Loch Lomond in fog and rain

Loch Lomond in fog and rain (c) 2023 by David Ourisman, all rights reserved

It was the morning of the last full day of our Backroads walking tour of Scotland. Instead of waking up to blue skies and puffy white clouds, the morning was grey and dreary. Fog shrouded the views, and a light rain was falling. But that's not necessarily a bad thing for a photographer. We dread clear blue skies, while fog offers the potential of amazing photographic opportunities.

We boarded the boat that been arranged for a morning cruise on the Loch. Standard photographic techniques — compose, focus, shoot — did not yield interesting images, so I experimented. Long exposures of 1/8 or 1/4 second smoothed out the water in the foreground while the background remained sharp ... better! And then I thought of the lowly iPhone 10S in my pocket and using "time exposure" to blur the photographs. I gave it a try and what that resulted.

I'm calling it "Loch Lomond in fog and rain," and this abstract image perfectly captures the story of our cruise this morning. Hiking three miles in a light drizzle is not the most comfortable walk, but thanks to this image, I'll always treasure the memory of this morning's walk on the West Highland Way.

copyright (c) 2023 by Ourisman Travel LLC.  All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell, a Virtuoso® Member.

travel souvenirs — part 3

We are still sheltering in place in Northern California. With foreign adventures off the table, I've been fondly recalling some of my favorite travel experiences over the past few years. Looking at souvenirs I've brought home has been a great a way to remember the many wonderful places I've been privileged to visit.

One afternoon, after lunch in Adelaide, Australia, we had time to look (and shop) at the arts and crafts exposition right by the restaurant. Thank you to Swain Destinations for arranging this stop on our 2016 trip. A leatherworker was on hand, making and selling kangaroo leather belts. I thought the belt shown above was quite attractive. He sized it exactly for my waist, and I've been wearing it ever since.

But the best souvenirs are always photographs that I take myself. I combine my best photos each year in a book of travel photography that I give family members for Christmas. On the cover of my 2019 book is a shot of the Sydney Opera House. We stayed at the Park Hyatt Sydney for this return trip. The hotel, located directly across the harbour from the Opera House, is the perfect place to stay if you want to go to the harbour at 5 a.m. to capture sunrise images.

I'd love to return to Australia for a third visit. Melbourne is high on the bucket list for my next trip.

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copyright (c) 2020 by Ourisman Travel LLC. All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell, a Virtuoso® Member. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.

postcard from Lizard Island | Sunset Beach

Sunset Beach (c) 2019 by David Ourisman, all rights reserved

Thursday's sunset photo was quite literally a rush job. I napped too late and nearly missed the sunset. The sun had already set behind the horizon when I arrived at the beach, but the colors were vivid, illuminating the clouds with beautiful shades of reds, oranges, and blues.

I was able to take a more leisurely approach to Friday evening's sunset photograph. We walked down to Sunset Beach, arriving 45 minutes before the sunset. I had time to explore some different compositions. Because there were clouds obscuring the horizon, the colors were not nearly as dramatic as on Thursday evening.

This was literally my last image from Friday afternoon. I had already collapsed the legs of my tripod and was walking off the beach, but my eyes caught sight of these subtle reflections on the water. It was so dark that Claire wondered why I set up my tripod again, but the darkness worked to my advantage. The long 30 second exposure smoothed out the surface of the ocean, creating this surreal image. I love it, and it's now the desktop photo on my MacBook Air.

Lizard Island is a beautiful beach resort in the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. Just 40 villas — 85 maximum guests at any time — and it's quite quiet at the moment. Claire and I were the only two guests this morning on what turned out to be our very own private snorkeling adventure on the Inner Reef... the most gorgeous coral I've ever seen!

copyright (c) 2019 by Ourisman Travel LLC. All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell, a Virtuoso® Member. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.

postcard from London | Picadilly Circus

Picadilly Circus in 1969 (c) David Ourisman, all rights reserved

The photograph above was taken in the summer of 1969. I had just graduated from high school, the summer before beginning college. For a graduation gift, I asked for a trip to Europe, and my parents arranged an experience that included stays in London, Amsterdam, and Paris followed by several weeks at the University of Grenoble (with day trips on the weekends) where I studied French, adding to five years of French in secondary school. It was a memorable trip, one that helped nurture a lifelong passion for travel.

I brought my film camera along, a Minolta SRT 101 with several different lenses. Photography had been my avocation even as a teenager. My 1969 photo shows Picadilly Circus with the billboards as they appeared behind the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain fifty years ago.

Picadilly Circus in 2019 (c) 2019 by David Ourisman, all rights reserved

Skip forward fifty years, and you can see the changes. There's now a LOT more traffic, and it would be impossible to capture the scene with no vehicles in the foreground. The static billboards have been replaced with ever-changing advertisements shown on LED screens. (Coca Cola is still the most prominent advertiser.) The displays move across the screen, and video snippets including an effervescent glass of Coke, a Turkish Airline plane landing in Istanbul, and advertisements from companies ranging from Samsung to Audemars Piguet, from Hyundai to Alexander McQueen. My suite at Hotel Café Royal (#422) looks right out onto the display, and I asked the housekeepers to keep open the curtains of my living room so that I could enjoy the 24-hour show.

Travel creates the milestones of our lives. Each return visit brings back memories of experiences past and the hope for new memories to come.

copyright (c) 2019 by Ourisman Travel LLC.  All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell, a Virtuoso® member. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit our website.

reflections in the baptistery at Salisbury

Salisbury cathedral reflections (c) 2018 by David Ourisman, all right reserved

Salisbury Cathedral has long been on my bucket list. One of the world's outstanding examples of Gothic architecture, the cathedral has the tallest church spire in the UK (404 feet), the largest cloister, and one of four existing copies of the Magna Carta.

On entering the cathedral, one's eyes are drawn skyward by the strong vertical lines of the columns and arches. Unlike Westminster Abbey which stations priests throughout the sanctuary who sternly warn tourists not to take photograph, the priest with whom I briefly spoke had a quite friendly demeanor. Photography is permitted, and I was able to capture the composition above — a reflection of the church's arches in the large dove-shaped baptistery inside the entrance.

Along with Winchester Cathedral, yesterday was a day to visit Gothic churches as well as the stone circle at Avebury.

copyright  (c)  2018 by Ourisman Travel LLC.  All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell, a Virtuoso® member. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit our website.

photographic journeys

If you're passionate about both travel and photography, consider these brand-new Photographic Journeys to India and Mongolia in 2018.



India: Land of the Tiger — 24APR-6MAY.  Join Lewis Kemper on a photo safari to India's Bandavgarh National Park, one of the best wildlife sanctuaries in India that houses the Royal Bengal Tiger. Expect to see brightly colored birds, intriguing monkeys, and of course the big cat on this trip where award-winning Kemper will provide guidance for capturing the best images.

Mongolia: A Photocultural Journey — 22AUG-3SEP. Alison Wright will be leading a photography journey to Mongolia for us this summer. From the wilds of the Altai, home of the Kazakh eagle hunters, to mystical Kharakhorum, the ancient capital of the Mongol Empire, and on to the stunning Gobi, see the best of Mongolia on this photocultural journey. 


India: Pushkar Festival — 4NOV-17NOV. See India's highlights with photographer Lewis Kemper, including the Taj Mahal at sunrise and sunset, the holy city of Varanasi, and the pink city of Jaipur, before a visit to the Pushkar Festival where you'll discover thousands of camels amidst the festivities.



Wild Namibia Photo Safari — 11 days. Namibia is one of Africa’s best-kept secrets for photographers. Less well known and less visited than the game parks of East and South Africa, Namibia’s treasures remain more hidden, revealed to those in search of a truly distinctive safari adventure.

Drop us an email more information on any of these photographic journeys.

copyright (c) 2017 by Ourisman Travel LLC. All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell, a Virtuoso® Member. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website. Nomadic Expeditions and Natural Habitat are Virtuoso tour companies.

Carneros Resort | visit Napa

country road near Carneros Resort (c) 2016 by David Ourisman, all rights reserved

Carneros Resort and Spa is a resort in the Napa Valley wine country, just one hour north of San Francisco. We just spent two nights over Thanksgiving at Carneros — more about our stay in a later blog post — but yesterday we enjoyed a 4.3 mile walk on country roads near Carneros. The concierge can give you an easy-to-follow map.

Though the harvest is done, we still enjoyed some spectacular scenery — the luxurious curves of hillside planted with vines, red barns, small ponds reflecting trees clad in autumn colors, and the parallel lines so typical of wine country. I always say that travel is my excuse for photography ... and I came back from this trip with half a dozen favorites.

Though the sun was shining and the sky was blue, I decided to turn these photographs into black and white. I hope they give you a taste for what you can expect in the Carneros region of the Napa Valley.

red barn and weather vane (c) 2016 by David Ourisman, all rights reserved

copyright (c) 2016 by Ourisman Travel LLC. All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell Travel. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.

photographic tours

One of the real pleasures of tourism for me is the opportunity to express myself through photography. Whether getting up before dawn to capture the soft hues of early morning, or capturing the culture of an exotic destination through candid photographs of native people, photography is a form of artistic expression for me and quite a few other travelers.

Photographic tours offer travelers the opportunity to travel with the express purpose of engaging in serious photography. Led by a talented photographer who can offer instruction, photographic tours are a great way of seeing an unique corner of the world and capturing its scenes through the lens of your camera.

A photographic tour of the Silk Road is being offered by guidebook author Simon Foster and travel photographer Ewen Bell (who took the photograph pictured above). They will lead an expedition through Western China along the Silk Road. Offering a mix of photography education and adventure travel in the remote stretches of Western China from Xian to Kashgar, this is a tour to consider. Here is a description written by Ewen Bell:

We want to take people to a world where goat trails are a major geographical feature and sand dunes continue to reshape the landscape. The tour puts a soft edge to the adventure by staying in four-star hotels, but there aren't that many of them between Xian and Kashgar, so some nights are more rustic than others. A maximum of just eight people will be shown highlights such as the Terra cotta Warriors, the Great Wall at Jiayuguan, and the Flaming Mountains of Turpan. Lesser known places such as the blue waters of Lake Karakul will be the real treasures though, spending a night in a traditional yurt surrounded by snow, deserts, and hairy camels.

The pace of the expedition is designed to make the most of photographic opportunities along the way and learn a few tricks from the professionals. We call it a photo tour, but it's a genuine odyssey for anyone who wants to explore China beyond the travel brochures. We take the time to relax in each destination, discover a little inspiration for the camera, and blend adventure with comfort. The Silk Road is a beautiful journey, even more so when shared with a small group of like-minded travelers and the wisdom of not one but two expert guides.

Please email if you are interested in booking this tour.

photographic tours (search here on Google)



copyright (c) 2007 by David J. Ourisman. All rights reserved. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.
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Hong Kong, Thailand, and Cambodia

In less than a week, I will be off to Southeast Asia, a part of the world I have never before visited. The reasons for my trip are both personal and professional.

My personal reason for taking this trip is simply that I love travel. Travel expands our horizons. Travel puts us in touch with new cultures. Travel brings us face-to-face with new sights, sounds, aromas, and tastes. Travel is good for the planet; it opens our consciousness to the diversity of the human family and helps us feel connected with one another. Certainly our world needs the harmony and understanding that can come when we engage one another across international, religious, and cultural boundaries.

Photography is also one of my avocations. I'll be bringing my camera along and posting pictures with each blog that I write. I took the picture above in 1996 while visiting a Buddhist temple in Seoul, South Korea. I look forward to capturing scenes of natural beauty and cultural interest whenever I travel.

Professionally, I am taking this trip because there is great interest in this part of the world, and clients often ask my advice about places to stay and sights to see in Hong Kong, Thailand, and Cambodia. There is no substitute for first-hand experience; even the best guide books cannot convey the experience that being in a place can impart.

I will be posting regularly while I am away. Feel free to subscribe to Travel Horizons by clicking one of the "subscription" links to the right of this article.



copyright (c) 2007 by David J. Ourisman. All rights reserved. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.
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off to Wales

As I wrote in my post of April 26, tomorrow I am off to Wales for a walking holiday.

It's a long journey from the west coast (I live in the San Francisco Bay Area). Tomorrow morning I will fly Continental Airlines from SFO to their Newark hub. There I will meet up with my son Josh who is flying down from Boston, and we will continue together on our nonstop flight to Manchester, England.

Our accommodations for this trip will be in B&Bs -- three nights in Llangollen and three nights in Dolgellau. We have a packet of maps with suggested tours already marked for each day. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to photograph some gorgeous scenery! Be watching Travel Horizons for some updates from Wales with some thoughts (and some original photographs).

If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.
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