Travels in India

My brother Greg is beginning week three of a four week solo holiday in India, and, reading his blog entries, it's been not just an exploration of another place, but (if you'll pardon the cliché) a voyage of self discovery as well. Not only does he have an admirable ability to quickly adapt and find his feet when landed in a strange environment, but he shows a hitherto little glimpsed but genuine talent for travel writing, becoming quite lyrical at times (and quite frank at others). You can follow his adventures on his blog here. Tomorrow he embarks on a two day camel trek through the desert of Eastern Rajakstan, with one night spent sleeping under the stars. Romantic or what? The pic on the left, incidentally, is from "Light of India," a (sadly now out of print) postcard book of matchbox art published by Chronicle Books a few years ago. Greg's fast expanding photo collection of his trip will be worthy of a book in itself, though...

Rebekka Guoleifsdottir

"Three o'clock one Icelandic morning, Rebekka Guoleifsdottir couldn't sleep. There was a picture in her mind's eye, and only one way to realise it. So she picked up her camera, drove out of her home town and stood in a lake for an hour, water lapping at her knees. She took picture after picture after picture until she got the right shot." Read the rest of David Smith's Guardian Online story to find out how a young Icelandic woman with little camera experience and a superb eye posted a few photos onto Flickr one day . . . and then woke up to find herself a sensation. Her work, as you can see on the left here (this is her shot of a waterfall near the town of Borgarnes in Iceland), is stunning.