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I have been fascinated by geography since childhood, and used to spend a lot of time dreaming about far off places and exotic people. But, I grew up during the Vietnam War Era and needed to stay alive and employed. The government wasn't granting many deferments to geography enthusiasts in those days so I decided to take a more conventional approach to life. I graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and then went on to Stanford University School of Medicine. I chose Ophthalmology as a specialty and have had a busy surgical practice ever since.
However, I always retained a strong interest in people and places. Fortunately, the practice of medicine afforded me the time and resources to pursue these other interests. My wife and I were able to take a long around-the-world trip immediately after my internship and then another one following residency. Since then, we have been venturing out to see the world as often as possible. We have always traveled privately and independently.
Photography started for me as it does for most travelers. I took usual traveler's snapshots. I would look at them and then file them away. However, my skills improved over the years. I began to understand that I wanted to do more than take snapshots, and that it was people and their environment that I found to be the most challenging and rewarding subjects. As we traveled in the 80's and 90's, it became apparent that some places were more pleasant and interesting to visit than others. I began noticed a direct correlation between my enjoyment of a place and the number of other western travelers around. There seemed to be a particularly strong association between tour groups and "difficulties". I could only deduce that the presence of large groups of travelers was having a negative effect on the behavior of the people that they were trying to visit.
Take Bali. In the 1970's and early 1980's, the Island of Bali (away from the main tourist ghettos) was a pleasure to visit - exotic, friendly, and inexpensive. By the mid-1990's, the island appeared to be populated exclusively by aggressive salesmen and touts. Cairo's old souk was authentic and fascinating in 1975. Today's Khan el Khalili (as Cairo's main souk is called), has been entirely given over to tourist shops. In contrast, the old souk in Sana'a, Yemen, three hours by air to the south, presents a completely different picture - a fascinating and authentic melange of exotic people who seem friendly and interested in the few western visitors with whom they come into contact.
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| SANA'A | SANA'A | BALI | CAIRO |
We continued to travel, and tried our best to seek out places that were still reasonably authentic. This is not to say that we would completely avoid more popular "tourist" venues. Rajasthan, for example, is probably the most colorful place in the world and is always good fun. But it takes hard work to locate anything really authentic. During a recent visit to the Pushkar Camel Fair, we found that we were unable to take two steps without being approached by a vendor or tout . In Bundi, just a few miles down the road, we found the people to be completely reasonable. We traveled on to Kutch, a desert area in far western Gujarat State. Here we were able to visit a collection of very colorful people who have had limited exposure to western travelers. Needless to say, the experience was of very high quality.
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Amritsar, a good distance north of Kutch in Punjab State, came as a complete surprise. The friendly Sikhs were as interested in us as we were in them. We were asked on several occasions to pose with Sikh Pilgrims for photos. And the Golden Temple can easily compete with the Taj Mahal in terms of beauty and is in another world in terms of ambience.
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| AMRITSAR | AMRITSAR | AMRITSAR | AMRITSAR |
Since the mid-1990's, we have traveled to out of the way places such as Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Yemen and Bangladesh. Friends and associates began to express interest in my photography and I realized that I was accumulating quite a large and unique portfolio. A couple of years ago, I decided to publish this website in order to share some of these images with a wider audience. I have also started to exhibit the work at occasional art fairs. At these events, the wildlife photos are always the best sellers. But my personal favorites are those "slices of life" images which would probably go better in a book, than in a frame above the sofa.
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| BURMA | CALCUTTA | KATHMANDU | ETHIOPIA |
Yet, people seem to be fascinated and entertained by these images, so I continue to publish them, print them up and display them. I have to admit that I'm actually more interested in sharing the photos than in selling them. My current goal is to continue to seek out unusual places and to obtain candid photographs of authentic people in as unobtrusive a manner as possible. I have recently started to combine digital art with my photography and you will notice that some of the images have been altered (I'd like to think, improved) with Adobe PhotoShop.
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I have to admit that many of our travel destinations would never make the Conde Nast Top 10 - it's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it. Only a die-hard would travel to the Omo Valley in Southern Ethiopia - 24 hours by car from Addis Ababa down some of the worst roads in the world. And Bangladesh ... "Why are you going to Bangladesh, Dr. Sheridan - isn't it dangerous?".... "I'm going to Bangladesh because, not far from Dhaka, I can visit a village whose inhabitants have never seen a western face - no begging for pens, no posing for photos". As for the danger - I'm sure it's out there. But, most of these places sound a lot more dangerous in the State Department Warnings than they seem to be on the ground. Life is a risk.
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| RURAL BANGLADESH | RURAL BANGLADESH | OMO VALLEY | NORTHERN NAMIBIA |
In the past few years, we have traveled to places such as :
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| BAC HA - VIETNAM | KASHGAR - CHINA | LA DIGUE - SEYCHELLES | ZUMBAHUA - ECUADOR |
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| ORISSA - INDIA | MRAUK U - BURMA | SANA'A - YEMEN | CAJAMARCA - PERU |
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| PALMYRA - SYRIA | OMO VALLEY - ETHIOPIA | MADHYA PRADESH - INDIA | TODOS SANTOS - GUATEMALA |
I am in the process of writing a book in which I will draw on more than 20 years of experience to try to explain how to achieve unique, authentic and meaningful travel experiences without risking life and limb, suffering intolerable discomfort, or spending a small fortune. In the mean time - I hope you enjoy the website
