Myanmar Travel Photography – 2 . 5 weeks // 4 friends // lots of photos

Personal work is such an important thing as a photographer (or any other creative profession for the matter) as it allows you to experiment and ‘create’ solely for you yourself. No expectation or brief, just do whatever you want. I make time for this at least a few times a year as it helps me grow as a photographer and keeps me bubbling with excitement every time I pick up my camera.

When I was asked by my good friend – and exceptional photographer – Kristian Leven, if I’d like to travel around Myanmar with him and a couple of our other photographer friends for 2.5 weeks in the ‘off season’ I had to jump at the chance. Myself, Kristian, Ross Harvey (legend and photographer extraordinaire) and Sachin Khona (an incredibly creative brother-from-another-mother) set off mid February on the trip of a lifetime.

I’m not going to babble on forever about just how incredible this trip was – just rest assure it exceeded all of my expectations and if you get the chance to travel to Myanmar – DO IT. The Burmese people are the nicest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. Not once did we feel out of our depths or unsafe. In a country that has had so many terrible atrocities inflicted upon it, you might expect the people to be a little un-welcoming but it was the complete opposite. We walked around with smiles on our faces all day and were always greeted with a smile back – even when we were asking to take peoples photos :)

I had so many fantastic experiences in the 2.5 weeks I was away – climbing aboard a rice boat whilst the guys were working around me, spending the morning with Kristian in a Buddhist monastery with the monks, soaking in the incredible sunsets, walking around the beautiful pagodas at dawn and boarding an oil rig just because I could (the camera really is a ticket to anywhere). These are just a fraction of the many things we did!

Anyway, as you can imagine I took loooooads of photos. I’ve culled it down to some of my favourites and I’m sharing those below. I’d love to know what you think so please leave a comment or drop me a message. If you’ve got any questions about anything then please don’t hesitate to ask :)

As I’ve already been asked about the equipment I took, heres the answer: Canon 5D3 with 35L (which I used for 85% of the photos below) and an Olympus OMD EM5 with the 17mm and 45mm.

This is where it all began, at the Hninn Si Budget Inn…