There are many wonderful technological benefits to being a photographer in the Twenty-first Century, but none greater than the ability to easily connect and communicate with clients, both existing and potential, all around the world.  Developing these relationships, however, still requires personal effort, a little luck and some human kindness.

Last year I was contacted by the Photo Editor at Condé Nast Traveller (Russia) and we ended up working together to illustrate a Cambodia story, 'АнГкор, еще анГкор!' (translated as 'Angkor, More Angkor') for the February 2012 issue of her magazine.  Following this collaboration, and despite having never met in person or even spoken on the phone, we have developed a long-distance, electronic friendship.

So when she reached out again recently -- this time seeking photography for an upcoming CNT (Russia) feature about Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam -- I was only too happy to oblige.

I used to live in Saigon in the late 1990s and have returned to Vietnam's commercial capital numerous times over the past dozen years to witness and document the hyper-frenetic, ever-changing city.  I, therefore, have a deep reservoir of imagery from Vietnam to draw upon.

The result of my most recent collaboration with Condé Nast Traveller (Russia) is the feature 'НА СУП ФО к дядюшке Хо' (roughly translated as 'Go To Uncle Ho for Pho') which appears across a dozen pages in the November 2012 issue.

Recalling from our previous work together that I had a large library of stock imagery from Cambodia -- and in the spirit of both friendship and partnership -- my CNT (Russia) contact kindly introduced me to the Photo Editor at GQ (Russia) whom she knew to be searching for photographs to illustrate a story about Cambodia's capital city, Phnom Penh, for her magazine.

'БУДДА-БАР' (meaning 'Buddha Bar'), featuring a handful of my Phnom Penh photographs, appeared in the October 2012 edition of GQ (Russia).

Neither of these connections would ever have been made without modern technology.  But I am also acutely aware that neither of these relationships would ever have flourished without both a personal touch and a kind gesture.  And isn't that what partnership is all about?

See more of my work with Condé Nast's international magazines, VOGUE (China) and Condé Nast Traveller (India).

I learned about the Arles Photography Open Salon from my friend and fellow Nikon Singapore Professional Photographer, Stefen Chow, after his 'Poverty Line' series was selected as the winner of the 2011 Salon.

Stefen explained that the Salon, exhibited at the beautiful 17th century Galerie Huit mansion in Arles, had been a fantastic opportunity for him to showcase his photography alongside the renowned Les Rencontres d’Arles festival for three months last summer.  Stefen further encouraged me to submit some of my work this year.

The theme for this year's Photography Open Salon is ‘An Eye for an Ear‘, and the gallery invited photographic submissions having any interpretation of this.  I took Stefen's advice, and presented a small series from my 'Red Light' collection for the Salon's consideration.

As Gerrie Lim, author of the sex industry exposés, Invisible Trade and In Lust We Trust, explains, “In supposedly staid Singapore, few things remain more paradoxical than the fact that prostitution is actually legal.  Brothels operate in certain districts under government regulation, and the most famous of these is Geylang -- a quiet residential neighbourhood transformed after sundown, its small streets lined with working cathouses plying their trade, a cavalcade of Chinese, Cambodian, Laotian, Thai, Malaysian, Filipino and Vietnamese girls all clearly on offer.”

I have long been intrigued by the ironic existence of this sanctioned red-light district in the heart of Singapore, a nation renowned for its conservative views on sex and pornography.  It is this fascination that drew me to Geylang’s shadowed, narrow lorongs (lanes), darkened shophouses and “short-time” hotels to document Singapore’s seedy side -- an underbelly that everyone knows about, but no one ever mentions.

With this personal interpretation of ‘An Eye for an Ear‘, I am very proud to share that four of my photographs were selected for exhibition; 'Standby', 'Compact', 'Capsized' and 'Exhale' are now displayed alongside 107 photographers from 34 countries at the Galerie Huit in Arles.

See photographs of the 2012 installation at Gallerie Huit here.

This past March/April, Mike Rogers, Meghan Shea and I spent more than a week documenting our friend, Sam McGoun, as he swam, cycled and ran more than 670km across Cambodia to raise awareness of, and help to fight against, human trafficking.

Inspired by the challenges overcome by the students of Sala Bai Hotel & Restaurant School, Sam’s route across the Kingdom of Wonder followed the actual journey traveled by a former student named Khatna: from her floating village in Mechrey on Tonle Sap Lake, to Sala Bai where she studied in Siem Reap, to her graduation celebration on the sandy beachfront overlooking the Gulf of Thailand in Sihanoukville.

As the documentary photograph- and film-making team tasked with chronicling Sam’s odyssey, we did our best to keep pace with him as he dove into snake-filled lakes, crossed muddy rivers, ran through small villages and pedaled across the countryside of rural Cambodia on his way to raising more than USD$30,000 for Sala Bai.

We also tried to take the time to briefly turn the cameras on ourselves as we shared in Sam's epic journey, sleeping in active Buddhist monasteries, exploring abandoned 7th century pre-Ankorian temples and stumbling upon

beautiful, cinematic scenes of village women plunging fully-clothed to the bottom of a muddy river to catch trey phtok, a local freshwater fish.

Set to the recently released song "Anderson" by Wishes and Thieves, the result is a short two-and-a-half-minute video that Mike and I created to go behind-the-scenes and offer a brief glimpse into our personal experiences photographing and filming Sam's adventure.

Interested in more?  Click here to follow Sam's cross-Cambodia journey through our "Report from the Road" daily journal.  Or visit my website to see more of my lifestyle and travel photography portfolio.

I am often asked what I believe is my best photograph. Without hesitation, I always answer that it is my image of the Bhutanese novice monks joyously careening down a hill at their Thimphu monastic school.  I love the spontaneity, emotion and movement captured in this single frame: a true moment frozen in time, and my favourite picture I've ever taken.

What was originally created nearly four years ago -- as a promotional still image for Persistent Productions' documentary film, Shooting For Democracy -- has become the most popular and commercially successful photo reportage I've ever made.

This image has been printed in the pages of the iconic National Geographic Magazine (USA), as part of a feature profile in National Geographic Magazine (China), and on the cover of GEOspecial Magazine (Germany).  It also appears on Adobe’s Photoshop.com website and was one of three photos from my "Thunder Dragon" collection that was selected by Luerzer’s Archive when I was honoured as one of the “200 Best Advertising Photographers Worldwide” a couple of years ago.

This month, my favourite young monks grace the cover of British Airways' inflight magazine High Life for a cover story on the enigmatic Kingdom of Bhutan.

Visiting Bhutan had long been a dream of mine.  And when that dream finally came true, exploring and documenting the ruggedly beautiful country exceeded even my highest hopes.  Truly, my time spent in Bhutan was the most amazing travel and photography experience of my entire life.  And I find it exciting and rewarding that imagery I created during that remarkable experience also -- and still -- resonates with others.

A fun post script to this photograph: one of the very next frames I snapped after this image was of friend and filmmaker, Mike Rogers, surrounded by the gaggle of young monks who had just run down the hill, as they raptly watched themselves come to life on the screen of Mike's video camera.  This picture actually appeared in The New York Times.  Indeed, the photography gods were smiling down upon us that afternoon.

Chinese opera is deeply ingrained in the Chinese culture, with roots back as far as the Third Century.  The large waves of Chinese immigrants who settled in Singapore over the past 150 years have transported this traditional form of musical dramatic theatre with them, performing it on makeshift bamboo and wooden stages in car parks and open fields across Singapore's heartlands, most notably during Chinese New Year and Hungry Ghost festival celebrations.

According to the Singapore Tourism Board, "[most] story plots in traditional Chinese opera performances are based on famous Chinese classics and myths.  Reflecting Chinese culture and philosophy, almost all opera performances highlight virtues such as loyalty, love and patriotism.  Other than a form of entertainment, Chinese opera also plays an active role in dispensing important messages, especially those concerning patriotic values."

I have always been drawn to the vibrant costumes and colourful face painting of the Chinese opera performers, and have often wished for an opportunity to photograph this fading traditional art.  However, the opportunity had never presented itself, until recently when I was speaking

with a fellow photographer and he invited me to join him for a performance by the Xin Xin Rong He Teochew street opera troupe (新新荣和潮剧) in the neighbourhood of Ghim Moh, not far from my home.

I arrived early and approached the small, rickety stage with my camera, uncertain how I would be received by the performers.  But almost immediately, I was invited up the short wooden ladder and backstage as the performers hurriedly dressed in their costumes and applied their make-up for the upcoming performance.

Backstage buzzed with energy as performers and crew raced back and forth through the cramped dressing room -- lit only by glowing, naked lightbulbs dangling from wires -- as drums pounded and cymbals crashed on the small stage just beyond the thin, transparent sheet that separated fantasy from reality.  It was an amazing evening, and I am grateful for the warmth and openness of the performers for welcoming me backstage with my camera.

These photographs are a small collection of the work I created when I spent that evening with the Xin Xin Rong He troupe; more of this series can be found on my website.

Regular readers might recall a post I wrote a couple of months ago following the time I spent on assignment with the Elephant Flying Squad at Lubuk Kembang Bunga Village on the outskirts of Sumatra's Tesso Nilo National Park.  The feature I was there photographing is the cover story of the May edition of Silkwinds, SilkAir's inflight magazine, in airline seat back pockets now.

Excerpted from editor Rod Mackenzie's Silkwinds article "Sumatra's High Flyers": Deep inside the Indonesian rainforest of central Sumatra lives the Tesso Nilo Elephant Flying Squad.  This group of seven domesticated elephants and their 11 specially trained mahouts are operated "by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in collaboration with Indonesia’s Ministry of Forestry... [The squad's] mission is to provide a secure haven for Riau Province’s largest remaining wild elephant population... Elephant numbers have declined in Riau Province from more than 1,600 in 1985 to as few as 350 today, about 150 of which live in Tesso Nilo National Park..."

According to the WWF, "Because the region around Tesso Nilo is being logged so rapidly and the forest converted into agricultural plantations, elephants with no place to go are forced to wander in search of food, making farms and commercial plantations an irresistible temptation for elephant-sized appetites."

As Rod continues in his Silkwinds feature, "By patrolling the fringes of the national park, [the squad] helps prevent wild elephants invading farms and villages, where they can cause immense damage and also run the risk of being killed or injured" by carefully driving them back into the jungle.  The Elephant Flying Squad is in "constant battle to bring harmony to the local environment" by mitigating human-elephant conflict.  And, "so far, they appear to be winning."

The Silkwinds article contains only a handful of photographs I made during this amazing experience with the Elephant Flying Squad.  To see a much broader collection of my pictures from the time I spent patrolling the jungles of Sumatra with this supersize security patrol, please visit my website.

Photographing weddings is not something that I will typically agree to do.  Indeed, I've shot a handful of weddings over the years, but every time I finished, I promised myself it would be the last time (this doesn't really count).  However, when The New York Times calls, photographing a wedding is something that I will agree to do.  Funny that.

This was the case a few weeks ago, when the photo editor of The New York Times' Style section contacted me about shooting the nuptials of Lauren Widel and Henry Rohlich for the Vows column of the newspaper.  The photo editor wanted "reportage-style images of the wedding and reception" which was taking place here in Singapore; nothing posed or contrived.  Did I want the assignment? Yes.

What makes this love story and wedding special, I learned, is that Lauren suffers from epilepsy.  As writer Francesca Segre explains in last Sunday's New York Times article, "if [Lauren] stopped taking her medications, she’d likely have a seizure within days.  [And] about once a month, Ms. Widel, who had her first seizure at age 3, experiences severe auras brought on by fear that she’ll have a seizure. She hasn’t had a seizure in three years, but her fear of suffering one is akin to an intense panic attack.  'You have nervousness in your stomach,' she said.  'You lose your spatial ability, your left and your right.'  To get through

these episodes, she sits still with her legs crossed in a lotus position or holds her knees to her chest in a fetal position and waits, sometimes for hours.  She also calms down by 'singing' along to songs in American Sign Language.  Being around her, Mr. Rohlich said, involves a lot of highs and lows.  'It’s hard to be with her because I want to help so bad, but there’s nothing I can do,' he said.  But rather than run away, he ran toward her."

So, on April 7, Francesca and I attended Lauren and Henry's wedding ceremony here in Singapore.  "Ms. Widel, wearing a sparkling red and gold Indian wedding sari, walked into the plain waiting room of the...Registry of Marriages with her fiancé and her parents.  Ms. Widel kept adjusting her sari, which, she joked, 'weighed about 100 pounds.'  Mr. Rohlich, now accustomed to Singaporean administrative efficiency, keyed in his passport number at the self-serve kiosk and their wedding appointment was confirmed.  When the bell indicated it was their turn to wed, the couple, trailed by her parents, walked into a smaller room where an assistant registrar of marriages, Ang Toon Moh, sat behind a desk with a computer.  In his clipped Singaporean English accent, Mr. Ang then led them through their legally prescribed vows.  Afterward he said to the couple, 'Now you know what to do.'

"They kissed, and Sunanda Widel, the bride’s mother, cheered, 'Yes!'”

As mentioned in a previous post, in January I was commissioned by SilkAir's inflight magazine Silkwinds to create a series of behind-the-scenes reportage at Resorts World Sentosa's (RWS) Voyage de la Vie theatrical circus in Singapore.

Accompanied by writer Lisa-Ann Lee, my assistant and I spent a few hours backstage with the actors, dancers, acrobats, singers, stylists, directors, technicians and stage managers in the show's custom-built theatre at RWS.  It was a fascinating glimpse into the last-minute rehearsals and frantic preparations that take place before the curtain goes up every night.

As Lisa writes, Voyage de la Vie "is just one example of how Singapore’s first ever theatrical circus is pushing the entertainment envelope.  Almost three years in the making, Voyage de la Vie has performed in front of more than 200,000 people since it premiered in July last year... The show is charting new boundaries by weaving theatre, dance, music, acrobatic feats and magic together" to tell a unique coming-of-age story.

Here are a few of my favourite images from backstage that evening; see more of my photography from backstage in the March/April 2010 Silkwinds magazine.  And visit here to browse more of my photo reportage.

Last Thursday night, I attended the premier of filmmaker Grant Knisely's documentary The Chain Reaction Project at The Arts House in Singapore.

In August 2009 Grant and I traveled to Timor-Leste with the women of The Chain Reaction Project (TCRP) as they competed in the inaugural Tour de Timor, a five day, 450km adventure mountain bike race across nine of Timor's 13 districts.  Coined "The Ride For Peace", the mountain bike race presented the ladies with a grueling challenge on their way to raising USD$35,000 for HIAM-Health, a clinic dedicated to the rehabilitation of malnourished children in the capital city of Dili.

Grant's uses Timor-Leste's historical suffering as a backdrop for his film -- a result of a brutal 1975 Indonesian military invasion and a subsequent 24-year occupation that left over 100,000 Timorese dead -- while documenting the athletic achievements and selfless philanthropic work of the women of TCRP as well as the passion and dedication of the employees of HIAM-Health to help make a better life for the people of Timor-Leste.

As with many small, independent films, funding is often difficult to come by.  But The Chain Reaction Project was a labour of love for Grant and his small Code Red Films

production company, and he persevered in raising the human interest and the monetary capital necessary to complete his movie.

The end result is a short film that Grant should be very proud of.  Indeed, I am proud to have my photographs featured throughout his documentary, as well as gracing the film's DVD cases and movie posters that were on display Thursday night at The Arts House.

Click here to see a slideshow of my Tour de Timor photography.  More of my imagery of the ruggedly beautiful nation of Timor-Leste and her people can be found here and here.

I spent a week over New Year's in Chiang Mai, Thailand, a city of 160,000 residents about 700km north of the nation's capital, Bangkok.  Chiang Mai is a laid back city full of colourful temples, quaint cafés, fantastic restaurants, used bookshops and roadside markets.  It was my third visit to Chiang Mai in the past seven or eight years, and I enjoyed it tremendously.

Having visited Chiang Mai before, I didn't feel compelled to lug my heavy 35mm DSLR camera and lenses everywhere I went, opting just to carry my iPhone in my pocket instead. One of the highlights of the visit was meeting a family from The Hague, Netherlands who were staying at our hotel.  Their two sons, Maarten and Sebastian, accompanied us to the Thapae Boxing Stadium for an evening of Thailand's very own Singha beer and Muay Thai.

I spent a good part of the evening wandering the stadium and shooting the action with the Hipstamatic app for my iPhone; this is a collection of some of my favourite photography from the night. Perhaps I should call this my "ChiangMaiPhoneography" series.

See more of my iPhoneography elsewhere on my blog or on Flickr.

Today Magnum Photos posted the following message on their Twitter feed: "From now till 200k followers we want to see your photos. Tweet us a link, each day we'll RT a few selections. Use hashtag #magnum200k".

In the 60+ years since it's inception, Magnum Photos has grown into one of the most renowned cooperatives of photojournalists in the world.  According to founding member Henri Cartier-Bresson, "Magnum is a community of thought, a shared human quality, a curiosity about what is going on in the world, a respect for what is going on and a desire to transcribe it visually."

Magnum's tweet got me thinking: if I had the opportunity to share only a single photograph from the past year with anyone -- particularly a community of Magnum's reknown -- which photograph would I choose?

I scoured my archives of photographs I made in 2010 and shortlisted a handful of images that I felt might resonate with Magnum and their audience.  Then I carefully considered each photograph based on it's originality, relevance and technical merit.

This is my selection.

I made this photograph in Dili, Timor-Leste in June of this year.  During Timor's dry season, the riverbed on the outskirts of Dili is quarried for stone and gravel to be used in the many construction projects in and around the capital city.

It is quite a sight to behold: dozens upon dozens of men shoveling and sifting and throwing dirt and rock from sunrise to sunset.

From where I took this picture, high on the bridge above the riverbed, the scene unfolding below reminded me of armies of ants tirelessly toiling away on their ant hills.

Truth be told, going through the photographs I created over the past 12 months was a great exercise for me today (irrespective of the Magnum challenge).  Being critical of one's own imagery is among the most difficult aspects of being a photographer, and forcing yourself to look closely at your own body of work is an excellent way to improve your craft.

What is your best photograph of 2010?

**UPDATE** Excitingly, yesterday Magnum Photos retweeted this post as part of their #magnum200k Twitter initiative.  If you are here via @magnumphotos, thank you very much for visiting.

These streets leave you with the ghosts of memory.  Hang a right from Sims Avenue, a left on Paya Lebar Road, and there you are: Geylang Road in Singapore, a messy urban sprawl with old shophouses flanking both sides.  But, as everyone knows, the real action isn’t out here in the great wide open but on the side streets, those little lorongs (lanes) with the “short-time” hotels, where nubile nymphs from Thailand can be appraised aquarium-style from Plexiglas windows in licensed cathouses, and women from mainland China ply their trade more brazenly on the bare sidewalks.  They can do the selling because someone’s always doing the buying.  The men who buy their time usually don’t speak any Thai or Chinese at all, but here in Geylang there is a language that transcends our earthly bounds and actually enables some to escape the surly bonds of human misery, at least for the customer. If you have a wallet fat enough to engage her attention, you both have everything you need to fulfill some mutually acceptable level of satisfaction.  And it is this strange dance of desire that ultimately offers the single unifying strand that ties up all the loose ends.  There is pathos to poverty that can make a girl choose the gilded cage, because the alternatives are too horrible to fathom.  The fulfillment of fantasy is the name of the game, yet at what price is this exacted? - Gerrie Lim

A few years ago, my friend and acclaimed Singaporean author Gerrie Lim and I spent a series of late nights and early mornings exploring Geylang, a Singapore neighbourhood best known for being the city state's red-light district.

Together Gerrie and I were researching and shooting a feature for August Man magazine.  The article, "Geylang Confidential", was published in the February 2008 issue of August Man and images I made were also the subject of a photographic exhibition, "The Forgotten Hours", that showed in Singapore that same month.

Recently I learned of Invisible Photographer Asia, "a collective of photographers in Asia united by their common passion for street photography and visual journalism".  I contacted them, introducing myself and my work, and they expressed an interest in publishing some of my Geylang photography on their website.

I happily agreed, and the result is "Red Light" a photo essay featuring a small collection of imagery that I made in Geylang, on the streets and in the brothels with the girls, their pimps and their clients...

See more photography from this series on my website.

I am extremely excited to be profiled in the 'Portfolio' section of this month's National Geographic Magazine (China).

The editor and photo editor at NGM (China) in Beijing and I went back and forth over the course of a few months on this feature -- selecting the portfolio of photographs, conducting the interview via email and then getting it translated from English into Mandarin for publication -- and they have done a wonderful job.

As expected, NGM (China) had some great questions for me, ranging from my thoughts on making engaging portrait photography and my use of backlight as a creative device to the story ideas that most interest me in China, how I view “travel photography" vs. "cultural photography" and my thoughts on photojournalism vs. fine art photography.

My amazing friend Sarah Gulston, who is fluent in Mandarin, translated this entire article back into English for me (so I knew what was written, how it was edited and what was cut from the original interview conducted in English).  Sarah's translation stretched to more than seven pages of single-spaced A4; far more than can fit here. And far more than anyone, except perhaps my mother, would care to read.  So here are a few highlights...

For you, what makes a good portrait?

"A few years ago, I received an invaluable piece of advice from a photo editor at the international edition of National Geographic Magazine in Washington, D.C.  At the time, she told me that my portraiture was too confrontational and posed -- that it needed to be more observational and candid.  I took this constructive criticism on-board, began adopting it into my photographic style and will always carry it with me.

"For me, what makes a portrait truly memorable is an intangible factor: the ability to create an intimacy between my subject and me. Ironically, this often means giving the subject permission to ignore me, to act naturally and go about his business without worrying about where my camera is.  When my subject forgets that my lens is pointed at him, he is free to be himself, and then the most natural and engaging portraits are made.

"I like think of myself a visual storyteller, and people feature prominently across much of my work.  But in many of my portraits you will notice that my subject is not even looking at my lens.  Learning from that NGM photo editor, the key for me has been shooting the moment that happens between the moments; capturing my subjects’ subtle expressions, throwaway glances, and real laughter.

"This is when a subject’s true personality shines through, and these are the instances that I seek when photographing beautiful, natural portraiture."

It is evident from looking at your portfolio that you like shooting into the sun and using backlight as a photographic technique.  Can you talk about this?

"Shooting into the sun, and using backlight as a visual effect, is a compositional and lighting technique that I have been experimenting with for the past couple of years.  It goes against one of the most fundamental “rules” of photography -- to always have the sun behind/beside the photographer -- but I love the softness of the subject created by the sun's flare.  It's this ethereal, nostalgic effect that moves me to keep practicing and working with this photographic style.

"Although I pride myself on making many different types of photography, I also recognize that I need to take my individual style and consistently sharpen and improve it, establishing a unique photographic voice for myself.  This is one of my ongoing goals, as my eye is always maturing and my inspirations are ever changing.  Creating a portfolio of images that uses backlight as a creative device is an attempt to develop a simple, yet memorable, personal photographic signature for myself."

What do you think the differences are between 'travel photographers' and 'cultural photographers'?

"By their very nature, both travel photographers and cultural photographers share much in common.  Both need an innate curiosity about others. They both must demonstrate deference for foreign cultures.  They both must be sensitive to the interconnectedness of the world, and how their presence and actions impact the foreign culture they are documenting.  And they both require the intellect and willingness to challenge their own cultural assumptions and stereotypes about what’s 'normal'.

"However, a cultural photographer is first and foremost a visual storyteller, able to weave together a series of still images into a captivating narrative.  To do this effectively, he must be able to demonstrate other, more advanced, cross-cultural acumen that a travel photographer won’t necessarily always possess.

"First and foremost, I feel that a cultural photographer should have an awareness of, and experience documenting, his own culture.  Many travel photographers rarely take their cameras out while in their own environs, never showing an intellectual curiosity for their own culture or a willingness to explore it deeply photographically or otherwise.  To me, one doesn’t need

to travel abroad to create cultural photography; there are fascinating stories and engaging characters everywhere, even in a photographer’s own backyard.  And until one truly understands and respects his own culture, I feel it will be difficult for him to understand and respect someone else’s.

"A cultural photographer should be more interested in the 'why' than he is with the 'what' when capturing a scene.  He should have a deeper understanding of the cultural significance of a place or person or event, and the corresponding historical, social and emotional importance attached to it.  This will doubtless help him make deeper and more meaningful imagery."

The full article is printed in the December 2010 edition published in China this month.  It is truly honour to be associated with anything National Geographic produces, and I am humbled to have my photography and my words published in the pages of the Chinese edition of their magazine.

Running my own photography business has taught me so much.  I have learned about entrepreneurship.  I have learned that passion is a strong motivator, as is the fear of failure.  I have learned how to open myself up to people and to take chances on ideas.  And I have learned about the power of partnership and creative collaboration.

Three years ago I had a chance encounter with documentary filmmaker Mike Rogers.  During that first meeting we talked about our respective businesses and experiences, and we quickly learned that we shared a lot in common, both creatively and philosophically.  We became fast friends, and shortly thereafter Mike invited me to accompany him on a documentary film shoot to Bhutan.

For as long as I can remember, I’d fantasized about visiting the remote and enigmatic Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan.  It was certain to be a dream photographic adventure for me.  There was a catch though: it was a small, independent documentary production with only minimal funding, so there would be no money to pay me; if I wanted to go to Bhutan, I’d have to agree to work for free.

I decided to just go for it, clear my calendar and join Mike on what I imagined would be the shoot of a lifetime.

Accompanied by our small Bhutanese crew, my role was to shoot still photography to appear in, and advertise, the film, as well as provide a visual record of the creation of the documentary for Mike's production company.

Exploring and shooting Bhutan was indeed my dream assignment come true, and the result was the most amazing travel and photography experience of my life.

Ironically, the photography I made in Bhutan “for free” has also been the most commercially successful collection of imagery I have ever created.

Photography from the Bhutan shoot has appeared in National Geographic Magazine, The New York Times and Adobe’s Photoshop.com website.  In 2009 I was awarded an honourable mention for "Excellence in Feature Photography" by the Society of Publishers in Asia for my Bhutan imagery published by Reader’s Digest (Asia).  And earlier this year the prestigious Luerzer’s Archive selected me as one of the “200 Best Advertising Photographers Worldwide” (2010/11) for the photography I made in Bhutan to promote Mike’s documentary film.

This month, some of my Bhutan photography will also

appear in the "Himalayan" issue of Germany's GEOspecial, a bi-monthly monothematic travel magazine in Germany.

My image of the joyous novice monks careening down the hill at their monastic school will feature on the cover of the December 2010 / January 2011 GEOspecial, as well as across a double-page spread inside, while one of my Tiger's Nest photographs will run across another (nearly) double-page spread.

Mike’s film, Shooting For Democracy: The Emerging Lens Initiative, was completed earlier this year and has been screened at a number of independent film festivals across the United States.

It’s amazing to imagine where I would be if I’d not met Mike or taken the chance on our friendship or the offer of adventure in Bhutan.

My father has a great expression: You never know if you never go.

Well, I went.  And I am so glad I did.

In late September I spent a week shooting a commission in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, Vietnam for the UK edition of American Express' Centurion Magazine.

Although I've recently written a handful of posts about this trip, as well as uploaded a series of images I made during this assignment, the Winter 2010 edition of Centurion Magazine UK is published this week, and I wanted to share the completed feature "A Tale of Two Cities" written by Anthony Dennis and photographed by me.

As Anthony writes in the article, "Hanoi and Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City, as it's officially though not popularly called) are members of the unofficial club of the world's great rival metropolises.

"Hanoi, the capital in the north, is a city of tree-fringed lakes, wide boulevardsand petite, Paris-style parks tucked away in neighbourhoods full of faded, mustard-coloured French-style mansions and elegant Belle Epoque public buildings which have somehow survived Vietnam’s turbulent times.

"While not without some Gallic flavour, Saigon...more reflects the American era, with an aggressive capitalist spirit still less evident in Hanoi.  Paradoxically, it’s the

nation’s turbulent history...that renders Vietnam such an alluring destination, particularly as seen through the prism of its two principal cities."

Although I am pretty certain which of the cities is my favourite, as Anthony notes, "experiencing Hanoi and Saigon, and deciding upon which one you favour, remains one of the joys of a trip to Vietnam.  It is a country, after all, where, when it comes to cities, it takes two to tango."

Visit my website to see a larger collection of photographs I made while in Vietnam, including imagery that doesn't appear in the Centurion Magazine feature.