It was April 20, 2011. A Wednesday. I was sitting in the Milligan College dining hall in beautiful springtime Tennessee and, while munching salad, scrolled through headlines on my laptop. Clicking one that said “Photojournalists killed in Libya”, I read the first paragraph, which made my food lose its taste. By the time I reached […]
Mysterious Graffiti, and Death as a Lens through which We See
One side-effect of the George W. Bush presidency was that the walls of bathroom stalls in backpacker hangouts in cities such as Bangkok and San Jose were overflowing with handwritten opinions and jokes. The political graffiti his eight years in office produced was immense. The one-liners and paragraphs were seldom insightful, but never did I […]
Secrets in the City (Bogota, Colombia)
Stretched out at an elevation of 8,600 feet and home to more than seven million people, Colombia’s capital Bogotá is best seen in its entirety from Monserrate, a 10,300-foot peak located on the city’s east side. I use the word “entirety” loosely however, because I’m not sure we see anything — including Bogotá from a […]
10 Photos: Thailand’s Famous (and Infamous) Full Moon Party
If you’ve ever backpacked in Southeast Asia or have undertaken casual research into the global party scene, you’re familiar with Thailand’s Full Moon Party. Whenever that lunar ball is all lit up in the heavens, alcohol and travelers wash ashore on Ko Phangan, an island in the Gulf of Thailand. My first experience at the […]