In 2005 I took what I like to call “my first trip as a serious photographer”.  It was a whirlwind tour of Vietnam and Cambodia.  Angkor Wat was undoubtedly the most memorable part of the trip, and I have been searching for a similar experience ever since.  Petra came close, but i was never able to find solitude among the ruins there.  (you no longer can at Angkor either, from what I hear)  Maybe I will find it this year in Myanmar.

Looking back at my photos from the trip, most of them are pretty bad.  I did cull a few gems, especially from Angkor, where it is hard to take a bad photo.  I remember going through the photos on my two cards deleting pictures of Vietnam to make room for pictures of Angkor.  I hate to think what I lost.  At any rate, All of my photos from that trip are far different than they would be today.  Lots of quirky “experimental” angles, most of which don’t work, and lots of shots of stuff that was just so cool that I couldn’t step back metaphorically and be objective about the image.  Here is a portrait of a young boy at an outlying temple that I bicycled to on my last day.  It has the odd angle, but I was paying attention when I shot it, and I think it works.