Sausalito

I took this with my iPhone, my favorite new toy. We were at Cavallo Point for lunch and the afternoon light looked so nice. The iPhone camera doesn't have the finesse of my Nikon, but used in the right way, it is definitely good enough.

Istanbul

It's Sunday morning. Time for a religious image. These dervishes are performing for tourists, so I have no clue whether they consider this part of their practice, or whether they are even Sufi. I was surprised that they allowed photos during the performance.

Chiang Mai

I can't believe I haven't done an elephant photo yet. Back in 2007 I went to a week-long elephant camp. It was one of the great experiences of my life. I had two elephants assigned to me -- one to ride and one just to fool around with. This little guy was neither of them, just a little baby that I went to visit one morning before school started.

Sens

We wanted to see Sens Cathedral. The parking is pretty difficult around there, so we drove and drove and finally came upon this side street that was actually not so far away from the cathedral and the square it faces. The local preservation committee has a pretty narrow view of what constitutes "heritage," focusing on landmarks to the exclusion of much else. I was happy to find this little bit of bygone ordinary life.

Halong Bay

I had been wanting to try kayaking for years, so when I got the chance, I took it. It was great. I need to do more. This photo was taken at the kayak outpost that Indochina Junk keeps on Halong Bay. It was my great privilege to be the old lady American tourist, free to take snapshots, if I wanted, while my guide did the heavy rowing. Next time, I won't be so lucky...

Hong Kong

I was at the hotel, waiting for friends, when I saw this little dance recital. The hotel had set aside a space in the main lobby, so about 30 girls and a couple of boys had a captive -- and captivated -- audience. They were good.

Dijon

Are these kids cute or what? They are just some group of students in Dijon, but they look like they could, at any minute, lose those tacky orange t-shirts -- why are they wearing those anyway? -- and try out for an Abercrombie & Fitch ad. I'd like to think there was a time in my life that I looked that good but no, probably not.

Santiago de Compostela

The church at Santiago de Compostela opens onto a huge square. The other three sides are bordered by the City Hall, the University and an old hospital, now a Parador. If you go out the side door, you see a lovely small square with a huge fountain. There is a shop selling silver souvenirs and the street that takes you to the office where you turn in your pilgrimage papers, if you are of a mind to do that. It is well suited to sights like these street performers, who were actually doing ballroom dancing without being drowned out or ignored. Today I would be braver, and get right up there for a close shot, but on that day, this was the best I could do.

Cluny

We were on the trail of medieval France. It led to Cluny. We knew that there wasn't much left, but we had no clue what had taken its place. It turns out that the grounds of the old monastery have been turned into an engineering college. We had the good fortune to arrive on some sort of initiation day, featuring the students in their dress lab coats. Each coat was unique and remarkably lacking in French imagery and verbiage.

Isle of Skye

Well, we were on the ferry, halfway to the Isle of Skye. All around me folks were either getting seasick or out with their cameras, jostling for the best position to get a shot of the storm. While other images I took during my five minutes of jostling are more wet, I think this one is the most dramatic.

Luang Prabang

Laos gets more foreign aid than you can possibly imagine. Most of it stays in the capital and is spent on enormous government buildings and, most likely, the government workers that fill them. The actual work is done by privately funded NGOs. The "government" orphanage in Luang Prabang receives about 10 cents per day per child, for food, housing, clothing and education. This is supplemented by private donations. They make every penny stretch in a way that I have never before seen. Show above is the orphanage garden, a major source of food for the kids and surely worked by the students themselves, when they are not in class.

Istanbul

This is a little cafe at a ferry stop on the Asian side of Istanbul. This is how I think of the city: relaxed, urbane, not so full of itself that it recoils at a little scruffiness. As unreconstructed country people come into the city it is changing, but I hope there will always be unpretentious places where an woman with no headscarf and no chaperone can meet a friend for a drink with no one taking any particular notice.

Paris

I might as well start with the obvious, a photo of my favorite building in my French neighborhood. I just wish the twinkle lights had been on.