Fortress of Solitude

Being here has been lonely but I've somehow marked my time with lots of walks through the town, eating twice a day with Morgan, talking to Ross via Gchat, taking some photos, and making some friends through Couch Surfing. The other day I hiked up to the fortress and got a good view of the town. The bottom picture is of the entrance to the court house, which was shown to me by a CS friend, Mats.

All of this brings me to a comment my friend Luba left here the other day:

In the “Way of the Traveler” Joseph Dispenza has written: "A friend told me ... (that) when she feels the call to journey, she consciously moves from one spot to another. That is all! She stands in one place in one room of her house and mentally calls that "home". Then she walks slowly and carefully into another room - to a spot that she has designated "the destination". ...the act of moving from one place to another - from "home" to "destination" - is a microscopic rendering of the entire journey. It changes your perspective on the world in a fundamental way: things look different from one place to another, and also along the way to and from places. Doing this activity with mindfulness is tantamount to taking the trip, at least in symbolic terms."

It would be really interesting for me to read your reflections on how being able to travel to all these far-away places has affected your work over the years. What inspirations, insights you have gotten from being able to work on your projects away from home, how interacting with another cultures has influenced you/your body of work – on a deeper level (beyond subject matter, beyond sight seeing and all other pleasantries that traveling gifts us with/any of us). I guess, what I am asking is what are you capable of doing, seeing, perceiving now (living/working, albeit for a short while, far away from home) and after traveling to so many diverse places as opposed to staying at home and working. How it has changed for you – if it has – as a photographer and as a person?

So Luba, I hope this answers your question-

As someone who has traveled internationally since I was seven, travel has always been something of a norm for me. And I suspect it is the same for many others who grew up bi or multicultural. My first big trip came when I was fourteen to Guatemala. In H.S. when we were sixteen, my friend Kai and me ventured down to Jamaica on our own.

In a way I've always been comfortable with packing up and going somewhere new, as we moved every year or so when I was a teenager, within Queens. And Queens being the most diverse place in the world has had a firm role in making me feel innately comfortable with diversity. I am very comfortable listening to languages I don't speak because it's that way on the 7 train, every day. I grew up with Salvadoreans, Thais, Peruvians, Colombians, Mexicans, Italians, Indians, Guyanese and didn't even know it (esp. in elementary school). I just accepted all these interesting names my classmates had as normal.

Travel has further helped me understand more about other cultures, isn't that always the case? My work is made mostly abroad because it is the time I have set aside for producing work. And it (Moving Forward, Standing Still) is mostly about looking, observing differences, moments that catch my fascination. I try to absorb and interpret what I see, and that is what I end up presenting to you, my audience.