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Category Archives: Travel Photography and Writing

Stories and photographs from Jonathan Kingston’s travels around the world.

Musicians of the Thar Desert

Photographing a story on the Pushkar camel fair is something I had wanted to do since hearing about it shortly after arriving in India to teach photography in 2002.  In the fall of 2008, the right opportunity presented itself and I found myself under the Rajasthan desert sun surrounded by thousands of nomads.  What I [...]

Mahalaxmi Dhobi Ghat – Mumbai, India

In the fall of 2008, I made a trip to India to visit former students and get my creative juices flowing.  After 20 hours of travel, crossing multiple time zones and very little sleep, I touched down to the mayhem of Mumbai at one in the morning and let Paul Liebhardt talk me into foregoing [...]

Decompression day

There is nothing is quite as delicious as a day off after working 12 hour days for more than a week.  This evening, Dewitt and I headed down to the west end of the island where he has been photographing a beautiful series of wave images.  As we set up on the beach, we discussed [...]

Jonathan Kingston Collaborates on book about Pushkar Camel Fair

This project goes to show that spontaneous creativity happening collectively can be a powerful force.

Molokai, Hawaii Photography Workshop – Day 5 to 7

FISH IN THE FILTER The massive cumulonimbus clouds ripe with rain were well over a month away from rolling atop the blue hills of the Western Ghat mountain range in Tamil Nadu and enveloping the region in the mist of monsoon.  My pet project for the dry season at the photographic college where I was [...]

Coming Through the Atmosphere

My week of helping teach the photography workshop at the Hui Ho’olana on Molokai with fellow instructors, Rikki Cooke, Dewitt Jones and Theresa Airey has drawn to a close and I can feel the gravity of the mainland pulling me back into its orbit. Leaving the slow pace of life on Molokai to return to [...]

Jonathan Kingston in Geo Saison

  Note: This is cross posted from the Aurora News blog here.   January 8th, 2009 Aurora photographer Jonathan Kingston captured this image of a golden Buddha statue at the Wat Arun Temple in Bangkok, which appears in the January 2009 issue of Geo Saison,while on a 100-day assignment for a semester-at-sea program.  Traveling around the [...]

Naye sāl kī hārdik śubhkāmnayeṅ!

Or as this nomad likes to to say, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  

The Ram Ram Remix

While working on the original Ram Ram Man post, I began messing around with my audio in Apple’s brilliant Garage Band and came up with this remix by adding a few samples and loops to the morning chanting. Having played Violin for most of my life as well as plinking around with a number of [...]

The Ram Ram Man

“It’s four am in the morning! Time to get up!” The annoying little man says in Hindi into the PA system that seems to be mounted above my head. I fantasize about finding the loudspeaker and doing my worst to its wiring system with my Leatherman. My mosquito net hangs dangerously close to my exposed [...]

Suzy

I struggled not to gag from the exhaust fumes in the gridlock of Ajmer.  Night was falling rapidly and the main street of the town in the heart of the Thar desert seemed like a narrow canyon leading to Hades filled with honking vehicles, smoke and dust.  I motioned to my rickshaw driver that I [...]

Mumbai to Jaipur

Even though I have never visited Jaipur before, it is the India I remember…  the wild merry go round of life. Full of friendly touts, and mad streets, blaring horns and sensory overload.  The India that makes one realize that India is not for everyone.  I have many more thoughts to verbalize from the day, but my eyes are [...]

The Greening of India

Four years ago, the smog in Mumbai was so bad that walking around burned my eyes and wiping my face with a white handkerchief harvested a black crop of ash and dust after a couple of passes across my brow. According to my former student, now professional advertising photographer Amogh Thakur, two years ago the city [...]

Gateway of India

Pushing through jetlag, waking up with the sun.  Mumbai is still mostly asleep.  India seems tamer, kinder, and gentler than I remember.  Children run through the pigeons at the gateway of India as the sun rises.  The city slowly comes to life around me…

Moving, waiting

Photography warning – all photos taken with my cell phone. India bound. The moving and waiting game begins.

India bound

This morning, I got to visit with some old friends. The friends were images I had created in high school and are some of the first “good” pictures I made in my life. Printing them off for another old friend this morning reminded me of why I love photography — for the simple pure thought [...]

Regulus and Leo

The moon is radiant and clear bathing the ground in her pale light.  Under a cloudless sky, the trade wind blows through the Koa forest and only the brightest stars are visible.  Regulus and Leo take my vision, their light captivates me.  Light that started its journey before I was born to reach this earth.  [...]

Hawaii bound

There is rain on the window of this giant jet plane as we push back and roar into the sky. My eyes close in sleep before the plane reaches cruising altitude.