Sittwe beach

Sule Pagoda

I'm pleased with this shot of Sule Pagoda in Yangon. Partly because I was lucky to get this view point (I bribed a security guard) and partly because I didn't have a tripod but the ledge was just the right height to balance on.

Immigration

Burmese immigration officials.

Taunggyi Balloon Festival 2013

The Taunggyi Balloon festival was one of the highlights of my three months in Burma. Teams spend months stitching and glueing their balloons, some as big as buses, together with giant sheets of Chinese lantern paper. The event begins slowly: flat-packed constructions are unloaded and laid out in the sun, giant wooden torches are dipped in oil in preparation for lighting, spectators begin filling the field. Then, several hours after the scheduled start and with much shouting and concentration, the festival gets under way. The lit torches are held under the balloons to heat the air inside sufficiently to give lift while team members hold the structure upright, keeping the paper walls away from the flames. Several balloons burn up whilst still on the ground or just after takeoff, leaving the devastated owners staring in silence at the smoking remains. When they do take off the team erupts in a fervour. Heads back, ecstatic, they dance in rings, banging drums and singing. Night time is even more chaotic. Dense crowds fill the field as marshals make token gestures at crowd control. Flaming torches dripping with hot oil appear from nowhere and are carried at speed through the crowds, a couple narrowly missing my head, while nurses at red-cross ambulance tents are kept busy applying bandages to scorched spectators. To add an extra layer of spectacle, coloured tea candles are hung from hooks on the outside of the balloon as it inflates and form a long trail beneath it so that it sparkles in the night sky and is visible for a long after take off.

Green temple dog

No idea why this dog is green, it wasn't the only one I saw.  

People of Burma #1

Burma / Myanmar

Wifi in Burma is so slow it hurts so I'm taking advantage of the relative lightening-speed internet of Bangkok whilst waiting for my visa renewal. A few clichés here, hold your breath... 

San Jose refugee detention centre

Thanks to my good friend Amanda Solano at the UN for gaining me access to the refugee detention centre in San Jose, Costa Rica. We took testimonies of everyone photographed and am in the process of writing an article. All the men and women in here are caught in a limbo between their own refusal to return home and the cumbersome system of processing their applications. 

NYC in September

The prayer rock

This was my favourite prayer rock in the Everest region and I spent many hours sat waiting for interesting people to walk past it. The Lama (top right) was blessing a flag-pole with burning juniper bushes and incantations and was quite happy to let me photograph him for a donation to the monastery. 

Cat-in-jacket of the week

Mothers Day

I was lucky enough to be in Kathmandu for Mothers Day this year. The festival, Mata Tirtha, means Mother Pilgrimage and it's focus is the Matatirtha Temple, where these were shot. It's a pretty wild affair. Worshipers surround the pool in the centre of the temple, queueing to float offerings onto the water or, in some cases, immerse themselves. The atmosphere was tense but never threatening although riot police were on hand just in case things got out of hand.

Mountain cakes

Chatting to the chef who carried a 114kg pastry oven on his back for 11 days up to 4500m [http://jamestye.com/blog/2013/7/11/himalayan-porters] I was told that carrying the thing was just the beginning of his problems. The laws of physics work differently at high altitude (water boils at about 85 degrees at this height) and dough doesn't rise in the same way as it does at sea level. It's taken him over a year to make anything edible and there were no end of unhappy and unsympathetic tourists expecting soft fluffy sponges and getting rock cakes. His apple pies are fantastic and his cafe deserves a mention: Dorje Bakery Cafe & Coffee Center, Kyanjin Gumba, Langtang.

100 Rupee Lama

A two hour trek up the mountain from Manang in Nepal lies the Hundred Rupee Lama Temple, so called because that's the fee for a blessing and an audience with the Lama. Built into the rock face and bestrewn with fading prayer flags, it's a lonely place with panoramic views of the Annapurna mountain range. On the morning I went, the Lama, who's in his 90s, was in hospital in Kathmandu recovering from an illness and his daughter had stepped in to fill the post. She boiled water for tea on the wood-burning stove and showed us the carved out temple in which she also lives and sleeps. No luxuries, every inch of wall space covered with Buddhist iconography and photos of spiritual leaders. I'd brought biscuits and we had a long chat using mimes and drawings.

Pug of the week

Mountain lady portrait

It began innocently enough, a 'local life' portrait of a cafe owner in the Langtang mountain range, Nepal. People know their worth here and, as much as I'd rather a picture didn't involve money, we agreed a fee and she even specified the number of photos I was allowed to take: five. With each shot she counted down until she reached two when, for reasons known only to her, she stopped counting and tried to grab me in a place where kindly old mountain ladies are not supposed to grab. I shot these last two and then turned and ran. That's my porter laughing hysterically in the background.

Timelapse of East London and the City from Shepherdess Walk

Making the most of the evening sunshine to practice timelapses. These were shot over five hours at a frame every 30 seconds. 

Small steps, never stop, success is assured

Whilst shooting for Berlitz a couple of months back in the Himalayas, I became interested in the porters I'd see daily. Eyes bulging with the strain, heads bowed, they made progress at funerial speed. Many of the mountain paths are impassable even by donkeys so just about everything has to be carried from the towns below on the backs of these men and women. It's surely one of the hardest ways to make a living; days of trekking at altitude carrying loads of 70kg or more, with home-made backpacks and often wearing sandals. Their mantra is the title for this post and I heard it frequently. One guy I met carried a 114kg pastry oven on his back for 11 days up to 4.500m so they could bake muffins for the tourists.

Stephen Chambers RA

A very enjoyable morning spent at the studio of the painter Stephen Chambers RA in East London. Stephen has several pieces in this year's RA Summer Exhibition which is always well worth seeing. His paintings are stunning and I found his studio inspiring.
Click here to see more of his work.

Nice weekend