Finally I have received a few author’s copies of a book “The World through the eyes of a blogger” where I wrote a chapter about Australian outback. As a travel photographer I’ve got photos published in books, booklets, magazines etc. I also have a couple of articles published in local magazines, but this time it’s different. It’s a full story with photos. It was published in Russia (yeah, in Russian as well) with support from National Geographic Traveller magazine and LiveJournal – one of the most popular blogging platform. The book consists of 27 stories illustrated with photos about interesting places around the globe; most of them are off the beaten path. The cover story about our planet was written by Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin. Other stories in the book are about Namibia, Vietnam, Syria, Mongolia, Holland, Singapore, India, Papua (province), Iran, China, Tibet, Yemen, Botswana, Bulgaria, Algeria, Israel, Columbia, USA, Ecuador, Egypt, Costa Rica, Tunisia, Norway, New Zealand and Alaska (yeah, it’s USA, but it’s toooooo far from the mainland) are written by different people – professional photographers, businessmen, artists etc. Very different people, very different approach to writing and showing the world around us. But it’s quite interesting book and I’m proud to be a part of that team.

Also I received a gift from russian travel photographer Michael Vorobyov – his photo-book about Huangshan (Yellow Mountains) and Li River in China. The whole story behid that is that my wife is a travel writer and after we spent a few weeks in China she wrote a series of articles about travelling in Huangshan and Zhangjiajie mountains, Longji Rice Fields and along Li River, explaining all itineraries, where to stay, providing maps, describing hotels, where to buy tickets, prices etc. So Michael used these articles for his photo trip and once he came back home he published a photo book and sent a copy to me as appreciation of the articles. For those of you who wants to read the articles I’ve got a couple of notes: 1) All articles are in Russian, however in the right-upper corner you can select a desired language and Google will translate it for you. Hopefully it translates correctly. 2) All maps are in English. Maps for Huangshan mountains have sunrise/sunset locations. If you are planning to go there it’s worth reading the articles. Hope that’ll help you in your trips to China. And Japan as well. And may be South Korea, New Zealand and Australia. Who knows. She has articles on that too.

Cruise the Li River (Li jiang river) from Guilin to Yangshuo is the highlight of any trip to Guilin and Guangxi province in China. It is actually one of the most scenic cruises on earth. The landscape is decorated with rolling hills, steep karst cliffs, fantastic caves, leisurely boats and is lined with bamboo. The scenery along both banks is just like Chinese paintings and has inspired poems. There are many scenic places along the Li River including a scene near Xingping village which is printed even on the back of 20 Yuan banknotes.

More images: Karst Peaks at Yangshuo, Guilin and Xingping, China Stock Images | Lakes, Rivers and Waterways Landscape Stock Images | Landscape Stock Photography

More images: Karst Peaks at Yangshuo, Guilin and Xingping, China Stock Images | Lakes, Rivers and Waterways Landscape Stock Images | Landscape Stock Photography

More images: Karst Peaks at Yangshuo and Guilin Images Gallery | Lakes, Rivers and Waterways Stock Images | Landscape Stock Photography.

Guilin region in China has long been renowned for its unique scenery and one of the best-known tourist destinations in China. There are many scenic places along the Li jiang river (Li River) including a scene in Xingping Village which is printed on the back of 20 Yuan banknotes. The primary image on the reverse side of the note is a view of a fisherman on his bamboo raft floating down the Li River through the spectacular karst hills of Guilin region. The beautiful scenery here is a common subject of Chinese paintings as well as the inspiration for poetry.

I was shooting karst hills with their reflections in the calm river very early in the morning and complaining to my companion that there were not boats there. But suddenly we saw a boat with a fisherman behind us who was very slowly drifting along the river. Bingo! Real luck! Now we just had to wait. Double-checked the exposure. After a couple of minutes the guy arrived into our frames. We pressed the shutters buttons. Done. And the guy started moving off the scene. Didn’t expect a good shot as the morning was quite foggy but you never know where you can find something and where you lose something.

And here is the 20 Yuan bank note for reference:

More images: Karst Peaks at Yangshuo Images Gallery | Lakes, Rivers and Waterways Landscapes Stock Images | Landscape Stock Photography.