Tags

,

Barong Mask

As tacky as they can be, catching one of the cultural dance performance in Bali is worth your time. If you spend your time partying instead, the shops in Kuta are filled with the more unusual dance masks. Add a bit of wind and they’ll put on their own performance for you.

Adding the ‘related posts’ links to my blog recently forced me to go through some of my older, original posts. Among those were the first batch of Bonus Shot postings, short little snippets of text added to highlight a photograph that I liked. I originally used that category to add a favorite shot that didn’t fit into a lengthier posts, or for a photograph that I liked too much to use it for nothing more than a visual graphic elsewhere. More recently I’ve been using it for a post with a half dozen or so pictures, additional shots of some place I visited which I already covered in a main post.

That works, and I’ll probably still use the Bonus Shot category for that purpose. But those original posts reminded me of the large number of shots I have, pictures I’m quite fond of, that will never fit into a post. Not unless I get so desperate as to start running posts about tropical flowers, for example. Still, I do have a lot of odd-ball photographs I’d enjoy sharing here so I’m going to start running shorter, photographic posts under that category again.

I take a lot of pictures when I travel. I enjoy the photographic opportunity as much as I do visiting new locales. That can be problematic when I’m with someone else; I can spend several hours at a wat, for example, immersed in lining up shots. Whomever I’m with is usually ready to go after a half hour. So it’s always nice to travel with a fellow amateur photographer. My friend Noom tolerates the inordinate amount of time I want to spend at specific places, but then he too enjoys taking pictures. Well, he enjoys handing me his camera and having me take a picture of him in front of wherever it is we are visiting. And he enjoys walking around with his pricey digital camera hanging from his hip so that everyone can see that he owns one. We all find our own brand of enjoyment out of any activity, photographical or not.

Noom does occasionally like to take a shot that he is not in. And he pays attention to what I’m shooting, it might pass muster and be worthy of him duplicating my efforts. More often his forehead scrunches up while he tries to figure out why in the hell I’m shooting something so stupid. I take a lot of those type of photographs. And a lot of them are the ones that will never really fit into a post here. Nonetheless, they are shots I enjoy. And they just provided me with an opportunity to use the word nonetheless.

For a while I’m going to run a pair of photographs in these posts. As I’ve been going through my old shots they seem to shuffle out that way. At some point, I need to get back to posting about Bali. For the time being, including for today’s post, I’ll just stick with some photographs from that little slice of tropical paradise. Hope you enjoy them as much as I have.

Hell’s Helmets

I’m often amazed at what the locals consider souvenir appropriate in SE Asia. The shops in Kuta take that oddness to an extreme. I haven’t the foggiest who would buy one of these helmets, much less who would wear one. But then Bali does get a lot of Aussies touri, so maybe they are onto something.

Related Posts You Might Enjoy:

Bonus Shot: The Loha Prasat

Bonus Shot: The Loha Prasat

Bonus Shot: Chiang Mai Hawker

Bonus Shot: Chiang Mai Hawker

Bonus Shot: Solitude at the Parade

Bonus Shot: Solitude at the Parade