136. PASSAGES. Miami Beach, Florida. It gets pretty simple sometimes, a beach and a good polarizing filter. Cameras and sand are not a match made in heaven, but sand, water and sun definitely are. I can see why people walk so slowly here.

135. PASSAGES. Miami. Sea, sky and city at dawn. Looking west across Biscayne Bay, a series of small islands in the foreground and the Miami skyline in the background. One of the real pleasures here are the sea breezes which carry that unmistakably fragrant Caribbean air. The southeastern coasts of the USA are an interesting hybrid of Western Europe, Spain, Africa and Mesoamerica.

134. PASSAGES. South Beach, Miami. The big Art Deco hotels of South Beach are worth seeing if you like bold stylistic statements, but the quiet stuff is just as interesting. “SoBe” feels like a mix of Beverly Hills and Venice Beach, with a whiff of Charleston and (oddly) Singapore thrown in. The idea is to photograph early or late, because the white buildings are impossible in the equatorial midday glare.

132. PASSAGES. Monaco. Mediterranean culture is the pinnacle of something, the Occident was pretty much invented there for one thing and you can see why–add the genius of the French to it and you really have something. I am stuck in 1920’s France thanks to the interwar work of Ernest Hemingway, but that doesn’t explain why every photo I took in Monaco came back feeling like Art Deco.

131. PASSAGES. South Padre Island, Texas. There is a big difference between traveling for vacation versus traveling for education, but against my better judgement I was convinced to do a “sun vacation” on this narrow strip of an island in the Gulf of Mexico. The rain and freezing temperatures forced me to buy a winter jacket on the first afternoon, and I lost the bag with my wallet while doing so. The rest of the week was a frustrating search that made enemies of the hotel staff and half the town. It turned up on the afternoon of the last day, brought to my hotel by the guy who found it, a tough-as-nails Mexican cowboy. I thanked him for his honesty and made some pretentious speech about integrity, but all he said was “I couldn’t keep it. It doesn’t go with any of my outfits.”

130. PASSAGES. Century City, Los Angeles. The contrast between New York and Los Angeles is legendary, and there are clearly deep cultural, historical, climatic and economic differences. That aside, the two places could not look less alike. I suspect that three-quarters of the car commercials made in the USA are shot in Century City. That gleaming glass and steel image belies LA’s grit, but there is no mistaking that the Pacific coast of America is more pacific.

129. PASSAGES. Lubbock, Texas. Manhattan is exotic, but living there eventually makes it feel normal and everything else exotic. The stillness of Lubbock might begin to explain why so many New Yorkers are fascinated with Texas. The French word quotidien comes to mind, as does the title of a Hemingway short story, “A Way You Will Never Be”.

125. PASSAGES. Isla Mujeres, Mexico. I spent a month on this tiny island on the Caribbean coast, taking long walks after the brain was frazzled from script writing. I met this chap on my first walk and he became a great friend. Everything has the drawbacks of its advantages, a lifetime of travel included. Perpetual forward movement is also perpetual friends abandoned.

123. PASSAGES. Singapore. A chance meeting with this city state left me enthralled, probably because it is so unique that it doesn’t fit into the ready-made patterns that one begins to see everywhere after years of travel. One of the most interesting things about Singapore is their “national core value” of meritocracy, a policy that aims to reward the “hardworking and deserving” with upward social mobility regardless of the stratum into which one is born. My gut feeling on the street there was that they were among the most cheerful people I have ever spent time with, and their hospitality toward strangers was remarkable. Interesting place.

115. PASSAGES. Singapore. Unlike many places in the world, Singapore is far more interesting than it looks. It is basically a hyper-modern city state that looks like downtown Anywhere, stamped onto a tropical rainforest. What sets it apart (aside from Singapore’s unique political philosophy) is the melange of Chinese, Indian and Malay cultures. You can imagine the result of those three culinary traditions colliding.

114. PASSAGES. Monaco. Being around the French puts one in the mood for formalism (that is a compliment).

113. PASSAGES. Monaco. This place makes you understand Art Deco.

112. PASSAGES. Monaco

90. PASSAGES. Jersey Shore.

86. PASSAGES. Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. They got some nice back alleys in Beverly Hills, not many alleys come with road signs.

76. PASSAGES. Singapore.

65. PASSAGES. Los Angeles. A city that is far more interesting to look at than one would guess from its portrayal in popular media.

64. PASSAGES. Charleston, South Carolina. The historic district of Charleston is one of the interesting environments on our planet. An architectural, historical and climatic subculture that should not be missed.

33. PASSAGES. Dilke, Saskatchewan. One visitor described this place as “miles and miles of miles.”

32. PASSAGES. Inner Harbor, Baltimore. Pleasure craft in the foreground, cranes and the remnants of a thriving shipbuilding industry in the background. Pittsburgh and Baltimore are the cities in the Eastern USA that wear their industrial past and newfound optimism well. The intersection of old and new can create quality of life.