Sarawak: Trekking In The Kelabit Highlands

"Sarawak trekking takes more than a little slogging through muddy, leech infested territory. As you remove your sock to flick off what seems like the thousandth bloodsucker to wriggle its way through the mesh of your boot, you may find yourself questioning your choice of destination.

Surrounding you, though, will be some of the most bio-diverse forest in the world: home to 15,000 species of flowering plants, 3,000 species of trees, and 221 species of terrestrial mammals. "

Another one of my articles is up at MatadorTrips.com. It's a destination guide on a trekking adventure in the Kelabit highlands of Malaysian Borneo.

SF Camerawork - 2008 Portrait Party

I spent my weekend digital teching at SF Camerwork's 2008 Portrait Party fundraiser.

SF Camerawork is San Francisco's only nonprofit photography gallery. For the Portrait Party, they get established photographers to donate their time to shoot portrait sessions at Left Space studios. Donors get a professional portrait session, and support Camerawork all at the same time.

I organized and backed up as many as 6 sittings from each of 8 photographers over two days in a single Lightroom catalog on a Mac Pro. It was definitely up to the task. At one point, I had a photographer editing her work as I imported work from another photographer in the background and burned a CD of exports for a third.

The only real bottleneck was the ancient CF card readers, which couldn't take advantage of the 150x cards most of the photographers brought. I guess that's what you get when you tech with someone else's gear.

It was great seeing such a wide variety of shooters in action. I hope to work with Camerawork again in the future.

297 Talented Photographers - And I'm One of Them

So this free online promo put together by Rob Haggart, former director of photography for Men's Journal and Outside, got a fair amount of industry buzz.

Basically, he took open submission of 2 images each for over a thousand photographers and edited them down to 297 images. I made the cut, and I'm honored to be among such great company. There's some fantastic stuff in there.

Mike and Brittany - March 29, 2008

I feel like it's some kind of rite of passage as a photographer that I shot my first wedding a few weeks ago. My good friend Mike got married in Columbus on a beautiful sunny day, and I was there to document the whole thing. A slideshow of some of the highlights is here.

Congratulations Mike and Brittany!

Cambodia Beyond Angkor Wat

"If you want to see the real Cambodia, round up some friends for a dirt-bike adventure through former Khmer Rouge territory to the stunning mountain temple of Preah Vihear."

...another piece for the guys at MatadorTrips.com. This one's a how-to destination guide on a dirtbike trip to a remote temple called Preah Vihear near the Thai border.

Trekking the Mt. Kangchenjunga Circuit In Nepal

"If you'd rather share a cup of sweet tea with a Tibetan refugee than a bottle of beer with another backpacker, this is the Himalayan trek for you."

I've been doing some writing recently for a cool new travel site called MatadorTrips.com that runs destination guides on out of the way spots you might want to visit. This piece is on trekking to the basecamps of Mt. Kangchenjunga, the third tallest mountain in the world. Enjoy!

Independent Trekking in Tibet

"The onslaught of the Chinese tourism machine has most definitely taken its toll on the kingdom at the top of the world, and all-inclusive package tours abound in Lhasa. Tourists pay exorbitant sums to be whisked around the province in Land Cruisers, often by Chinese drivers just as new to Tibetan culture as their clients. For independent travelers there are other more rewarding options available and Lhasa is just a few days hike from a 'real' Tibet adventure."

I did a story recently for a website called TransitionsAbroad on independently planning a trekking adventure in Tibet.

In light of China's recent violent crackdown on protests there, it's probably not even feasible to go at this very moment. If nothing else, though, it should give some insight into why the Tibetans deserve better.