admirable aspirations

When asked recently, I described myself as an eclectic artist, writer and photographer who loves to cook, has a serious flair when it comes to interior design, and is newly passionate about international travel. Well before my trip to Egypt last fall, I had become enamored with two travel magazines. The first is the now no longer published quarterly Town & Country Travel issue; lush in color, texture and content, I drooled over the pages leisurely, imagining the aromas that would pleasantly assault my nose, fingering places I wished my feet to touch as I filed everything in the must go there body file. Thankfully, AFAR had already hit the newsstands and my radar when the last T&C Travel came home with me. Much different, AFAR's feel is hip, quick, makes me want to go immediately and travel like a nomad planting myself in as many places as I can. I absorb its pictures and articles usually in one slurp then go back to take little bites at a time. Both magazines encourage my desire to go beyond the shores of the USA, have envious photographs I admire. As I flip through old issues of Town & Country and new ones of AFAR, I am coaxed to pack my camera and continue my pursuit of photos that I hope others will admire and envy.

In the Sept/October issue of AFAR is an article on street art. JR, a self-described photograffeur is featured along with a full page containing a picture of a photograph he posted on a staircase in Rio de Janeiro. I had to look several times before I realized that the snapshot he took was actually adhered to steps not the side of a building; wow, something to aspire to was all I could say as I admired his art for so many reasons. His larger than life size photograph reminded me of my first enlarged to larger than poster size photo that I just sold. Seeing something I had taken blown up that big…wow, wow, wow!

Go somewhere and as you go…

keep your peepers open!®