Universal Currency

Smiles:  Internationally accepted and recognised the world over, regardless of language barriers and the availability of a working ATM or Western Union branch.  The value of a smile will not fluctuate at the mercy of global economic scares or due to changes in the price of a barrel of oil.  You don't need to stash a smile in your socks or even consider wearing one of those highly questionable money belts, in fact they weigh nothing and take up no space in your bag.  Smile and at the very least you will get a smile back in return, and probably a great deal of goodwill and kindness to boot.  A smile won't buy you material trappings beyond your immediate needs, but they are solid currency for a more worthwhile experience.  Always pack a smile.

• Top image:  Exchanging meticals for a bunch of bananas and a smile for a smile, Mozambique.
• Middle image:  When shooting portraits of people in traditional dress, particularly if you can't speak the language, I find that a smile will often be of great help.  Asakusa Temple, Tokyo.
• Bottom image:  Kids seem to have few opinions and preconceptions about other people and will usually react to a smile, a wave and a toot of the car horn with laughter and big friendly waves.  If I remember rightly these kids persuaded their Dad to do a lap of the block to come around for a second round.  Al Ashkharah, Oman.  Used previously to demonstrate the benefits of smiling in the Ten Tips To Take With You post.

  

Always Carry a Camera

Every now and then a scene just goes ahead and unfolds itself before your eyes as a reminder that it's well worth going to the trouble of hauling a camera around everywhere.

A knot of people in the distance that slowly spread out into this rainbow coloured procession of Bedu women, walking across the dunes fringing the Wahiba Sands to the edge of the Indian Ocean. Oman, 2010.

If you've hit a link in search of the Black Swan piece, scroll down some and enjoy.

Indian Ocean Faces

Old Tamil Lady, Ella, Sri Lanka.

Bhodisatva, South West Sri Lanka.

Village Elders, Nusa Lembongan, Indonesia.

Rickshaw taxi rider, Java, Indonesia.

My old boss Rod on a vineyard in the Margaret River area, South Western Australia.

My friends Dr. and Hotchy at Big Day Out music festival, Perth, Western Australia.

Little girl with an ice-pop, Tokyo-Sexwale township, Jeffreys Bay, South Africa.

Xosa family, Tokyo-Sexwale township, Jeffreys Bay, South Africa.

Young Bedu men, Al-Ashkara area, Oman.

Outside the coffee shop, Al-Ashkara, Oman.

Here's a grip full of portraits, old and new, from just a few of the places around the edges of the Indian Ocean.
Each of the Worlds Oceans are so great that there is a massive amount of diversity to be found around the edges, diversity of climates, cultures, religions, ethnicity, wealth and environment to name a few. Whilst I've splashed around in and traversed each of these Oceans, the Indian Ocean is that which I have probably spent the most time circumnavigating and exploring, and there're still a ton of places around the edge and islands in the middle that I'm desperate to check out, and a few that I still can't (Somalia, Yemen and Burma). There's still time yet though.

My thanks goes out to the people above for allowing me to take their picture, I fully squirm in front of the camera which is why I hide behind it so I appreciate it when people let me do this to them.

Al-Jazira Al-Arabiya

A few weeks back I fulfilled an ambition that's been eating away at me for the past four years or so: Go on a surf trip down the Arabian Peninsula, look for waves where people don't usually look for waves and have a bit of an adventure. Naturally I also took my camera.

Drift online surf magazine have been good enough to run the article that I produced as a result, so rather than me posting a ton of photos here, you can hit the jump and check it all out via them; words, images, the whole shebang...

Al-Jazeera Al-Arabiya

Big thanks to my friends Scott and Dan at Surfing Dubai, to Kim for relentlessly bombarding my inbox with photos of his own trips to the area and swell charts until I could bear it no longer, to Drift for once again deeming my output worthy of spreading and to you for taking the time to be interested. Cheers, I'm made up.