The butterflies land in small puddles to drink the water rich in minerals and salts that are brought up from the ground after a rain. I spent quite a bit of time trying to get the right shot. I was kneeling down and getting my knees rather muddy before I finally managed to snap this shot.
Daily Photo: Windmills in Goldendale
Windmills in Goldendale, Washington
The landscape in Eastern Washington is pretty much just desert or wheat fields. Over the last 5 to 10 years windmills have been popping up everywhere. A wind corridor runs through the hills, so farmers have been leasing out their land for windmills adding a little interest to the landscape.
Daily Photo: California Redwoods
On a drive down the coast of the Pacific Northwest I ended up in the Redwood Forest in Northern California. The size of these trees are amazing and I tried to capture that in this photo.
Daily Photo: Floating Market, Thailand
The floating market is a bit of a tourist trap, but it was still fun to see some of the boats that float around the canals. Most of the boats are trying to see souvenirs, but some sell food—they are the most interesting to watch.
Daily Photo: Colorful La Boca Doorway
La Boca is famous for its colorful buildings. The story is that paint was stolen from ships in the harbor and used to paint the buildings. Since they didn’t know what color they were stealing, they were all different. Whether that is true or not, the colors are beautiful.
Daily Photo: Wat Chedi Luang
Wat Chedi Luang is a ruined chedi, or stupa, in Chiang Mai. The chedi is huge and really cool to walk around. I particularly liked these giant elephants that lined the Southern side. The actually wat in front of the chedi is impressive as well.
Float Your Bad Juju Away During Loi Krathong
Loi Krathong is a huge festival in Chiang Mai, and throughout Thailand. It actually goes on for well over a week, but really gets crazy for about three days around the full moon. I went two days in a row and had an amazing time both times.
I bought a little krathong for 50B, which was far more than I should have paid—20-30B would have been more reasonable. Of course, we are talking a difference of 50¢ here so I am not too worried about it. I was concerned that I would have trouble finding a krathong when we got to the river. It turns out that there are a bazillion krathong available everywhere, and most were far more beautiful than the one I bought.
The idea is to pray about what you are thankful for and to get ride of some bad karma. The krathong symbolizes this bad stuff and is floated away down the river. There a literally hundreds of thousands of people doing this. There is a parade going on, fireworks going off (one hit me in the head), and a general cacophony of sounds and smell and crushing people. There were even hundreds of lanterns being set aloft. It was a blast.
I also went on Friday with a Thai friend. He had made a huge lantern for both of us to set aloft. It was so large that Thai people kept commenting how big it was. Normally it takes one ring to get them in the air; ours took four. As we were getting it ready a large crowd of people started to gather around us to watch. I was worried it wouldn’t actually go up, but when we let go it shot into the air and floated off above us beautifully with the other lanterns. I was impressed.
My Thai friend also made a really big krathong for the both of us to float down the Ping River. It was quite large and made from orchid pedals. Unlike the previous night, we were at the Nawarat Bridge and had to go down to a muddy bank to release our krathong. We said out prayers and floated it away with the hundreds of other krathong in the river.
Because we were away from the touristy area, there were fish, eels, birds, turtles, and various other animals available for sale. You can buy them and set them free. This increases your merit and thereby gives you some good karma. Presumably there is no bad karma for the people that capture the poor things. I encountered one vendor that wanted to know the name of every animal in English she had in stock. I spent several minutes looking at each, snapping a photo, and saying their name, then repeating it. That was rather fun.
Throughout all of this there is a festive atmosphere. People are watching a huge parade of floats and dancers. There are massive crowds everywhere and people are buying food and toys. It was almost what you would expect if the carnival was in town, except everyone is participating and happy to be shedding a year’s worth of bad juju.
Daily Photo: Saint Basil’s Cathedral
Saint Basil’s Cathedral sits at one end of Red Square (which is neither red nor square) in Mosow, Russia. The bright colors and onion domes make this Russian Orthodox church easily recognizable and I was thrilled to be there and able to take a picture (something I never thought possible as a child). Some interesting history: the official name is actually the Cathedral of the Protection of Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat and the church was ordered built by Ivan the Terrible.
Daily Photo: Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty never ceases to impress. I took this photo on a trip to New York with some friends earlier this year. I’ve been to New York countless times but never actually visited Liberty Island before. The lines are long, but well worth it.
My new photography ebook (it’s free!)
I’ve been to nearly 50 countries, 40 US states, and countless cities in my travels over the years. Through most of those travels, I’ve taken thousands of photography. Usually they just sit on my hard drive. I might post them to Facebook or email them to friends and family. Friends periodically ask for a copy so they can use it as a background on their computer (and sometimes I make my own photos backgrounds). Rarely do I do much else with the photos.
Ironically, I process them and spend hours and hours tweaking them so they look fantastic, but then I do nothing with them. I finally decided to start doing something with all those photos. I’ve been posting them on this site as part of my Daily Photo. series for one thing.
I also compiled my favorite photos into an ebook, Around the World: A Photographic Journey. This ebook is yours for free!
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