Lee Starnes is a food and product photographer based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
travel
From Lucerne, I made my way down through northern Italy and ended up in Florence for a few days with a couple little excursions out into the Tuscan countryside. Upon entering the city, it’s pretty clear why it such a popular destination- the city is a stunner. Renaissance art, incredible architecture, some of the best food on the planet and a damn good coffee game. What’s not to like?
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From Zurich, I met up with my parents and headed down to the picturesque little city of Lucerne. Sitting on a the eponymous lake, Lucerne exudes that Swiss quaintness we all hear of. Old world charm in a nutshell. Medieval roads, towering old churches, you know, the works. Coupled with a trip down to a couple of Alpine towns, needless to say, charm was oozing. Epic mountain landscapes mixed with picture perfect little towns…what’s not to like? Specifically, Grindelwald is crazy beautiful. I bet snowboarding there would be ridiculous. Break out the apple wine and schnitzel, I’m here for it.
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I booked a flight to Zurich to meet up with family and did absolutely zero research on really anything. I pretty much outlined the last meet up with the family and this time they had taken care of most of the planning, so I figured I’d let the places just kind reveal themselves to me. My first time to Switzerland, I had only the stereotypes and I was sure there was more to it than visions of cowbells, Alpine chalets and expensive watches. That said, I didn’t expect to find some grittiness in the cities. I should have known there will always be areas where the misfits, the strange, and fringes go. Leave it to me to stumble into these areas without realising it. I booked my hotel based on a decent proximity to the train station and it ended up right on the edge of the red light district. Needless to say it’s a bit of a departure from the quaintness of the old part of the city. Aimlessly wandering, I popped into a Tattoo shop to check it out and ended up hanging out with a few of those guys on the street just watching the endless stream of amusement on Langstrasse. Interestingly, even though it was filled with all kinds of sketchiness, I never felt unsafe. The American in me experienced a bit of cognitive dissonance in that places like this in the States necessitate your head on a swivel for sketchballs and people trying to jack you. This didn’t feel like that. It’s this juxtaposition that I love seeing anywhere I travel to…The swirling mixture of modernity and tradition, clean and grit, new and old. It’s where all the interesting stuff lives.
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It’s hard to really convey into words about how special some places in the world are. That said, if there was a list, Alor is currently sitting at the top. These images have been waiting to get published for around a month. During that time, I’ve been staring at the screen trying to figure out how to say how incredible this place is and I don’t think it’s possible to really convey with words, my photos, or even the mix of the two. These images are from the small time I spent above water in between diving and seeing all the incredible creatures of the ocean. Time seems to stand still. I know I’ve spoken about how time seems to slow down in some places, but somehow in Alor it feels like the world just stops and you’re in that place you’re supposed to be. At least it is for me. I can’t get enough of it.
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Maybe I’ve not been selective enough with my cull of images, but I couldn’t get enough of shooting the streets of Osaka. And this is a blog, not my portfolio, so I’m a bit looser in my picks for better or for worse. Not every image needs to be the show stopper…..Which kind of leads me to a point on how I shoot these days. Often times in travel photography, it’s waiting for that ONE moment. And don’t get me wrong, I do that quite a bit, but the little times in between are just as meaningful in my travel experiences. Showing ONLY the iconic shots is kind of doing the whole experience a disservice. I’ve talked about finding beauty in the mundane and slowing down and how I’ve kind starting shooting differently now with this smaller set up in the Fuji system, so I wanted the images to reflect a more documentary feel. This is personal work and I want to show my experiences for what they were, not just the best shots from the most well known locations… It’s more than that. In any event, here’s part 2 of the Osaka series.
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popped up to Hanoi recently for a short couple of days and while in between obligations, I tested out my new toy - the Fuji x100v. If you’ve read any of my other blog posts, you’d have read that I’d been using the x100s on a few trips to see if I could mentally cope with the FOMO of not taking my Sony kit. It’s been fun, but wow, I realise now that I was merely dipping my toes into the world of shooting with Fuji system. The x100v is the x100s turned up to 11. Completely different in such a good way. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Sony kit, and will use it whenever its work related, but when I’m traveling for leisure, the x100v is going to be, without a doubt, my camera of choice.
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Over the Lunar New Year holiday, know as Tet ‘round here, it’s always a time to get off the grid, recharge the batteries and get ready for the upcoming months. Having planned this months ago, my calendar had plenty of x’s counting down the days to some island life and some underwater adventures. No underwater photos here, but plenty of that island vibe to go around. Though it rained a few days, I still love capturing those moments, too. It’s not all postcards and travel brochures.
Read MoreAs previously mentioned, I got a bit enthusiastic with my penchant for hitting the shutter and ended up with a mountain of images to go through. Normally, I try to cull down the numbers to have one of these posts, but it didn’t work out that way this time around. I generally don’t like mixing black and white images with colour images when I post, so here’s my take on Sri Lanka in black and white.
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