Antoine Themistocleous

South of Laos there are a series of about 4,000 islands depending on the monsoon season, just north of Cambodia along the Mekong River. As I was passing along in my travels, hoping to see freshwater dolphins, I met some of the most interesting, wonderfully welcoming people. I stayed at a place called the Mama’s and Papa’s, and soon enough I was kind of adopted by this family. I would go fishing with Papa, help Mama in the kitchen, they would trust me to watch little baby Egg (that’s was his name) as they went to work in the fields, and even the Grandma would ceremonially invite me to toke a rolled one in the evening. In a place where there was no electricity, anybody hardly spoke any English, I had such a great connection with these compassionate people who work hard for every single thing they have. I learned from these people who plan their day around the great daily event of the sunset, and what an electrifying sunset it was. I did catch a glimpse of the small pink dolphin, but I will never forget the experience I had there, and I will be forever honored and grateful to be welcomed to their world. If you are ever in the island of Don Det, go stay at the Mama’s and Papa’s.

Magdeburg

I was visiting my friend Anika in her hometown of Magdeburg, Germany. It was my first time in East Germany, and even though I was there for such a short amount of time I couldn’t help but feel some nostalgia of a time of history that ended within my lifetime. I can’t imagine what life was like there during the Cold War, but I enjoyed being pointed out the physical differences of the times. I really enjoyed Magdeburg, but Anika , with the thirst of traveling and seeing the world, kept complaining about how boring and un-photogenic the city was. I took these for her, trying to prove there isn’t such a place. Always remember to appreciate the world around you.

The Gibbon Experience

I found some old photos, I want to share, of an amazing experience I had in 2006 in the Bokeo province in northern Laos. The Gibbon Experience is a conservation project, which allows visitors access to the rainforest at canopy level. With an ingenious system of zip-lines and tree houses visitors scour the landscape in search of a once thought extinct species, the Black Gibbon, which were only re-discovered in the area in 1997. I never saw any, but I did hear a tiger in the middle of the night. The Gibbon Experience works closely with the local people in Bokeo Nature Reserve, to transform their economy from one based on slash-and-burn farming, logging and poaching, to one based on long term, conservation focused activity. I slept five nights in a tree house over 50 meters high spending the days flying on zip-lines, up to 200 meters long, well above the jungle. Truly amazing!

CARNAVAL

I was hired to be the event photographer for a celebration of Brazilian culture in Long Beach, CA. The event was a huge success. Great food, kids running around participating with their parents, great music, and of course fantastic samba dancing. These beautiful ladies were by far the highlights of the festival wearing fabulous detailed costumes, and shaking what their mothers gave them so well. The whole family participated in some cases. Some people I know objected in how revealing some of the costumes were, but I think they are just not used to the Brazilian ways. I think they showed a great "joy de vivre", celebrating beauty and music. Days like these makes it really hard to not love my job.

Chepito

My Grandparents

My Grandfather, Jose Drigelio Ruiz Bojaca, we called him Chepito, died. He was 98 years old. These are some photos of him with my Grandmother, Maria Aurora de Ruiz Espitia Casas, whom I naturally call Abuelita, and her sister, Luz Linda Espitia Casas, whom I dearly call mi Grand Tia Luz. I was blessed to be one of the last of my immediate family members to see them in Bogota, Colombia a couple of months before he died. My family has always been a big part of who I am, and I wanted to share a little bit of me with you.

Northern Cemetery

I was spending some time in Egypt for a wedding, when I found out about this section in Cairo, the Northern Cemetery, which is not only a resting place for Cairo’s dead and buried, but for the living too. The vast mausoleum complexes they built were more than just tombs, they were also meant as places for entertaining. This is a part of Egyptian tradition that has its roots in Pharaonic times when people would picnic among the graves. Even the humblest of family tombs were designed to include a room where visitors could stay overnight. The dead hoped they would be remembered; the city’s homeless saw their tombs as free accommodation. This was happening as far back as the 14^th century, leading to the situation today where the living and dead coexist comfortably side by side. In some tomb-houses, cenotaphs serve as tables and washing is strung between headstones.

I was intrigued when I learned all this, and decided to go and possibly make a story out of it. To my disappointment, I was met with a great deal of resentment. People did not want to have their photo taken, and twice I was asked to leave the area by the police telling me I wasn’t allowed to take pictures in this neighborhood.

On my third visit, I was lucky to be welcomed by the Abdil Rehnel family and see how they lived. My first surprise was how many people live in such a small living space. They told me that over 20 family members live together. The youngest was a seven-year-old boy and the oldest was a lady who was so old that she didn’t even know how old she was, she just stop counting a long time ago. Their best guess was that she was in her nineties.

This very warm family has been living at that tomb for the past seventy years. Unfortunately I only got to spend two hours with them before some started getting paranoid they would get in trouble by the police for allowing me to take their picture. I left Egypt the next day.

Temples of Angkor

This photo essay is not about the temples of Angkor, but more about the people who live and work around these amazing temples, which were built between the 9^th and 14^th centuries when the Khmer civilization ruled a large portion of South East Asia. Sad to say nothing can be further from the truth now a days, as it’s one of the poorest and most deprived countries in the world recovering from its horrible recent history. I bought a three-day pass to visit the more popular temples, which are clustered about 6 kilometers from Siem Reap, Cambodia. Although these temples are truly magnificent, I am always more captivated by people. Especially the people who are ignored in the shadows of these grand structures, such as the people who protect them, watch over them and keep them clean, the people who sill uses them as places of worship or are there to enhance the experience (or take advantage) of the tourist. In three days I tried to capture the essence of this living space where even nature has a firm grip of claim, other than only treating it as a museum and photographing beautiful ancient sculptures.

Jayavaram VII, who had Angkor Wat built, the most famous of the Angkor temples, spoke of his intentions in erecting temples as being, “full of deep sympathy for the good of the world, so as to bestow on men the ambrosia of remedies to win them immortality….By virtue of these good works would that I might rescue all those who are struggling in the ocean of existence.”

MACHU PICCHU

IT IS A MYSTICAL PLACE, A MONUMENT TO DIVINITY, WHERE PEOPLE CAN FEEL THAT THEY ARE A CREATION OF GOD. THE HIGH SENSE OF SPIRITUALITY THAT INHABITS THIS PLACE SEEMS TO TRANSPORT ITS VISITORS TO A PLACE WHERE EVERYTHING "IN AN UNIMAGINABLE WAY" IS POSSIBLE. IT IS A PLACE WHERE STRANGE FORCES OF NATURE ALLOW THE INDIVIDUALS TO REACH AN INCOMPARABLE COSMIC STATE, A STATE THAT CAN ONLY BE EXPERIMENTED IN MACHU PICCHU. IT IS ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES OF THE WORLD, AND THEREFORE, THE MOST VISITED ATTRACTION IN PERU. EVEN TODAY NOBODY HAS BEEN ABLE TO SOLVE THE MYSTERY HOW THE BUILDERS AND DESIGNERS MANAGED TO TRANSPORT THE HUGE BLOCKS OF LIMESTONE TO THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN REQUIRED FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE CITY. THE LAMAS ARE THE GUARDIANS OF THIS CITY, THEY KNOW ALL OF ITS SECRETS, BUT THEY WILL NEVER REVEAL THEM, THEY SAY IT'S FOR OUR OWN GOOD.