Category Archives: Architecture

Fog! About an hour into our trip south across the English Chanel from the Bailiwick of Jersey to Brittany, France, everything outside the ferry windows disappeared. It didn’t seem an auspicious start to our day trip to Saint-Malo, the mediaeval walled city of explorers, privateers, and pirates. But, just like magic, dolphins appeared – leaping and diving along-side the boat […]

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Does originality matter any more? That was the question posed today by a photographer who’s Facebook feed I look in on from time to time. He was lamenting the fact that a picture awarded a first place for “Sports Action” by World Press Photo was an image he considered unoriginal, by virtue of the fact that other photographers […]

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Cold. Dark. Completely dark – but for the stars overhead – and cold. And early!  Way too early. It was 5:15am in California’s Eastern Sierras. A small clutch of cars and a congregated group of people with their hands shoved deep in their pockets, huddled against the kind of piercing cold that only a dry […]

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Every city has a “past”. Even an eclectic and worldly city like Seattle – the home of grunge and Dr. Frasier Crane; Microsoft and Starbucks Coffee – has a rough and colourful story. Scratch the surface of the modern architecture and you will find a wild pioneer history, traces of which survive beneath the modern city streets. Literally! […]

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Buddhist temples in Myanmar are clearly loved and well cared for. Offerings of gold, flowers, and incense are everywhere, and the walls and floors are so shiny you can see yourself reflected in them: often the product of donated labour. Mahamuni Temple, Mandalay, and Soon U Ponya Shin Pagoda, in the nearby Sagaing Hills, which I visited one day […]

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