Brendan's Adventures

The pink and purple-bottomed alpha males roam around the grounds carefree searching for the best place to scavenge the food scattered on the rain forest floor.  The dominant drill monkeys have faces like black ceramic masks formed so perfectly you have to wonder if they were hand sculpted by the gods. Around the elders, dozens [...]

I’ll admit it, when iPhoneography started to really take hold it drove me crazy.  I hated all the photos being published of some terrible composition or some boring subject covered up with a 60s filter and some quote below like “OMG, I’m like an artist!!!” However, as time rolled on I realized a couple things: [...]

The town of Akwidaa, along the western coast of Ghana, must be home to the friendliest children in the entire world.  Perhaps trained by the wandering tourists that come through this tiny village occasionally baring candy and certainly offering photographs, the kids race out of their houses with their friends to see the white men [...]

Last year I made the effort to go out and take photos each and every day.  I figured that 1) I would find photography opportunities I would have otherwise missed and 2) that all the shooting would improve my photography.  Well, I was absolutely right on both regards.  Looking back at my favourite travel photos [...]

Firstly, to set things straight.  These are obviously not the best travel photos of 2012 from everyone, just mine.  Gosh, I’m not that conceited … or am I?  Anyways, this year was absolutely fantastic.  I can’t even believe how far I’ve come and how much I’ve seen over this past year.  Choosing my best travel photos from 2012 [...]

Over the past year, one of the things I’ve really been working on doing a little bit more of is star photography.  Shooting the stars has always fascinated me.  Our camera’s ability to see even more stars than our eyes can gives us light into a world that we don’t yet know or truly understand. [...]

Are Backpackers Full of Shit? All Alone on a Beach in West Africa ———————————————————— West Africa isn’t an easy place to travel.  Anyone who tells you differently is either lying or travels on a much higher budget than I do.  From the moment I left Guinea-Bissau, to the moment I arrived in Cote d’Ivoire there [...]

The following is the story of my visit to see the famous stilt dancers of Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast).  It was easily one of the best experiences I had in all of my time in West Africa so far.  You can expect much more about this story in different forms in months to come.  It [...]

I’ve been holed up on the beach in Cote d’Ivoire for the past week putting the final touches on the latest issue of my travel magazine Vagabundo Magazine.  Believe me, there are worse places to be stuck working than the beach here in Grand Bassam.  I literally hear the ocean rolling away as I type, [...]

If you know anything about me, you know that I’m a massive fan of wildlife, in particular primates. I love watching their behaviour and how similar it is to that of ours. I feel a connection with primates, most likely because I’m a bit of a monkey myself. Thus, the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary just outside [...]

By the time I reached The Gambia I had been itching to start seeing some wildlife.  Northern Africa has a wildlife selection that is largely comprised of birds and more birds.  And as much as I might like birds, it’s the monkeys, the crocs, and the other big animals that I have been dying to [...]

Ile de Goree was a photographer’s dream location. The buildings are painting in bright pastel colours, and the wear and tear on them only added to the character. The beautifully painted waters laid calm nearly the entire day and night. And the people, laden with smiles and laughter were always around with such bright eyes. [...]

After leaving the dust of The Sahara desert behind me in Mauritania, I made my way to Northern Senegal.  I felt that after spending so much time in the sand, I needed to reconnect with the coast, and hopefully some wildlife.  So after spending a couple days relaxing on the beach in Saint-Louis, I made [...]

The Nouakchott fish market is busy and chaotic.  If you show up in the afternoon, around 3pm the fishermen and women, who are actually almost entirely Wolof, will be racing frantically back and forth from the boats with the catches of the day.  The waters off the coast of Mauritania are some of the richest [...]