Travel is like an intensified version of normal life. We take ourselves out of our comfort zone to situations where the ups are higher and the downs take us deeper than we have ever been. This is why we often return from travelling feeling like a new person: so much more experienced, wiser and even enlightened. After a year or so travelling through South America, I’d been confronted by many lows (and many more highs, thankfully). One thing that irritated me was how long things took. I’m pretty chilled out and enjoy taking my time, but on Latin American time things can be excruciatingly slow. The border crossing from Colombia to Panama is one example of this. The whole process of travelling by boat from port towns to port towns took days. I understand that authorities in this Darien Gap region are wise to watch their ports for drug smugglers, but anyone who has spoken to locals knows that the authorities are aware of the traffickers and allow certain offenders to slip through the cracks. On arriving to Panama, at the tiny village of Puerto Obaldia, the immigration officer sitting inside his sweltering hot cement block informed us […] Read More
When I first read about the Kuna Yala indigenous people in the San Blas Islands, I knew I had to visit the islands to photograph them. In all descripitions, the people and the landscape sounded visually stunning. The Kuna women hand-sew their vibrant outfits with tropical patterns and elaborate designs. Their arms and legs are adorned with colourful beads in traditional patterns that imitate designs that used to be painted on their skin before missionaries taught them to wear clothes. The location they call home is over 300 idyllic islands in the Caribbean Sea of Panama, the most picture perfect place I have visited in my life. Many of the inhabitants are nomadic and move from island to island collecting coconuts and selling their clothing, designs and beaded jewelry to tourists. I shot a series of photos for Atmosphere magazine, an in-flight publication for Canada’s Air Transat. The photos are in the current (July-August) edition. Read More
