, made with fresh ingredients, and delicious. The […]
Balkans 1 – Bosnia 1
We have just started our latest adventure with Mehmet Özbalci of TurFantastic, this time to photograph five Balkan countries. Mehmet has become our favorite photography tour guide, and we have traveled with him to Iran, Sri Lanka, Georgia, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey and other countries. He knows where to go at which time for the […]
Hawaii – Honolulu Museum of Art
The Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA) has been called “the finest small museum in the United States” (J. Carter Brown). It was founded in 1922 and houses a museum, art school, art cafe, coffee bar and souvenir shop. The museum is the largest in the state and has the single largest collection of Asian and […]
Sri Lanka 1 – Colombo
NOTE: Starting with the Thailand trip just completed, I have begun limiting each “photo story block” to only seven images. A few years ago, I was using eleven, but received feedback that the images were too small. I have since been using nine-photo blocks. Some people have commented that they read this block on small […]
Portugal 9 – Lisbon
Our three month adventure in Europe and Central Asia is now over. This is our 37th and final blog entry covering this trip that has taken us to Italy, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia, and finishing with a month in Portugal. On our last day in Lisbon, we decided to check out their zoo. We […]
Photo Tour Travelers
Wow… Five countries (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Armenia) in six weeks. Mehmet Özbalci organized this tour through his company Fantastic Photo Tours, based in Istanbul, Turkey. We used him in 2016 for a tour of Turkey, and liked his approach so much that we decided to use him again for these countries. I thought we would […]
Georgia 4 – Akhaltsikhe
We finished our tour of Georgia with a long travel day on the bus going from the far north (Mestia) to the far south of the country to reach Rabati castle, staying in the town of Akhaltsikhe (and no, I still cannot pronounce it even after staying there for a day…). Lower-left is the view from our hotel […]
Georgia 3 – Mestia
Our tour included a visit to Ushguli, a tower village, and a stop at Lover’s Tower in the Mestia area in 4-wheel drive cars. Mehmet hired two models to dress in traditional clothing (above block) to pose, and to thus add color to our shots. I thought it was interesting to see our local guide to use her iPhone […]
Georgia 2 – Kutasi
We spent our second night in Georgia in Kutasi. Enroute, we made several stops for photography. Our local Georgian guide, Gvantsa, liked daisies and picked them whenever we stopped. Seen above, she has found another field of wild daisies, and is picking a bouquet for her seat on the bus. Throughout Georgia, we often pressed […]
Georgia 1 – Tbilisi
We have complete the Silk Road tour (aka “-Stan countries”), and have now entered Georgia with Mehmet Özbalci. One of our stops on this first day was at the Metekhi Georgian Orthodox church. A wedding was being photographed while we were there, and the groom’s men were willing to pose for us in front of […]