Book review (and giveaway!) of Earth Bound: A Rough Guide to the World in Pictures
Selecting 250+ pictures to represent the expanse and wonder of the planet is a daunting task, but it is one that Earth Bound: A Rough Guide to the World in Pictures has done very well.
Best known for its guidebook series, Rough Guides has pulled from a collection of more than 100,000 images to create Earth Bound, released in October 2009. The layout of the book is excellent, with the eye smoothly gliding from page to page (for instance, from the loop of a roller coaster in Madrid to a car traversing the Atacama Desert in Peru). Each image is well supported by insightful and interesting captions (not those scrawny one-liners you sometimes see, but a solid, well-written paragraph). The book is divided into twelve themed chapters, including “People,” “Activities,” “Keepsakes,” and, my favorite, “Transport and Work.”
Earth Bound also employs QR Codes so that you can hold the book in one hand and a mobile phone or some other scanning device in the other in order to pull up a Google map showing the location of each picture. This is indeed innovative in the book world, and I suppose some will enjoy giving it a try.
We have one copy to give away. If you’d like your name included in the pot from which a winner will be randomly selected, all you have to do, in addition to having a U.S. address, is share a brief story about a memorable travel photo. It doesn’t matter whether you or someone else was the photographer; just explain why it left an impression on you. Please leave the story in the comment section by 11:59 p.m. New York time, January 12.
UPDATE: Congrats to DirtyBootz for winning the copy of Earth Bound. Thanks to each of you for sharing your stories.
January 7th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
One of my favorite travel photos is a fantastic dusk shot I took in the summer of 2006. My mother and I decided to take a random road trip from our mountain home in southern California to our extended family living in Rapid City, South Dakota. The drive took us through Moab and we made a stop at Arches National Park, of course, but both of us were really looking forward to a stop to visit the geysers at Yellowstone National Park.
We were surprised to find, in late July, that we were one of very few people at the park. It may have had something to do with the ominously thick and black rainclouds and frequent hail, but the day we did our hiking was fairly dry and the overcast conditions were intermittent. To cap our whirlwind tour of short walks, we stopped by the Fountain Paint Pot boardwalk (and its completely empty parking lot!).
On the edge of the parking lot was a puddle of rainwater, and in its very still pool was a gorgeous reflection of dead trees and the deep and darkening blue sky with its traces of rain clouds. That is the photo I took.
It is one of my favorites because it is a capture memory of everything I loved about that spontaneous road trip. It’s a marker of a time when my mother and I were able to get along together in a car for -three weeks-, when I was able to drop everything and hit the road for as long as I felt like, when I got to see my extended family for the third of only three times in my life that I’ve seen them, and it was just before I went back to college to finish my degree. The picture itself was symbolic of the turmoil my family had been going through, tough times which I know have driven many other families apart, and for that I love it dearly.
Corny, I know, but that picture of sticks reflected in a mud puddle still inspires me to seek out new adventures.
January 7th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
I remember being on the ferry to Doetsumgogopo (sp?) island in Masan, ROK and snapping a photo of a Korean child who was barely tall enough to reach the railing. With arms stretched to the top of the bar, eyes gazing into the distant and an idyllic landscape in the background, this photo has remained on the top of my travel favorites.
Worth noting that his father didn’t care to much and showed this displeasure by giving me the glowering of a lifetime. Stone faced Korean Dads can be intimating, especially on the close confines of a 30 minute ferry ride.
January 7th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
My favorite is one I took on a rafting trip in the Grand Canyon. It was taken at sunrise on the first morning of the trip. I had wandered downstream to check things out and looked back just as the sun came through the canyon shining right onto our camp. I snapped off two quick pictures and I always keep coming back to them for background pictures on my computer. Every time I do I can remember how peaceful it was that morning and how small I felt inside the canyon.
January 7th, 2010 at 5:17 pm
One of my favorite pictures is one of my wife from the Aran Islands of Ireland. We went to see Dun Aonghasa, the most well known of the prehistoric forts and it was an exceptionally blustery day. The fort itself is really just a semi circle overlooking a cliff and there is no railing to protect you from falling in. To get a better look over the side, we crawled to the edge and peeked over at the sheer drop. The wind was so strong coming up the cliff that Martha’s hair was blown straight up and it was almost impossible to see.
It was a magnificent sight to see and magnified by the “danger” of the high gusts.
January 7th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
https://www.flickr.com/photos/55361347@N00/4233510006/
One of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken. Not necessarily because its a technically great photo but because of the memories it embodies. Taken shortly after I moved to China, and perfectly shows the chaos, color, and sense of the unknown that I’ll always remember from having just gotten here.
January 8th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
I was taking photos of the Ganges river in India from the rooftop patio of a guesthouse, when this young girl from the house next door walked by, saw me, squealed, and ran back inside. Moments later she reappeared in this fancy pink dress and asked me to take her photo. Before I had a chance to take a single shot, her brothers and sister saw what was happening and joined in — much to her dismay. The resulting shot is one of the sweetest mementos I’ve ever returned home with.
https://johnnyvagabond.com/favorite-places/post-3/
January 8th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
The one that stands out in my mind is not necessarily the best photo… but it is one that has the power to spark and bubble up a memory that’s been buried in you subconscious for a while. Those are my favorites. The photo is a quick snapshot containing the tops of two heads. One head is bald and the other is wearing a warm orange beanie/hat on. Not much else to look at besides a wide road leading to the mountains in the background and a few buildings and pedestrians along the street and sidewalks. The story it recalls is much better.
I was hitch hiking from Laos to China, eventually making my way to Beijing. Once I crossed the Laotian/Chinese border I ran into a problem. I didn’t have any Chinese currency and I spoke very minimal Mandarin. I managed to hitch a ride in a van with some locals to the nearest city called Mengla. Little did I know that the banks were closed on holiday for the next few days. The ATMs were in Chinese characters and I eventually found out they didn’t work anyway. So I was stuck there for a few days. One day I was looking for food and met another foreigner, a orange robed and beanie clad Laotian Monk named Booh-Phan. He ran up to me and gave me a noogie (rubbed his fist on my head, messing up my hair). Crazy way to great a stranger, I know… but this guy was for real and he contained an energy within him that was the result of a happy soul. He spoke maybe two words of English, which is better than none. We walked along an alley market, and he spotted another monk. This one had to be local. He had tattoos all over him and was smoking a cigarette, watching the birds. The coolest thing about this scene was he was leaning against his monster motorcycle. Boon excused himself and ran over to this other monk. I was minding my own business when he came back and tapped me on the shoulder. He motioned to me… let’s go!… and pointed to the motorcycle! The tattooed monk was sitting on in waiting for us. I had no idea where we were going or what they said to each other, but there’s no way in hell I was going to pass this up. So I hop onto the very back and off we go! I was holding on to two robed monks, barely hanging off the back seat, cruising off to God knows where. I pulled out my camera and snapped that confusing, off-centered photo.
In a nut shell, this monk took Boon and I to his temple at the top of a mountain nearby. I felt like I was the first westerner ever to set foot there. I lived with the monks for 3 days. They fed me, but I worked for it, doing chores with Boon as he was a guest there as well. No English, no money… but had an adventure from the kindness of strangers.
Apologies for the long post!
Ryan
January 11th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
My most memorable travel photo was while we were on an Alaskan Cruise on our honeymoon. At one of the ports we went on a train ride that went through the mountains, it was beautiful! We have one photo that is just great, it shows the mountains with this waterfall and it looks like the perfect postcard photo. I have the photo set as the backdrop on my computer so I can look at it everyday!
January 11th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
The memorable travel photo that first comes to mind: A shot of a sunset I took when I was snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef. I was swimming as fast as I could (which isn’t very fast at all) to get back to the boat before the sun completely set. Running out of time, I snapped a shot of the sunset while still in the water. It ended up being the best picture in the roll. The vignetting caused by the cheap camera worked beautifully with the sunset. Frame that with a curve of water that lapped into the bottom of the picture and I got a reminder that some of the best shots can be made with the cheapest tools and little time.