Off Duty5 entries · 30 photographs

OFF
DUTY

Life outside the terminal.

Places I've ended up, things I've tried, and the photographs that came home with me.

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Lake Atitlán, flat and blue, with two volcanoes on the far shore under a clear sky — Guatemala · Jan 17, 2022Guatemala

The Pantheon's columned portico lit at night, reflected in the wet stones of an almost empty piazza — Italy · Sep 19, 2023Italy, end of September

A cenote seen from the rim: a wooden platform over clear turquoise water at the bottom of a limestone cavern, with swimmers below — Quintana Roo, Mexico · Dec 26, 2021A week in Quintana Roo

Ryan sitting on the stone edge at the top of a Tikal temple at sunrise, the jungle canopy stretching to the horizon behind him — Guatemala · Jan 17, 2022Guatemala

The Treasury at Petra, a columned facade carved into rose-coloured rock, seen from the narrow canyon with visitors small at its base — Petra, Jordan · Dec 25, 2019Petra

Some Of My Favorite Places

Italy · 2023
Guatemala · 2022
Quintana Roo, Mexico · 2021
Petra, Jordan · 2019

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The journal

A carved lion's head above an arch on the green, white, and rose marble facade of Florence cathedral

Italy

Italy, end of September

13 photographs

A stone temple at Tikal with a tall roof comb, seen from the grass plaza in front of it — Guatemala · 2022
From the plaza, looking up.

A wide mural of a kneeling figure and a large hand holding a green glass bottle, painted in bright colours — Quintana Roo, Mexico · 2021
A mural on the first day.

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A bronze tree with its roots exposed, set into a round stone opening in a wall, against a blue sky — Italy · 2023
A bronze tree, roots and all, growing out of a stone ring.

Breakfast on a wooden table under a thatched terrace, with Lake Atitlán and two volcanoes in the background — Guatemala · 2022
Breakfast on the terrace. The view did not change all week and nobody minded.

A wooden post covered in colourful arrows pointing to cities around the world, against a blue sky with clouds — Quintana Roo, Mexico · 2021
Every direction at once.

A winged marble figure on top of a stone plinth, photographed from below against a clear sky — Italy · 2023
Looking up in Rome. Most of the city's best sculpture is above eye level.

A colourful mural of a woman in traditional dress with a headdress of corn, painted on a wall beside a doorway — Guatemala · 2022
A mural near the lake, corn for a crown.

A green street sign reading Live Your Own Experiences on a pole beside a dusty road, with a motorbike and a person nearby — Quintana Roo, Mexico · 2021
A sign on a side road on the last day of the year: "Live your own experiences." It reads like a fridge magnet at first. After a week of cenotes and back roads it reads like instructions.

Field notes · Italy

Italy, end of September

Florence, then Rome, then a day in Pompeii: a week of looking up at bronze and marble, and down at walls painted nineteen centuries ago.

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Field notes · Guatemala

Guatemala

Tikal at sunrise, Lake Atitlán from a terrace, Antigua's arch, and a volcano that erupts on schedule while you watch from the next mountain over.

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A church ceiling painted with figures and clouds, framed by gilded architecture, photographed straight up — Italy · 2023
Straight up, in a church whose name I did not write down.

The yellow Santa Catalina Arch over a cobbled street in Antigua, with a volcano visible through it — Guatemala · 2022
Antigua's arch, with the volcano lining up behind it the way it does on every postcard.

A painted frieze on a Pompeii wall: figures on a red ground with a blue band above, weathered but clear — Italy · 2023
Pompeii: a painted frieze, red and blue, still on the wall after nineteen centuries.

Volcán de Fuego erupting at night, a plume of lava lit orange against a dark blue sky, with the lights of towns spread across the valley below — Guatemala · 2022
Fuego from the ridge of Acatenango, sometime after nine. It erupts every fifteen or twenty minutes; you see the glow first and hear it a few seconds later, and every single time everyone on the ridge goes quiet.

Lake Atitlán at dusk, the water reflecting a volcano and an orange and grey sky

Guatemala · Jan 17, 2022Guatemala

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