The Roman poet Horace said that 'a picture is a poem without words'. Of course he would not have known about photography, living as he did over two thousand years ago. But I’m sure if he had, he would have looked for poems in photos.
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I confess I have never been one to climb mountains, and certainly not these days! But I am inspired by the sight of them and by all the wonders of the world’s wilder places. And where better to see some of these than in a national park? I’m a particular admirer of the US national parks system, which owes much to the campaigning of John Muir.
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The colonial city of Vigan is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, for good reason. It is one of the few Spanish colonial towns in the Philippines to remain relatively intact. Its unique architecture fuses native Filipino and Oriental building styles with more typical colonial Spanish features.
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What is it about Paris that has so captured the imagination of artists and writers over the years? Is it the light, the architecture, the culture, the way of life? I am not sure, but I know it has captivated me too.
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It must be museums week at Travel with Me, because after taking you to Manila’s Ayala Museum a few days ago, today I want to introduce you to a couple of museums we visited in Vigan. Although my usual preference when travelling is to be out and about absorbing local colour, time spent in a smaller museum in particular can be a very rewarding complement to this.
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Spring is the most colourful of seasons so how can we best capture its wonders in monochrome? The colours of spring are special to us as we transition from the muted, often monochromatic tones of winter to a vibrant explosion of life and renewal. So what happens if we remove those colours from our photos?
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It has to be said that Manila is not the most appealing of cities. While the largely reconstructed old city of Intramuros has its charms, much of the rest of the city is a sprawl of modern skyscrapers, older housing, near-slums, and very congested traffic. It is the world’s fourth largest city and one of its most densely populated. However, there are gems to be found half-hidden in the sprawl.
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There is something about a ruin that speaks to me as a photographer. The stories the old structures could tell of people and events from the past sometimes seem more vivid than those of a better-preserved or reconstructed old building. And where better to explore some ruins than among the temples of Angkor in Cambodia?
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I am keeping things simple today with a gallery of some of the beautiful flowers I photographed during our visit to the Philippines. I’m sharing these as a memorial for Cee, a special member of our blogging community whom we sadly lost last month.
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The Kankanaey people of Sagada, an Igorot (mountain) tribe in northern Luzon, follow a unique burial ritual. Rather than placing their coffins in the ground they hang them from cliffs or place them in a cave. They believe that the higher the dead are placed, the closer they are to heaven and the greater the chance of their spirits reaching a higher nature in the afterlife.
