For years and years, this place must not have changed that much. I see less human, less industry, less community, less transportation, less noise but more sheep, more field, more ice, more gas from the earth, and more skies.

-Sejin

Before the sunrise, we rubbed our heavy eyes and hit the road to catch up to the end of the summer coast line. We were rapid nomads with the Jeep we rented. When the sun showed up it started to hit the empty highway and spreaded the golden shades everywhere our eyes can reach.

-Sejin

Human architecture could never challenge nature itself.

-Sejin

If you are patient enough, the sunlight will shine on your face soon.

-Sejin

If the globe is your head, Iceland is your nose. It shows that you are still alive whenever you breath. It pumps out steam when it's angry too. When the earth sneeze, a big waterfall comes out from the ground without any warning.

-Sejin

A quiet small fishing town where the tourist season has passed. All they have is sheep or ship now.

-Sejin

When you give a second look, the sun makes a trick here and there and edits the scenery without the photographer's permission.

-Sejin

The sheep is the major form of entertainment in Iceland and they should make it a must-see item for it's tour (Although, I don't think it's legal). Whenever we would find a sheep or a herd of sheep, Sebastien started to honk. It's a way to let them know that we are here! "Hey! Hello! How are you, sheep family?" Then, anytime one of them would start to run in the field to avoid our Jeep, thinking that we are going to get close to them, the others would also run frantically, a domino effect. We laughed so hard thinking that this should continue the entire trip in Iceland. The three sheep in the picture ran their asses off and their tails off to stay ahead of our Jeep! They must have ran with us for 1km and left us laughing for the entire day.

-Sejin

This year I was honoured to have the opportunity to help photograph The Originals 2012 along side the very talented Kelly Lawson. What an incredible night! After you take a look through these images, I suggest you take a look at the list of finalists (and winners) of The Original Awards on Judith Mackin's website, here and the official wrap up post here showing more images by yours truly and Kelly Lawson.

To learn more about the event, please visit the official website here or the facebook page here.

And now, onto the photos!

This was the last country on our long trip, but certainly not the least. When we were planning out our trip, Iceland wasn't a thought. It only came through as an option when we were looking at prices for flights to Canada from Europe. We found that passing through Iceland was much more economical. We thought, "Why don't we stay in Iceland for a night to take advantage of the stop?" Once we started looking into things to see in Iceland, it became clear that we couldn't simply spend just 1 night there. So, 5 days and 4 nights with a round (literally) trip around the entire island quickly became the plan. I didn't regret it! Our visit to Iceland was, and remained the most satisfying and rewarding trip I've been on since Thailand. The landscape has no equal. Please click through to enjoy some of the photos taken during this trip, and to witness a little piece of history between Sejin and I.

For our visit to Iceland, we rented a four wheel drive vehicle to take us around the whole country. Sebastien was so excited and drove the jeep everywhere even on roads that our GPS claimed to be a 'road' but we couldn't even see anything. We drove for miles and miles, dawn to dusk. We couldn't stop honking at the sheep while driving. Why? Because if one sheep runs away the whole herd start to run! It was hilarious!

-Sejin

And it was stick-shift! Ahh, I want to go back right now just to keep driving that thing around.

The geysir is like a whale blowing out the water from his back.

-Sejin

While we were traveling, we heard that when European people were moving out to find new land, people who have been to Iceland named the place 'Ice'land and told people there is another place called 'Green'land. Which one sounds warmer? Of course, Green land! Although it's latitude is higher and it's so much colder than 'Ice'land. Why do people want this place to be so secluded from people? I'm curious.

-Sejin

Some people said the landscape of the Iceland is like Mars. When Sebastien and I started to drive from the airport, we saw the ground that we've never seen before. From far away, the land looks like a herd of sheep but they don't move anywhere. It must be the way for plants to survive after the explosion of the volcano.

-Sejin

If I had never seen a jewel, I would believe this ice that floats on the river is a jewel.

-Sejin

Some travelers don't bother walking and they often hitchhike. With Sebastien and I, we had only 5 days in Iceland and we wanted to see every nook and cranny of it. But we welcomed hitchhikers. One of the ladies who hitchhiked was from Germany. She was very quiet and pleasant, later on we discovered she makes cards. It just fits her character and I loved the one she gave us as a present. When we drove her to the Guest House in the middle of nowhere, we happened to see a guy in front of a barn, welding something. I took a close look from the jeep and I could not believe my eyes! I came out from the jeep and asked him if it's okay to take some pictures of him burning sheep's heads. He had 5 or 6 sheep heads laying on the ground as raw, and then on the table, he was cooking 4 of them. Wow! I've never thought I would see this!

-Sejin

This is the moment that Sebastien made the best choice in his life. Yes, he was nervous like a schoolboy.

-Sejin

I most certainly was nervous... I actually ended up putting the ring on the wrong hand. Haha. As a bit of a back story, it had been months since I bought the ring from a little Korean jeweller in Ulsan. I decided back then, while she was away on a trip to visit her family, that she was the girl I was to marry. But, being a silly little boy, I wanted to surprise her. As such, any time the talk of marriage or future ever came up I quickly shot down the discussion and moved on to something else, you know, so she wouldn't guess something was up. Turns out that might have been a bad idea. I had her so well fooled that when I actually *did* propose to her, she didn't believe me at all and thought I was joking. Joke was on me! So, it took me a bit of time to make sure she understood that I was in fact actually proposing to her for real, and that the ring wasn't a fake. I chose Iceland as a location for the proposal for a few reasons. It's beautiful, it's not Canada nor Korea (unbiased), and it was the last part of our trip. If we could make it 30+ days of travelling together through the world, surely we could make it through a marriage, right?

As you can see, there was a camera pointing at us during the proposal. I had set up the D300s to videotape the act, and had a Zoom HD recorder between us to record our discussion. I was so embarassed by the whole thing (her thinking I was joking, and putting the ring on the wrong hand, among other things) that I couldn't bring myself to watch or listen to the recordings until much much later. Maybe some day I'll bring myself to edit it and share it with you guys :) ... Or maybe not.

Since then we got married (twice) and had our first anniversary just a week ago (May 7th.) Our cake toppers for the wedding were a pair of cute little sheep that symbolized the field I proposed to her in. You can see the picture of the cake, as we enjoyed it on our anniversary night, here.

Love doesn't need a language.

-Sejin

After he proposed to me, we drove back to our hotel but we decide to take a detour. Suddenly, we climbed up a mountain while our 'GPS' kept saying it was a road. We drove our jeep higher and higher. On the top of the mountain, we found a tongue of glacier ice and we spent our night gazing at it with our naked eyes.

-Sejin

Please stay tuned for the second set of pictures from days 3, 4 and 5. There are a lot more to see!

As always, if you would like to see the other photos from this trip, please see the album posted on Facebook. Take care for now!

My first step back into the Western world after having spent 18 months in Asia. It was nice! Fresh cool air, clean streets, undercrowded. Frankfurt was a beautiful city, with beautiful modern and classic architecture. I'm really glad we had the chance to stop by this wonderful city, even if only for a day (the hotel rates during the week are astro-comical). Click ahead to read a bit more about this city, and to see a few pictures and notes from Sejin.

As I said in the last post, I wasn't feeling all that great. I had a case of the Delhi Belly. I spent a significant amount of time near the washroom and it made for a pretty boring trip for the duration of our stay in Germany. My radius from the hotel was about 2 or 3 kilometres.. heh. Thankfully that was cleared up by the time we arrived in Iceland. Now, onto the rest of the post...

We couldn't help but make this face when we arrived in Frankfurt where people don't push us or run us over and instead of grimy limping dogs without owners, every dog here was clean and had an owner, not like India, Nepal or Tibet. We were in awe of the cleanliness, quietness, and spotless air of Frankfurt and almost burst in tears. "Thank god, we are in heaven now!" Sebastien and I couldn't believe ourselves in a land with cool autumn breeze yet it is not very far from India.

-Sejin

Nothing can stop me.

-Sejin

DB(Deutsche Bahn) Station. The most complicated station I've ever seen. You'll have more possibility to be stricken by lightning than getting on the right train in this station.

-Sejin

I don't remember seeing even a single word of English in this train station, foreigner un-friendly.

Leave a message...Beep!

-Sejin

The following pictures are from Mainz, Germany. A small city just outside of Frankfurt, where the river Rhine meets the river Main. It's a beautiful quaint little town with more of an ancient feel than Frankfurt. I'd go back :)

I remember Sebastien saying, "It's so strange to see a white guy cleaning up garbage." after spending 1.5 years in Korea and the journey through China, Tibet, Nepal, and India. He forgot the big western community's life. This picture is not a routine dog poop picking up scene. There was a group of Hippies walking as if someones chasing them to catch a train. But they couldn't see how their dog desperately wanted to poop. So the man who has its leash pulled so hard, didn't care too much of the state of his dog that was half walking and half sitting on the floor. The dog finally pooped while walking, dragging its bum close to the ground and everyone saw except the owner. Then a guy who passed by the owner screamed at him and made him come back to the site to clean up the mess. It took a long time to bring the owner to the place to clean up. But on that day, I learned that German Hippies can't get away from their responsibility in German society.

-Sejin

As a side note to this story, the janitor came by shortly before the owner made his way back, and I could see him just about ready to shed a tear or two at the idea of having to clean up smeared poop from the tile. I'm glad the owner did the right thing.

The picture above and the picture of the girl in black and white was taken with a cheap old lens I bought while walking around with Sejin. it's a Sigma 100-200mm f/4.5 and I think it cost about 40 Euro. I had a bit of fun with it as it was definitely the longest reaching lens I had in my pack (the second longest being the 135mm f/2.0).

As always, if you would like to see the other photos from this trip, please see the album posted on Facebook. Take care for now!

It took a lot of planning and a lot of work, but the show is now finally open to the public. With the help of Josée Thibault with "ARCf de Saint-Jean" 24 of my best pictures from Tibet, Nepal and India were mounted and are on display at Salon Irène Grant-Guérette on the second floor of Samuel de Champlain in Saint John. Please come by any time to view the selection; it truly is better to see them in person.

Yesterday, April 28, 2012, was the official opening of the exhibit. It was really quite nice with food, drinks, friends, and family. I stood up and spoke about the pictures for a few minutes (en français). Here's a few pictures from the event.

In addition to the 24 printed photos, there are also 3 digital frames on display each showing other images from Tibet, Nepal and India respectively. Also, there's a fourth digital frame showing photos that Sejin took while on the trip. There are so many interesting pictures by her, always showing a different perspective from mine. Also, there's a lot of pictures of me in there, which always improves the value of a show ;)

Here's a link to the list of photos on display, and their printed size and price:

https://www.gwcphoto.ca/photos/20120428_GallerySelection/

And here's a link to the program for this exhibit:

https://www.gwcphoto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ExhibitProgram.pdf

If you're interested in purchasing any of the photos, please contact Samuel de Champlain's reception desk at 658-4600. They will help you out!

Thanks for stopping by :)

I don't have too much to say about New Delhi, and I also don't have many pictures to share. The attractions weren't as magical or impressive as in Agra or Varanasi, but it was still fascinating simply to watch the people go about their business. I think the most interesting part about New Delhi was dealing with the auto-rickshaw drivers. Sejin will tell you more about that ;) Click through to see a few pictures.

The nights in Delhi were familiar to me. It was just like the nights when I went back home after the winter language program at Delhi University in 2003 and 2004. Red brick buildings, overloaded rickshaws with children and adults, street sleepers were still there as if the waited for me to come back. The major change I noticed was lots of neon signs on the street near the train station. Eye noise, I call it, in the jammed and packed streets with neon-signs as in Seoul, Tokyo, and Time Square. It has arrived in India too.

-Sejin

Do you remember Shah Jahan who built the Taj Mahal for his 3rd wife? Red Fort (Lal Qila) was also built by him. In the evenings, they hold one-hour sound-and-light shows there to re-create the events of India's history. We missed the English version of this show so we had to view the Hindi version. Sebastien and I sat down with the Indian crowd for 20 minutes and came back to the streets out of boredom. At least on the streets, you can be entertained by a rickshawala who wants to argue with you to get 10 times more than what he deserves to drive you to somewhere you don't need to go.

-Sejin

You can't disturb holiness in McDonald here. Hamburger in India tastes like Indian food. Don't think it's the same as a delicious Tandoori chicken burger. It's just Indian masala (spice) burger. I remember we had Kimchi burger in Korea decades ago and it was my favorite. I can see how Indian people think of their burgers now. It must be the best take out pleasure for them!

-Sejin

There was a big flood in September 2010 in Northern India.

-Sejin

On one of first days in New Delhi, Sebastien and I wanted to go out to Connaught Place, a large commercial area. Locals call it CP. We came out from the hotel and there were two auto-rickshaws ready for customers. One guy was wobbling his head right and left and started to chat with us. 'My friend, where are you going?' We normally ask people to go by meter otherwise they will ask for ridiculous amounts from foreigners. So we got on his rickshaw and soon afterwards he started talking in Hindi on his phone. He didn't expect me to know what he was saying because for him I'm just another dummy traveler. On the other line, was his friend... his business friend. The driver said in Hindi, 'I have two people coming in your shop so open it soon. I'll bring them to you.' I knew what was going on immediately and watched how he lead us to his goal. He told me and Sebastien that the CP is dangerous with gangsters. The place is in chaos with them breaking and burning down the shops. So he wanted to bring us to a safe shopping area. 'Hahaha! This is classic!' I laughed so hard inside but on the outside, I was very stern and told him that whatever it takes, he needs to bring us to CP. It took a long time to convince him without stepping our feet outside of the rickshaw but he had to listen to us. When he came near to CP, he didn't drop us off at the heart, rather he kicked us off at some random street outside of the area and asked us for more money. I knew that any unfair rickshaw issues could be solved with just a simple call to the police. And without the actual appearance of the police, the problem was solved as soon as I called out for help. The thing I learned in India is that I should only believe in myself, and not others.

-Sejin

Near the end of our stay in New Delhi, I got what's called the 'Delhi Belly' where I must have eaten something not-so-good and had some serious stomach issues. Thanks New Delhi! This problem lasted into our stay in Germany, which was most unfortunate. I was on a short leash from our hotel rooms, haha. More on that in the next post!

As always, if you would like to see the other photos from this trip, please see the album posted on Facebook. Take care for now!

I never imagined I would have the opportunity to visit one of the architectural wonders of the world, Taj Mahal, but since the city in which it resides, Agra, was on our train path from Varanasi to New Delhi, we thought it would silly not to take the day and explore this city. The city has a few interesting landmarks besides the great Taj Mahal, including Agra Fort, and the Baby Taj. Take a peek at the pictures.

The train ride from Varanasi to Agra was a long one. I believe in total it was 14 hours. It was an overnight trip so we tried to get some sleep. We opted for the air conditioned car as it's a bit safer, but we still ended up locking all of our belongings like a stereotypical paranoid traveller. I think I even locked my shoes to the rack, heh. When we got closer to Agra, the sun was starting to come up. This made for some beautiful pictures along the train tracks. There were quite a few interesting sights as well, as people were scattered along the train tracks in their villages, all going through their morning routine of #1 and #2 right out in the open. Not for the weak stomach ;)

As with previous posts, Sejin has written up a few words about her experiences.

We were on a train from Varanasi to Agra. The train was full of people from all over India and whenever the train stops young and old, men and women would jump up to the train to sell food, chai tea, and souvenirs.

-Sejin

I'm not sitting on a toilet... Although, it doesn't look that different. India's trains have toilets where you can see the train tracks under your bum.

-Sejin

This is how free you are when the train stops. Curious Indian people were hanging out the door or even jumping off the train. They can even find a mother nature bathroom before the train leaves.

-Sejin

My first sight of the Taj Mahal was this, while crossing the Yamuna River on the last few minutes of the train ride to Agra. As you can see, there was a bit of flooding in this river at the time, with the monsoon season coming to an end.

Sejin had already visited Agra and Taj Mahal previously, so for her this was 'just another day in India'. For me though, seeing these incredible structures so close and in person, wow. I'm at a loss for words now, as I was then. The precise detail and the microscopic level of this structure was breathtaking.

Taj Mahal is the most famous example of Muslim architecture. It was built by Shah Jahan, an emperor to commemorate his third wife who died while giving birth to his fourteenth child. I learned that Muslim men can marry as many women as they wish but they have to treat them all same. If he had built three Taj Mahals, it would have been fair to the other wives. I guess he didn't have enough money for the down payment.

-Sejin

For Indian people the entrance fee was 2 rupees but for foreigners it was 540 rupees. Does this mean foreigners have more eyes than Indians?

-Sejin

Sejin always makes me laugh...

The sunset reflects the Taj Mahal.

-Sejin

Thanks for taking the time to look through these pictures. As always, if you would like to see the other photos from this trip, please see the album posted on Facebook. Take care for now!

Varanasi was the first city we visited in India. It was my first time in India, and although Sejin had been to India a few times before, it was her first time in Varanasi. It's hard to describe in words what the experience is like, but hopefully the pictures will help. Please click through to see the other pictures from this land.

When we first arrived in the northern part of India from Nepal, I noticed that it was basically a flat version of Nepal. There wasn't that many people, and it wasn't the chaos I was originally expecting. Of course this was a relatively remote part of India, and the scenery changed quickly to the over-crowded reality as we arrived in Gorakhpur.

The only real function of Gorakhpur, as far as I could see, was a train connection. We were going to stay in Gorakhpur overnight and take the first train out to Varanasi. As you can see from the photo below, a lot of people pass through this station. If you look carefully, it's hard to spot anyone not looking directly at me. I think if I knew this at the time that I took the photo, I may never have taken it, haha.

Don't worry, he's just taking a nap. 15-minute jet lag. (The time difference between India and Nepal is 15 minutes...)

Sejin had a few things to say about Varanasi:

Incredible !ndia, that was the motto of the nation, for tourism. Yes, it is incredibly strange for me to visit there more than four times even though I don't enjoy being there every single minute. That must be my karma. India is 15 times bigger than South Korea but unlike the assumption of the grand space, it has 1.2 billion people living in it. For me, the nation is not disguised as a land of spiritual guidance or land of yogi. When I stepped down for the first time from Delhi International Air Port in 2003, the reality of this land and people shattered the image of cosmeticized India. But as I said, the reason why I can't resist coming back to this land again and again is because I'm addicted to finding undiscovered truth in it. If you can see the 'undiscovered truth' through the pictures you see now, please share it with us.

-Sejin

Monkeys and cows are everywhere...

Unlike the night scene of Varanasi's busy uptown (with cars, horns, rickshaws, vendors, hotel yellers, etc.), its morning is as peaceful as water with no ripples. I tried to go out in the morning to skip the hot mid-day sun-laser. Certainly Sebastien and I learned how needy we were compared to the people of India. Because we needed ice water and air conditioning every two hours.

-Sejin

Varanasi is portrayed as an essential area for spiritual enlightenment because it embraces the Ganges River in which they burn people's dead bodies. If you have enough money to buy wood to burn your whole body, you are a lucky man. If you don't, your body may not completely burn and some parts will be left to float on the water for a while. My university professor had seen people begging for money from tourists to get more wood, but nowadays I've only met people who wants to bamboozle the price of a puja (worship) candle. Yes, things are much more capitalistic than courteous. In my eyes, an Indian man on a single boat is as philosophical as a man who holds a baguette and a pen. Things can be interpreted in thousands of ways with travellers' eyes.

-Sejin

Sleeping in an alley with just a rag on your shoulder is not a shame in India.

-Sejin

One of the items on my bucket list was accomplished with Sebastien. But, I shattered the filter on his 50mm lens, when I dropped his spare camera on the asphalt on this trip. At that moment, I thought the world was shattered with the filter but when you can't use a camera, don't worry, your eyes will engrave all the memories in your heart.

-Sejin

So that's that. I hope you enjoyed these many photos from this very interesting city in India!

As always, if you would like to see the other photos from this trip, please see the album posted on Facebook. Take care for now!

In the middle of our trip we visited Kathmandu. It's the largest city in Nepal with approximately one million people. When we visited, the city was fairly stable and safe. We were worried as there have been some unrest there in the past. But, there were still some issues. The biggest of which was the landfill/garbage problem that the city faced. As I understood it from talking with locals, an adjacent city that had the landfill for Kathmandu and the surrounding areas was so overrun with garbage that they blocked garbage trucks from Kathmandu from dumping garbage in their landfill. Therefore, the city wasn't able to pick up the garbage from the streets of Kathmandu, and it just began to pile up. In the middle of the streets. It was quite a sight (and smell.) Check out the rest of the pictures to see what I'm talking about, and to also see that there's beauty beyond this.

Sejin had a few words to say about this place too:

It was funny to see many souvenirs with 'Nepal's Himalayas' written on them on the streets in Nepal and 'Tibet's Himalayas' written on them all over the Tibet. So, who's Himalayas is the best? Kathmandu is becoming like Pahaarganj in Delhi which means busy narrow streets with lots of shops for foreign travelers. We had to haggle for the best price for everything and deal with the taxi drivers who don't want to drive you. The central Kathmandu where young people can date and old people can smoke and meet friends is just as dark as a cave and we couldn't see any of the people pass by but could smell them and touch them. I had to hold the tip of Sebastien's clothes so that I won't get lost among the thousands of people in the dark.

-Sejin

Bhaktapur is in Nepal too but the closer we get to India, the more Nepal lost its beauty; such is the case with Kathmandu. I remember there was a little girl with her mom on a street close to the American Embassy and we happened to walked by them a few times to find an ATM on a hot day. The little girl tugged on Sebastien's shorts and blocked his way in an attempt to get some money. She might have done that so many times and knew that foreigners like to ignore that they are there. So by experience she became bolder. But at the end, she didn't know someone could step on her toe if she interrups ones way which Sebastien did, by accident. I understand that begging is the way that they can servive. It's a pity and it's unfair that the little girl has no choice but to follow her mom's passage and I'm thinking where is the Human Rights for these people?

-Sejin

One of my favourite parts of this city was visit Swayambhunath (also known as The Monkey Temple) on the top of a large hill in the centre of the city. Aside from the wonderful view, and the aged relics, the temple was crowded with pigeons, dogs, and of course, monkeys. I love photographing these animals wandering around and interacting with the patrons giving them grains and other food. So fun! Sejin, on the other hand, doesn't like pigeons all that much, so she wasn't having nearly as much fun... Haha. Here's another note from Sejin about the local perception of this temple and it's monks.

I remember a conversation with a young taxi driver on the way to the Monkey Temple. He was thinking the monks are lazy bums who only gets money by just sitting in a house and not doing any productive work. He was very pissed that monks are sucking up the people's money all day long, every year, every decade.

-Sejin

I took this video of the monkeys interacting with each other on the steps to the monkey temple, and Sejin posted it on her YouTube account a few months ago.

On our last day we took a bus from Kathmandu to the Nepal/India border. It took about 9 hours total, including two stops for food. At one of the stops, I snapped a shot of this little snail working hard to get to the top of this plant. He made it, don't worry.

As always, if you would like to see the other photos from this trip, please see the album posted on Facebook. Take care for now!

I wasn't planning on photographing any weddings solo this year, but I made an exception for a friend of mine. Monique and I went to elementary school together and stayed in touch since. Her fiancé Graeme and I have never met, but I got along well with him right away. Their date is set for August 21st, 2011. I'm excited!

As a way for myself to get to know the couple, and to share their engagement with the world, we got together recently for an engagement shoot. Here are the results. Also, I'd like to give a big thanks to Kyle Humphrey for helping out as an assistant. I met him through the couple, and he'll be helping out at the wedding too.

As always, if you would like to see a few other photos from this session, please see the album posted on Facebook. Take care for now!