GlobalTraces

GE Nostr 🌇 Time for round 4 of this 2025 retrospective. I’m trying to mix up the pictures so it’s a cross section of genres and styles in the hope there’s something for everyone! Which is your favourite from this set? 1. Meeting overlanders on the road is great not just because it’s fun to meet with like-minded people, but also because it’s great to share location knowledge. This park up was one such recommendation and proved to be an absolute stunner, with incredible views towards China across a dried river valley (see picture 3!) 📍Kyrgyzstan 2. We’d heard about a nomad festival in Bokonbayevo, Kyrgyzstan and managed to get ourselves there on the right day to watch. With archery, horsemanship, taigan dogs and eagle hunting… and all of them at once… it made an incredible day out and seeing people, men and women alike, cantering flat out while shooting bow and arrows from horseback, and hitting their thrown targets (like clay pigeon shooting from horseback with a bow) we were blown away by both the skill and bravery of the nomads. 3. Dried river bed, Kyrgyzstan. I spent multiple flights with the drone flying over this river bed studying the other-worldly patterns below. 4. On the shores of Lake Issy-Kul, and endorheic, saline lake in the Tian Shan mountains. Conveniently, despite its altitude it never freezes and is known locally as “warm lake.” It is the second largest mountain lake in the world. And the site of another amazing parkup that offered scenery, great walks, fun mountain biking and smooth waters for swimming and paddleboarding. Or even just somewhere to throw stones in the water! 5. Waiting for our Russian transit visa to come through, we spent a week or so touring around Georgia. Quite delightfully it was wildflower season and this meadow was a route of different wildflowers, so in single blocks like here, some like an artist’s palette of colours. Otis, our Hungarian vizsla, is happiest chasing stones. And if chasing stones includes leaping through the flowers like a stotting deer, so much the better! #photography #art #travel #fineart #borderless

Part 3 of my favourite pics from 2025. What’s your favourite from this set? 1. Turkey. On the drive to Ishak Pasha Palace I pulled over on the side of the road, clambered in the truck roof and grabbed this shot as the rain fell in the distance. 2. Kyrgyzstan. The Kara Bura pass was our first route in Kyrgyzstan. The coloured earth, exposed edges and spectacular views made for an incredible introduction to this most naturally beautiful of countries. 3. Shymkent, Kazakhstan. A city I’d never heard of but one that was such a joy to visit. It’s mostly set up to appeal to Kazakh tourists, but the combination of a great city centre park-up (very rare!) a fabulous mosque in the same style as you’d find in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, and great child friendly facilities made it a winner. Especially this splash pad that Isla loved playing around in cooling off from the summer heat. 4. Zanzibar, Tanzania. As part of my most recent work trip I visited Zanzibar including a trip to a local school to see the education system there at work, with the children learning English as well as Swahili. 5. Early in the year, on a beach in Greece. We took a small car ferry across to Elafonisos and spent a couple of days enjoying the beaches to ourselves. It was cool, but the water was clear and having no one else around was quite the joy (I sound like a hermit now!) of course a family fun aerial picture was essential! #photography #art #fineart #travel

GN Nostr 🌇 #2 in this retrospective of favourite images from 2025. These are all Kyrgyzstan (do you get the feeling I liked it there?!) 1. Lenin Peak, Kyrgyzstan. One of the easiest 7000+m mountains to climb (apparently, I didn’t go up there) and often used a training ground for Everest. 2. Isla and her friend Matilda walking back to the truck after a morning of “homeschooling” that involved a hike up to a viewpoint, artwork in the wildness and clambering over rocks and boulders to learn about mountain safety. The rainbow mountains make a spectacular backdrop! 3. Jess and Otis. This was shot on our way up the Kumtor Gold Mine Route. Captured as a marketing image for Kovered Bags (use code “GLOBALTRACES” for 15% off their bags… which make awesome Christmas presents!) 4. Crossing a dried up high altitude lake to one of the best park up spots we’ve had … so great we visited twice and spent about 4 days there in total. The park up is unofficially titled “Desert Rock Dream” in iOverlander (an App we use to find parking places) and it really is an incredible out of the way dreamscape place to hang out. 5. The night before we crossed in to Tajikistan (the other side of those mountains in the background) we parked next to a dried river bed. Fortunately we didn’t park in the river bed, because not long after this was taken the meltwater from the mountains decided to flow through turning a dry river bed to a raging torrent! Before that though, Isla was in her element playing out in the wilds. Which is your favourite from this set? @Tauri another b&w landscape for you! www.newtonphoto.art #photography #fineart @travel #alternativeliving