This is a river boat on the shore of River Saree, a small river that leads into the beginning of the Himalayas. This river is rich with sand that comes all the way from the mountains, and boats such as this one collects all the sand and sells it to be used for construction. The men collect all the sand by hand (the water is only waist deep), and its pretty damn hard core, back breaking labor. They are close to shore, but one of the few refuges they have is 'this' boat, which is not used to collect sand, but is used to sell tea and biscuits, acting literally as a 'River Cafe'. Many a times, the other sand collecting boats will wander up close to this boat and rest for a bit while drinking some tea. Given its close proximity to the shore, other people from the shore come over as well, taking a quick tea break in the middle of their work.

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A Drive through Switzerland

A drive through Switzerland is everything that I thought it would be. Mountains, lakes and the requisite chocolate stops makes this one of the more memorable road trips in Europe.

Cliché

Aside from the pristine beaches, there is another side of Jamaica landscape that I noticed when I ventured out from the sheltered resort area. When you venture inland, there is a plethora of other scenery that is very different than the tourism posters of Jamaica. I happened to walk off the hotel property, and stumbled upon the edge of golf course which was not really part of it, but still was very well taken care of. Either way, anybody would be more than ecstatic to have it as their backyard.

On a different note, I wanted to mention something about photographic cliches. Photographic cliches are images that are created with motifs that are very common, such as sunrise/sunset beaches, mountaineous landscapes, rocks in water, autumn leaves, white fences - and lone trees. I've probably rattled off about 70% of the recent pictures you've seen on the web (and possibly on my blog). The truth is that in the current digital age, and the easy access to camera equipment/technology, its pretty hard to be original, especially for amateurs like myself. All this is a little depressing unless you're a creative genius, and so the philosophy has to change. So if you're not going to create the next original masterpiece, then I guess the thing to take note off is whether you're having fun, and whether you believe in what you created (or are creating) - IMHO, its all worthwhile as long as that requirement is met. Also, I strongly believe that once you are having fun and believe in what you're doing, you will end up creating that masterpiece at some point. Yes, the lone tree motif has been done many times before, but I'm fairly confident its not that rampant in landscapes of Jamaica (I hope). This is my thought process in the ever changing, saturated world of photography of today. What is your approach?