"Say Hello to Obama" - Los Angeles Travel Photographer

If going to Iceland is an adventure, visiting its highlands, which are mostly an uninhabitable volcanic desert, elevates the idea of adventures to a whole new level.  On this fall morning, we set off on the infamous gravel road F35.  

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When there could be any kind of weather all in one day, meeting such a group of men in bright orange could be comforting.  A short exchange of words with one of them even made me giddy.  It goes like this:
He: "Where are you from?"  
Me: "Los Angeles... Where are you from?"
He: "Iceland."  He then went on to say "I'm a sheep farmer."

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I knew almost nothing about people of this land and their life.  As I searched for words to respond, he then turned around and disappeared quickly with his horses in his last sentence: "Say hello to Obama!"

Finally waking up from the clip-clop of horses, I muttered into the cold air "oh, thanks, I will pass it onto him!"     

Seasons Greetings - Jean Huang Photography

Another year is fast behind us.  Physically, my Assistante and I have continued our journey of visiting new places, meeting new people and making friends with new horses, sheep, cows and birds, etc.  As if the Antarctic was not extreme enough for us last year, in 2016, we have gone to the other side of the earth.  In between the bi-polars, we have also crossed the equator and gone to the Amazons.  In a way, it seems that we have gone through the whole planet.  

Someone once asked us, "Where would you conquer next?"  My response was, "We wouldn't dare conquering any part of this world.  We wished to experience as much as we could and leave the places and their cultures as least disturbed as possible."  To us, it's the experiences that slowly change and/or transform us and the way that we look at this world that I wouldn't trade with anything.  

Spiritually, we continue to face and be challenged in the subject of life-and-death.  As we continue struggling with the question of what life is about, we strive to maximize the quality of experiences that we share with the ones that we are lucky to call family and friends.

We thank you for being along in our journey and for caring and laughing with us.  With the new year fast approaching, we wish you the joy of family, the gift of friends, and the best of everything in 2017!       

If you have not, please feel free to sign up with our VIP list.  In the coming year, we plan to share exclusive materials to the ones only on the list.

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Run, lundi, run... - Los Angeles Travel Photographer

Every spring and summer, Iceland becomes the breeding home for 60 percent of the world's Atlantic puffins.  Being there at the end of summer means that we were there at the tail-end of the season.  Despite an unsuccessful earlier attempt to meet the "clowns of the sea", we were lucky to have a gander at the highly anticipated lundi (the Iclandic name for puffins), even if it means missing dinner, because the colony is most active at evening, before heading out to sea to roost.  

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Despite its large population, Atlantic puffins have been listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in its Red List of Threatened Species.  Causes of population decline contributed by human activities may include the introduction of rats, cats, dogs and foxes onto some islands used for nesting, contamination by toxic residues, drowning in fishing nets, declining food supplies and climate change, etc.  

It's not an easy task to photograph puffins in flight as these little cylindrical bodies (average 13 inches long) propel into the air like torpedos with no prior warning, with their wings that are adapted for swimming fluttering up to 400 times per minute.  On a morning that only happens in dreams, I met this puffin appearing to soar high into the sky, higher than the mountains and the cloud.  I knew it was some puffin chick's parent, rushing to the ocean to catch fish of the day for its only baby of that year.  Dear puffin, may you be successful in raising more clowns of the sea, year after year.

Run, lundi, run...  

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