CECILIA CLARK P HOTOGRAPHY

The Police Escort to Fallujah The drive to Fallujah is about 1.5 hours but also dependent upon how many times our mini bus is stopped at checkpoints. Along the way we passed the notorious (during Saddam's time and later when in 2003 the US Army and CIA took over) Abu Ghraib prison. At the Anbar Province checkpoint in western Iraq we picked up a police escort, with red lights flashing and occasional sirens, that stayed with us throughout our visit to Fallujah. Additional polic

Tahrir Square (Liberation Square) sculpture commemorating the 1958 establishment of the Republic of Iraq On the first day of our tour, our minibus drove past Firdos Square which is where Saddam Hussein's statue was pulled off its pedestal and destroyed in 2003. Firdos Square was lined with political posters of candidates running for office. Political posters and flags were most everywhere we traveled in Iraq. According to the New York Times, there are more than 7,700 candidat

Fatima (right) and her friend We made it! This is our second attempted trip to Iraq and this time we made it all the way. Arriving in Baghdad a couple of days early, we took our cameras and explored some of the areas around our hotel. The first evening we walked along a nearby street with electronics stores and some high-end shops. We met Fatima who came out of a shop and asked me to take her photo, then a photo of her and her friend, and then a photo of a couple of male fri

Itilleq has just 89 residents. The main industry is fishing, and they have a small fish processing plant in the long blue building near the water. There is a school and a helicopter pad. The settlement had arranged a Kaffemik for us all. This is a traditional event where people are welcomed into homes for food and hot drinks.Once tendered to shore we were told to match a color square to a sign on a house that had the same color. That search took us all over the community unti

Looking toward the open air Museum Sisimuit means "residences at the fox holes." It is Greenland's second largest city with a population of about 5,500 people and 1300 sled dogs. It is the northernmost ice-free, sheltered port in Greenland. This area has been inhabited for the last 4,500 years, and after walking around Sisimuit, it seemed to me that it was the mostly livable city that I had visited so far. It is the fastest growing city in Greenland. The rock face next to the

Columnar Basalt at Disko Island Disko Island is the youngest area in Greenland. The rest of Greenland is billions of years old. Basalt lava flowed here only about 60 million years ago when North America and Europe separated. Columnar structures occur when the lava rapidly cools and contracts to create polygonal basalt columns. Despite the roughness of the sea, we cruised around in zodiacs to get a closer look at the basalt structures. In the afternoon we visited the small cit

We woke to another beautiful day with glassy water and beautiful reflections. The view on the other side of the ship was of an active...

The next morning, August 10, the plan for the day had changed. A passenger was having a medical emergency and needed to get back to a...

Sea Ice looking east to Greenland We're deep into the sea ice. Last night it sounded like the ship was having quite a fight plowing, ramming, and chopping its way north. Our HX ship is rated for 1.3 m/4.26 feet of first-year ice. It has been an amazing experience and this morning we are still northbound in the Nares Strait. We saw Canada this morning. At the narrowest point in the Nares Strait, the distance between Ellesmere Island and Greenland is 48 k/30 miles. View of Elle

Brother John's Glacier at the head of Foulke Fjord Still heading north, the ship stopped in Foulke Fjord. When we arrived it was very overcast, but the afternoon brought brilliant sunlight and a better view of the fjord. Etah lies on the 4,500 year old ancient migration route for waves of hunter/gatherer people traveling from the Canadian Arctic to Greenland. Etah was the point where the last migration of Inuit from Baffin Island crossed the Nares Strait at Ellesmere Island

Qaanaaq, Greenland Continuing north along Greenland's west coast, we stopped for several hours at Qaanaaq. We were looking forward to this stop with interest as one of the community ambassadors, Aleq Peary, gave short lectures on the ship about life in Qaanaaq. Additionally, at this stop we had a chance to have tea in a private home (my choice) and also an opportunity to learn how to prepare skins and use them (Dan). In the morning, a small group of the Qaanaaq community visi

Savissivik About 10,000 years ago a portion of a 100 tonne (220,500 pound) iron-rich meteorite (estimated weight before it exploded) landed on Meteorite Island. The meteor is known as the Cape York Meteorite; pieces of the meteorite are housed at many museums including the American Museum of Natural History. The Inuit discovered the metal and began breaking off pieces using hammerstones, then shaping the fragments into blades, harpoon tips, and other tools by grinding and po

Perlerfiup Sermia (glacier) Morning brought clouds, fog, and thunder. We were in Perlerfiup Fjord near the glacier of the same name. The glacier thundered, creaked, and rumbled as it adjusted itself. Streams of water exploded out over the rocks and below the ice. The glacier at 609 metres (1,998 feet) high flows from the Greenland ice cap. It is very impressive and a little daunting to be so close to something so cold and powerful. We cruised toward the glacier in a zodiac

Uummannaq Mountain and Island Uummannaq means "heart-shaped mountain" in Greenlandic. The island was named after its split-topped mountain. The "heart shape" of the mountain resembles the heart of a seal. We arrived in beautiful Uummannaq just as the morning fog was lifting. The sun came out and it was warm. According to a local man I spoke with, the weather was unseasonably warm. They hadn't had much rain so far this year. At the dock, the view looking out from Uummannaq was

View of the Icefjord from Ilulissat, Greenland We had a bit of a late start for our West Greenland cruise after fog in Nuuk prevented our flight from leaving Newark, New Jersey, until the next day. There were 12 of us marooned in Newark for a second day. We arrived in Nuuk on the day of departure (July 31) and were quickly transferred to the Hurtigruten Expedition MS Fridtjof Nansen. The ship departed that evening. Fog was dropping fast but a bit of a sunset was visible as we

Clothesline with a View I am pleased to announce that one of my photographs from Newfoundland was selected for the "The Coastal...

Western Flycatcher (Female) We were faced with a dilemma. We had a tiny Western Flycatcher who insisted on building her nest on top of our garage door opener. Twice we removed the beginnings of her nest and placed it outside the garage in a plant. We then tried to keep the door closed as much as possible. The door was open for about 25 minutes back in June. During that brief opening, she brought the removed nest back. As soon as we came home she flew into our garage and bega

Spiral Staircase at Oodi Our two days in Helsinki were rather gray with morning snow flurries and gray skies outside. Inside Oodi , the Helsinki Central Library, nothing was gray. It is a lively place with books, of course, but so many other offerings. There are: chess tables, workspaces with computers, large format printers and 3-D printers for which you pay only for the supplies used, sound booths for recording podcasts or music, musical instruments for borrowing, digital g

On February 9 we took the train back to Oslo. The train stopped at every small ski area and town to pick up and drop off passengers many with skies or boards. We passed mountains and lakes and small groups of houses. The train did not have WiFi that worked for us so I read or took cell phone photos not sure of what I'd be able to capture through the window from a moving train. The train left about 8:00 am, and we arrived at the Oslo Central Station about 3:00 pm. Our hotel,

We left Hurtigruten's Trollfjord and walked less than a mile to the Clarion Hotel Admiral where we stayed for one night before catching a train back to Oslo. Before arriving, we booked a private walking tour of Bergen through Tours by Locals . The tour began at 9:00 am. Our guide did a good job pointing out things we probably wouldn't have noticed on our own. Several hundred years ago, German-speaking traders (Hansa) would arrive in Bryggen with boatloads of grain, cloth, and