Sydney is an amazing city, as much for its vitality and friendly residents as it is for the scads of things to see, do and taste. In my last blog I described the character of the city. Today I’ll suggest some places to visit.
Sydney is a city of iconic locations, the most famous of which is undoubtedly the Sydney Opera House, an immense complex of theaters and exhibition halls nestled under what is arguably the most famous roof- actually series of roofs- in the world. No matter from what part …

The past three days have been wonderful, as we toured Sydney about as hard as any travel photojournalist could. My tendency is to try out-of-the-way venues to add value to my readers’ experience, and this visit was no exception. First, some impressions. Sydney is as high energy as Manhattan, and I don’t say that idly, since I am a native New Yawkah. Sydney is every bit as frenetic and cosmopolitan, but in a wholly different way. We’re here in late October (spring) and it is sunny and bright, …

Well, we finally made it Down Under, but let’s just say it wasn’t exactly uneventful. We were up at 6:00 AM, needing to do umpteen things prior to our afternoon flight. Flying  from BWI to Toronto on Air Canada on a Havilland Dash propeller plane was uneventful, as was our brief layover.
Our cross-country flight to Vancouver was quite pleasant, mostly due to a terrific flight crew who were collectively attentive and engaging. Then we descended into Vancouver International, precisely at the same moment that a large bird decided to greet …

We’re ready to leave and I’ve already given instructions to our house sitter… multiple times (I’m beginning to envy his carefree life over the course of our trip).
It’s T-minus-2 days. The Australia and Fiji segments are wrapped up, leaving just a few loose ends on our New Zealand adventure. I’m determined to allow that part of the trip to stay loose, in order to take advantage of the photo ops that present themselves.
Right now I’m doing my photo organizing and cleaning. I like to start a trip with clean equipment, …

To my blog readers:
I’m excited to announce that I was just chosen to be the new photography columnist for ScotteVest.

If you haven’t seen their Internet presence yet, you probably are not an outdoorsy-type, since they advertise heavily online. ScotteVest manufactures some of the finest travel and outdoor clothing I have ever had the joy of owning. Their claim to fame is the number of pockets built into their clothing and their durable construction. In fact, it was my use of their product that drew us together (http://blog.lesterpickerphoto.com/2010/09/19/invest-in-evest-scottevest-that-is/).
I have used ScotteVest …

I just uploaded a new Photos of the Month, this time featuring Animals. These are random images of animals taken in the past few years, from the Galapagos, the Yukon, and the Canadian Rockies.
Just click on “Photos of the Month” in the black banner section in the upper left of the Home page. Please leave your comments and feedback. Let me know what themes you’d like to see for next month.
Thanks for looking!
Les
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Okay, so the Australia-Fiji-New Zealand trip and assignment is exactly 15 days off and I’m feeling rattled. A few items in the itinerary have been nailed down since my last blog post, but there’s a heckuva lot more to go.
So far I have the flights to and from Australia and New Zealand finalized, as well as one flight within Australia. Getting to Fiji has been set for months. I’ve got two car rentals arranged and a couple of nice lodging properties lined up and almost finalized, a good thing since …