“Dawn is the time when nothing breathes, the hour of silence. Everything is transfixed, only the light moves.” - Leonora Carrington

The magical city of Luang Prabang, Laos, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is one of those cities that you plan on spending a couple of days in and end up spending a week (like I did). Located in north central Laos, where the Nam Khan River meets the Mekong River, what makes this place so enchanting is the French Indochinese architecture, the picturesque Theravada Buddhist temples and the numerous saffron-robed monks walking around town.

Every morning at 5:30 am the streets of Luang Prabang are flooded with saffron-clad monks who perform a Buddhist tradition called Tak Bat or morning alms. The monks leave their monastery and walk in a single file, oldest first, carrying their alms bowls. Locals and tourists kneel along the sidewalks offering food, namely the local Lao sticky rice. All this is done in complete silence.

I captured this novice monk running to catch up with the rest of his fellow monks. I used a slow shutter speed and panning motion to make this photograph.

Check back for more of my adventures in Laos!

Happy Travels!

Text and photo copyright by ©Sam Antonio Photography

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I’m Sam Antonio and I approve this photograph.

Hello Flickr friends! After an extended absence I’m back!

Life happens.

I have been busy with the business side of photography licensing my images, uploading to my stock photography sites, traveling and doing some commercial shoots.

I also was training for a major day hike called the Cactus to the Clouds, which is considered one of the hardest hikes in North America. It is a hike from the desert of Palm Springs to the top of Mount San Jacinto. That is an elevation gain of 10,400 feet and hiking distance of over 20 miles (all this in one day). To give you some perspective the elevation gain to climb Mount Everest from base camp to the summit is about 11,560 feet. It is an epic hike and it was an epic fail for our journey (the 100+ degree weather of Palm Springs did not help either). We did not make the summit, but we are attempting another summit bid later this month.

What does that all have to do with this photograph?

Well really nothing, but save for the fact that I love Sukhothai Historical Park, the old capitol city of Thailand.

The ancient Thai capital of Sukhothai (translated means “dawn of happiness”) was the first capital of Siam founded by King Ramkhamhaeng during the 13th Century. The province's temples and monuments have been restored and is now the Sukhothai Historical Park and has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The 13th century ruins of Wat Mahathat (translated means “temple of the great relic”) is perhaps the most popular and photogenic of all the temples in Sukhothai.

I would love to return there one day…that is if I survive my Cactus to the Clouds hike later this month!

Happy Travels!

One more photo in the comment section.

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According to a recent Flickr poll, yours truly was voted the top travel photographer of 2012. How did I achieve such excellence? Perhaps it was due to my creativity, my intuitive vision or maybe because I shoot with cool Canon gear.

Or it could be that I travel to places most people have never heard of.

Take for example Angkor Wat. Located in the exotic country of Cambodia, I played Indiana Jones for a day as my local Cambodian guide and I trudged through the steamy jungle for over three hours to find this magnificent Khmer temple.

So there we were in complete solitude admiring this magnificent structure. I put my Canon gear through the paces as I quickly realized I was one of the few photographers in the world to captured this amazing place. It was time of spiritual joy, aesthetic pleasure, and deep contemplation.

I was in photography nirvana.

That was the Angkor Wat of my travel dreams.

This is the Angkor Wat of travel reality.

I photographed Angkor Wat at sunrise over a period of two days and both were a bust. This was taken on my second attempt and it was just a tad better than the first which isn’t saying much. I was there in May which happens to be the hottest part of the year. It was hot, brutally hot. The weather was terrible and the light was flat. With no decent clouds in the sky, I didn’t get the trophy shot of Angkor Wat at sunrise with the stunning morning light reflected off the clouds and a perfect reflection in the pond.

Instead I shared my early mornings with throngs of tourists all aiming to get the same photograph that a million photographers have captured before. Through it all I endured sharps elbows to my lower back as people jockeyed for position, sand flies in my face, the brutal heat with a slap of humidity and the constant harassment from the vendors demanding I have breakfast at their “five-star” outdoor dining establishment.

So this was my view of Angkor Wat...tourists wandering around in the frame, an ugly scaffolding that begged to be torn down and pathetic clouds with a hint of some morning light coming from behind the temple.

Thanks to Apple Aperture I was able to bring back to life the beauty and splendor of the heart and soul of the Khmer Empire - Angkor Wat Temple.

P.S. I really was awarded Flickr’s top travel photographer of 2012. The polling just happened to be skewed in my favor. I was the only one polled and I voted early and often! Hmm? Sounds like the 2012 American presidential election?!

Happy Travels!

Text and photo copyright by ©Sam Antonio Photography

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In some respects 2012 has not ended, it is still alive and well because of the all the photographic memories I accumulated from last year.

As some of you may know, I spent the better part of last year on a photographic journey through Southeast Asia. My wanderlust took me to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. It was a visual feast of monks clothed in saffron robes, the brights lights of the Singapore skyline, the golden spires of Buddhist temples, the stunning temples of Angkor Wat and the many colorful markets.

One of the reasons Southeast Asia attracts so many photographers are the many colorful minority ethnic markets such as the Bac Ha Sunday Market, located in Northeastern Vietnam.

Every Sunday, Bac Ha hosts the largest and most colorful market in the area and attracts villagers from the surrounding hill tribes such as the Flower H'mong, Phu La, Dzao, Tay and Nung minorities where they gather to buy and sell local products.

I spent two nights in Bac Ha to get a predawn start before the throngs of bus tour groups from Sapa showed up. I photographed this elderly woman from the Flower H’mong hill tribe in a candid moment.

After six months in Southeast Asia I accumulated over 700 gigabytes of RAW photos, enough to keep me busy for all of 2013. Back to processing those images!

Happy Travels!

Text and photo copyright by ©Sam Antonio Photography

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I finally made Flickr Explore with my last post!

I have reached the zenith of my Flickr career and with that folks I am official retiring from Flickr and putting up my Canon 5D Mark II for sale on eBay.

Okay, I am not going that far.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out from Flickr members that I had made Explore from their comments in my last post. After doing some research I found out that this was my third time I made Explore. I have always wondered what it took to make the coveted Explore page, in the end I think it comes down dumb luck. In reality, I could careless about Explore since it is the community of Flickr members that make my day. I appreciate all your faves and wonderful comments and for that reason I have stuck with Flickr, even though some photographers whom I highly respect, have left since the new design launch.

For all the three people and my mother who have been following my Southeast Asia journey from last year, allow me to give you an update. I spent six months traveling through that part of the world landing in Singapore then continuing through Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and then back to Thailand.

I have now concluded posting photos from my Laos portion of the trip and I continue with my journey as we enter the country of Vietnam. I realized that that I only posted about seven photos from Laos. Over the course of a month that I was in the country I took thousands of photos, but the majority of the photos were from my Apple iPhone 4s. Laos is such a laid back country, that most of the time I was there I put away my Canon 5D Mark II for “serious photography” and just took fun snapshots with my iPhone. It was hard to motivate myself to take photos with my heavy DSLR as I spent the majority of the day laying down in a hammock drinking Beerlao. Yes, life can be so hard!

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When you mention the name Vietnam, images of jungles, pho noodles and the Vietnam War as portrayed in Francis Ford Coppola’s classic movie “Apocalypse Now,” and Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket” come to mind. So what does two Vietnamese women walking through sand dunes have to do with Vietnam?

This is the Red Sand Dunes in Mui Ne, Vietnam. Mui Ne is a beautiful beach resort that looks nothing like the rest of Vietnam. Inundated with backpackers, boutique resorts and tons of Russian tourists (where’s John Rambo when you need him), this is where you go if you don’t want a slice of the real Vietnam. I came here for some welcome relief from the madness otherwise known as Saigon otherwise known as Ho Chi Minh City. Besides the beach, Mui Ne is famous for windsurfing and their white and red sand dunes.

Walking through the dunes was a surreal experience. It reminded me of a mini Death Valley National Park and at other times I had my “Lawrence of Arabia” moments.

After walking through the dunes for an hour or so in the hot sun I wasn’t feeling the inspiration for a great shot. So I walked back to the cafe across the street where I parked my motorbike to get a cold beer. I met this young woman and an older woman in the cafe who were models for a photo shoot earlier in the day. I asked them to be my models and in return I would send them copies of my photographs. They agreed and we headed back out to the dunes.

The sun was setting quickly so I had only about ten minutes to photograph them. Under the time constraints and changing lens in between shots (not a good idea with so much blowing sand around you), I took a number of shots of which of which a handful were keepers.

Check back for more of my adventures in Vietnam!

Happy Travels!

Text and photo copyright by ©Sam Antonio Photography

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