Life is a Journey issue one : about travel
stephotography
natura classica / efinity uxi 200
Foreword I love photography. Photography is my strongest way of seeing. I love travel. The desire to see the world, to be amazed, to learn and share the experience is inherent in human nature. All good trips are, like love, about being carried out of yourself and deposited in the midst of terror and wonder. I cannot be more happy when I can do both together. The urge to travel and then to record it seems to be deeply rooted in my psyche. When I was 11, I went on a road trip in Australia with my Uncle’s family. Knew nothing about photography, I took a film camera with me, and it was my grandmother’s camera, a Konica one. I remembered I took many pictures of kangaroos, wombats and koalas. Since then, I keep traveling and taking pictures whenever I can. I have a book called “One People Many Journeys” by Lonely Planet on my bookshelf. Someone gave it to me as a present on my birthday some years ago. I could never forget the feeling when I opened the wrapping and saw that book. We were in Starbucks. We read the book together and were amazed by the breath-taking travel photos one could make. I like the book very much, but not as a birthday gift. That night, I hold on to that book and wept on the journey back home. The book title, marks my years since the day I last saw that person. Looking back, it all made sense. The dots are now connected. Steve jobs said, believe that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path. I am not sure what path I have chosen yet, but I can see the dots, as I am creating them. No high-end professional grade camera, no prime lens with big aperture, no assisted lighting, I just go with the gears that I can physically and financially afford. So, nothing fancy here, only pictures that conjure up the memories and emotions of journeys, that you and I might share. Be it a trip to an exotic country, a hiking to one of the most beautiful mountains in Hong Kong, a tram ride in the middle of the night, a walk with the tired body and soul from office to home, a relaxing afternoon in Soho or on the beach, a day wandering and dreaming at home....Each and everyone of us may follow our own unique path, no matter mundane or extraordinary, we are all on the same journey. Issue one is just the beginning, the prologue of this photobook journey. Thanks for dropping by :) Steph
The journey begins.
minolta hi-matic m7sII / efinity uxi 200
minolta hi-matic m7sII / efinify uxi 200
Why we travel ?
minolta hi-matic m7sII / efinify uxi 200
“As a child, yearning to leave home and go far away, the image in my mind was of flight — my little self hurrying off alone. I wanted to find a new self in a distant place, and new things to care about. The importance of elsewhere was something I took on faith. Elsewhere was the place I wanted to be.” – The Tao of Travel , Paul Theroux
LC-W / EB3 / cross-processed
“There is a change that takes place in a man or a woman in transit. You can see this at its most exaggerated on a ship when whole personalities change.� - John Steinbeck
On the road....
natura classica / solaris 100
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.� -Marcel Proust
nikon D5100 / 16-85mm f3.5-5.6
Train-dreaming “Journeys are midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains.� - The Art of Travel
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Alan de Botton
natura classica / solaris 100
“Their story, yours and mine — it’s what we all carry with us on this trip we take, and we owe it to each other to respect our stories and learn from them.” -William Carlos Williams
natura classica / solaris 100
Arrived. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Mark Twain
minolta hi-matic m7sII / efinity uxi 200
“What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind.� - Ode, Intimations of Immortality, William Wordsworth
minolta hi-matic m7sII / efinity uxi 200
minolta hi-matic m7sII / efinity uxi 200
Seeing. “One only sees well with the heart. The most important things are invisible to the eyes.” - Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“If you do not raise your eyes you will think that you are the highest point.� - Antonio Porchia
natura classica / efinity uxi 200
“The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.� - Henry Miller
natura classica / efinity uxi 200
“For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to “give a meaning” to the world, one has to feel involved in what one frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry.” - Henri Cartier-Bresson
natura classica / efinity uxi 200
Everybody has a Story. “The only way of catching a train I ever discovered is to miss the train before.� - G.K. Chesterton
LC-W / EB3 / cross-processed
“Six billion of us walking the planet, six billion smaller worlds on the bigger one. Six billion stories, every one an epic, full of tragedy and triumph, good and evil, despair and hope.� - Dean Koontz
natura classica / efinity uxi 200
“We are lonesome animals. We spend all of our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say and to feel, ‘Yes, that is the way it is, or at least that is the way I feel it.’ You’re not as alone as you thought.” - John Steinbeck
natura classica / efinity uxi 200
natura classica / efinity uxi 200
“Reading takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere.� - Hazel Rochman
Catch the lights. “In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.� - Aaron Rose
“The Sun never knew how wonderful it was until it fell on the wall of a building.” ﹣ Louis Kahn
natura classica / solaris 100
“Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
minolta hi-matic m7sII / efinity uxi 200
natura classica / efinity uxi 200
“To awaken alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.� - Freya Stark
The end is the begining. “Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.� - Pat Conroy natura classica / efinity uxi 200
natura classica / efinity uxi 200
I told my good friend G that I did not know how to end this issue. It seems like I always have difficulties in putting a full stop to anything I started. Be it a relationship, a job, a project, a journey. Maybe I do not want to stop for no good reasons or maybe I cannot persist so I want to drop out. I hope I am not dropping out this time, but just could not find a nice photo to make a wrap. :P G said, why don’t you end with a picture of a book and say something like ‘at home, my journey continues in these pages. What a great idea, but as you can see, I am not ending the issue this way, because it would be the beginning of the next one :) The journey continues….
natura classica / solaris 100
Thank you! stephotography e-mail: kylsteph@gmail.com All photographys taken in Spain by Stephanie LEE. Copyright 2011. All rights reserved.