I just wanted to take a moment to wish my friends Adrianna Tan and Andrew Crum the best of luck— two days from now, on the 2nd of April, they along with their teammate, Dr. Karthik Seetharaman, will be embarking on the Malabar Rampage Rickshaw Challenge, a 2800km, 19-day journey through some of the most beautiful, remote, and dangerous parts of India. This is not a challenge for the faint of heart, which is why I know this team is going to rock the hell out of it. They have a site set up to follow the team’s progress, and without a doubt, the stories and images will be amazing. I will definitely be keeping an eye on things every step of the way. GO TEAM RICKROLLSHAW! Link

Soon I’ll be officially published! I know, I know— a lot of things I’ve written, both fiction and non-fiction, have ended up in various places, but this is the first time I’ve been recognised as an official author of a generally available published work. I’m especially pleased because The Daily Book of Classical Music covers my true area of expertise, musical analysis, and although I love the fact that people enjoy my photography, I’m a musician and musicologist first and foremost. The other contributing authors of this book are an amazing bunch of music professionals, as well, so I’m very honoured to be listed as an author alongside them.

The book is available for pre-order from Amazon, and is scheduled for release on 1 October, just in time for holiday shopping. It’s a 365 sort of book, so it’s a perfect gift for whichever December holiday you’re into. Link

Yesterday I did something I haven’t done very often: dug out an old raw file for editing. I was playing around in ACR and just needed a file to work with, so I chose one at random. As it turns out, this is from a session I did last year at the Vanilla Lounge in Kaleiçi, and playing around with this picture reminded me of what great times I’ve had there, and that I really should pop in for a meal and a drink more often. If you’re ever in the old town and fancy some proper European food, I wouldn’t go anywhere else. Link

Saw these and thought of you guys.

Once again, only in Turkey. I think it’s kind of great, actually.

Unfortunately these were sent to me without any credit for the photographer— I suspect the photos were just floating around on the internet somewhere.

Recently I was introduced to the work of Turkish photographer Ara Güler. He was born in 1928, and his body of work is an astounding history of 20th century Turkey. Although he is known as “The eye of Istanbul,” he certainly did not limit himself to that label, and his photos of the rest of Turkey and indeed the rest of the world are nothing short of stunning. Link

This is one of thousands of reasons I love living here. Yet people still want to ask why. “Why Antalya?” Some people just don’t get this place, but my question to them is… what’s not to get? It seems obvious to me.

Turks love lunaparks, and so do I. There are no fewer than four lunaparks within walking distance of my house.

Abandoned lunaparks have such a great horror-movie quality to them. I could photograph them all day.

Turkish graffiti is quite different from the graffiti you see in other places. Generally speaking, it’s not quite as artistically-minded (though of course there are exceptions), and often it’s just some kid who has scrawled his name alongside his girlfriend’s name, in his own crappy handwriting.

But still, every once in a while you see something that catches your eye, even something simple like this, and wonder what the impetus behind it was.

Here’s one of the chief reasons to hate summer, right here. I would eradicate wasps from the face of the earth if I could. And this is one of the small ones— we also get the vespa orientalis. Let me tell you… they are numerous, and they are aggressive. The stuff of nightmares. They’re very weird about what they consider “their” territory, so sometimes even walking down the street can earn you an attack. Emirhan got stung by one a couple of years ago while he was sleeping. He was in pain for nearly a week.

Ugh, and don’t even get me started on palmetto bugs.

It’s the time of year to make the most of these interesting, cloudy sunsets, because within a couple of months they’ll be gone and replaced with searing heat, boring solid blue skies, and… more searing heat. It’s no secret that I don’t love summer. When finances allow, I plan on having a summer home in Australia so I can just cycle through spring-winter-autumn-winter every year. It will be heavenly.

But for now… it’s still quite chilly here, especially in the shade, and things won’t get really unbearable until the middle of June or so. So I’m happy at the moment, and I love sunsets like these.