Terra Galleria Photography

Archive for the ‘Locations’ Category

Cedar Grove Rims, Kings Canyon NP

Last year, I spent some time in Cedar Grove, Kings Canyon National Park, trying to find out whether it was another Yosemite Valley. In the previous post, I reported about my explorations of the Cedar Grove valley floor. In this post, I am describing some of my findings on the Cedar Grove rims from a […]

A day in Acadia National Park

On the occasion of a return to Lexington, I walked the Freedom Trail and the Black Heritage Trail in Boston, before taking again a trip to Acadia National Park – for a third consecutive year. As I set up my camera bag on a slope on the shores of Jordan Pond, it toppled, a lens […]

The park, Ho Chi Minh City

As seen in the two previous posts, there are plenty of sights and views in Saigon – more “interesting” than “spectacular” – however what interests me the most in that city is simply to observe and capture simple moments of life. In many places, I’ve been threatened verbally for taking photographs of people. In my […]

Views from the top, Ho Chi Minh City

I am always drawn to high viewpoints, because they provide an entirely new perspective. The immediacy and chaos of the street immersion gives way to a more detached experience where greater urban patterns emerge. Just one decade ago, there were not too many high viewpoints available in Ho Chi Minh City, but since then a […]

Cholon Temples, Ho Chi Minh City

The temples and pagodas of Ho Chi Minh city provide an oasis of calm and tradition in a sprawling metropolis with mostly nondescript architecture. In general, they are be quite dispersed, and best explored by motorbike-taxi. The exception is in Cholon, the Chinese district of the city. There, more than a dozen temples can found […]

Monsoon traffic, Ho Chi Minh City

My previous trips to Vietnam have been during the dry winter season. Although the bulk of the monsoon season is in summer, during my last stay in November, there were a few days when in the late afternoon the sky would all of the sudden become ominously dark. This was a sure sign it was […]

Yosemite Unseen V: Mount Hoffman

Mount Hoffman (10,845 feet, 3,305 meters) is right in the center of Yosemite. For a (relatively) easy to access viewpoint which gives you spectacular bird-eye’s views of the Yosemite backcountry in all directions, it is hard to top this hike. If you do only one high-country summit hike in Yosemite, I would suggest this one. […]

Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam

Last December, I visited Phu Quoc Island for a few days. Located in the Gulf of Thailand, south of the mainland Vietnam, the island is the largest in Vietnam, measuring 31 mi (50 km) long and 16 mi (25 km) wide. It is famous through Vietnam for its fishing industry, and in particular fish sauce, […]

Cedar Grove, Kings Canyon National Park – the other Yosemite ?

Kings Canyon National park was conceived by as a “wilderness park”, mostly free from development. There are only two sections accessible by car within the park, one around Grant Grove, the other in Cedar Grove. Both those sections are small: many visitors do not notice that shortly after Grant Grove, they exit the park, entering […]

Catching a glimpse of the Na Pali Coast, Kauai

The Na Pali Coast, on the North Shore of Kauai has some of the most spectacular coastal scenery anywhere, with the the grandest fluted coastal cliffs in all the Hawaiian Islands. Because of its steepness the Na Pali Coast is entirely roadless. Besides boat and helicopter, the only way to see the Na Pali Coast […]