Photographs, Journeys, and the Art of Seeing

As part of the 20th anniversary of my 2006 world journey, this series explores the photographs I captured along the way — the moments, the places, and the stories behind the images now available on my website or by request.

Every great trip has a first photograph — the moment when the world sharpens into focus after the long haul, when curiosity finally wins the battle against jetlag. For me, in 2006, that moment happened on our very first day in Beverly Hills, wandering through Rodeo Drive in a daze, trying to stay awake long enough to reset the body clock. It would later become one of the earliest images in my Los Angeles photography collection.

This image of the Escada boutique became the unofficial opening frame of an eight‑week, eight‑country, west‑to‑east journey around the globe. We had left Melbourne on 25 June, crossed the Pacific, and landed in a city that felt like a movie set brought to life. Even through the fog of travel fatigue, Rodeo Drive was impossible to ignore — polished, theatrical, and unmistakably LA. For anyone who loves luxury storefront photography or urban architecture, it’s a dream....

Read more about this post on my Substack page:

https://paulvisscherphotography.substack.com/p/escada-on-rodeo-drive-the-first-photograph

As part of the 20th anniversary of my 2006 world journey, this series explores the photographs I captured along the way — the moments, the places, and the stories behind the images now available on my website or by request.

After shaking off the worst of the jetlag in Beverly Hills, we spent the rest of our first day in Los Angeles doing exactly what you do when you’re young, excited, and suddenly on the other side of the world: we drove.

In 2006, the hire‑car of choice — or at least the one that seemed to be everywhere — was the Chrysler PT Cruiser. So that’s what we ended up with. It felt quirky, a little retro, and somehow perfectly suited to cruising the wide LA boulevards and winding hillside roads.

With no real plan beyond “let’s see what we can see,” we headed up into the Hollywood Hills, where the city begins to reveal itself from above. The light, the haze, the endless sprawl — everything felt cinematic. Eventually we reached the Jerome C. Daniel Overlook, one of the most spectacular viewpoints in Los Angeles. From there, the entire basin opened up: the down-town skyline, the Hollywood Bowl, the freeways threading through the city, and that unmistakable California glow....

Read more about this post on my Substack page:

https://paulvisscherphotography.substack.com/p/hollywood-hills-firstday-wanderings

As part of the 20th anniversary of my 2006 world journey, this series explores the photographs I captured along the way — the moments, the places, and the stories behind the images now available on my website or by request.

After spending the early afternoon exploring the Hollywood Hills, we continued our first‑day wanderings by driving back down through Beverly Hills and across the Pacific Palisades toward the coast. It was late afternoon by then — that magical time when the sun begins to sink, the air softens, and Los Angeles takes on that unmistakable golden glow.

As we cruised through the neighbourhoods, I spotted a palm‑lined street lit up by the warm orange light of the setting sun. The tall palms stood like silhouettes against the haze, the road stretching ahead with that classic California stillness. I pulled over and captured the moment — a simple scene, but one that felt deeply tied to the visual identity of Southern California. It’s the kind of image that instantly evokes Los Angeles street photography and the timeless charm of Beverly Hills at golden hour.

Read more about this post on my Substack page:

https://paulvisscherphotography.substack.com/p/golden-hour-in-beverly-hills-and

As part of the 20th anniversary of my 2006 world journey, this series explores the photographs I captured along the way — the moments, the places, and the stories behind the images now available on my website or by request.

Arriving Over the Red Desert

There are cities that you ease into, and then there is Las Vegas — a place that announces itself long before you touch the ground. Our approach into Nevada in 2006 felt like descending onto another planet. After days of coastal light and urban sprawl in Los Angeles, the landscape suddenly shifted into something ancient, sculptural, and impossibly red. From the aircraft window, the desert unfolded in ridges and folds, a geological tapestry carved by time and heat.

That aerial photograph became my first frame of Las Vegas — a reminder that before the neon, before the spectacle, this place is still rooted in the raw, untamed beauty of the American Southwest. The colours were astonishing: deep rust, ochre, and burnt sienna, all glowing under the desert sun. Even now, it remains one of my favourite arrival shots from the entire eight‑week journey....

Read more about this post on my Substack page:

https://paulvisscherphotography.substack.com/p/las-vegas-2006-desert-arrival-luxor

As part of the 20th anniversary of my 2006 world journey, this series explores the photographs I captured along the way — the moments, the places, and the stories behind the images now available on my website or by request.

The City Transforms at Night

If the daytime in Las Vegas is defined by heat, glare, and the sharp geometry of the desert, then the night is something else entirely. As the sun drops behind the Nevada mountains, the Strip flickers to life — a river of neon, colour, and movement.

This second Las Vegas post picks up where the last one left off. After the blistering 40‑degree heat of the day, the city’s night‑time personality emerged: cooler, louder, brighter, and somehow even more theatrical. These four images capture that shift — the moment when Las Vegas stops competing with the sun and starts competing with itself.

New York‑New York in Neon

I had photographed the New York‑New York Hotel earlier in the day, but seeing it again at night felt like stepping into a different world. The miniature Manhattan skyline glowed with saturated colour, each façade lit as if for a stage production. Traffic rolled past in streaks of light, the wet pavement reflecting the neon signs and billboards, amplifying the sense of movement and energy.....

Read more about this post on my Substack page:

https://paulvisscherphotography.substack.com/p/las-vegas-after-dark-neon-night-air

As part of the 20th anniversary of my 2006 world journey, this series explores the photographs I captured along the way — the moments, the places, and the stories behind the images now available on my website or by request.

Leaving Las Vegas (good name for a film!)

Leaving Las Vegas by helicopter is a surreal experience. One moment you’re surrounded by pyramids, castles, and roller coasters; the next, you’re lifting above it all, watching the Strip shrink into a toy‑sized version of itself. Our pilot banked us south, giving us one last sweeping view of the Luxor pyramid and the Sphinx before the city dissolved into the desert.

Lake Mead — Blue Against the Barren

As we left the city limits, the landscape shifted dramatically. The desert opened up into vast, sun‑bleached emptiness, broken only by the deep, improbable blue of Lake Mead.

From above, the shoreline looked almost abstract — jagged edges, sculpted ridges, and colours that felt painted rather than natural. It was the first hint of how dramatically water reshapes this part of the world....

Read more about this post on my Substack page:

https://paulvisscherphotography.substack.com/p/from-neon-to-nowhere-a-helicopter

As part of the 20th anniversary of my 2006 world journey, this series explores the photographs I captured along the way — the moments, the places, and the stories behind the images now available on my website or by request.

The further we flew from the landing site, the more the landscape seemed to rearrange itself beneath us. The canyon walls softened, the colours shifted, and the river that had carved this place for millions of years came back into view — a thin, determined line of water threading its way through the rock. After the stillness on the ground, seeing the Colorado River from above again felt like watching the story rewind.

The Colorado River — The Line That Shapes Everything

From the air, the river looks impossibly narrow for the work it has done. It winds through the canyon floor with a kind of quiet authority, carving curves and channels that echo far beyond its banks.

The cliffs rise steeply on either side, layered and folded, each stratum a reminder of just how long this landscape has been in motion. It’s a view that makes time feel both immense and strangely intimate.....

Read more about this post on my Substack page:

https://paulvisscherphotography.substack.com/p/grand-canyon-water-desert-city-return

As part of the 20th anniversary of my 2006 world journey, this series explores the photographs I captured along the way — the moments, the places, and the stories behind the images now available on my website or by request.

From West to East

Flying into New York always feels like entering a different kind of gravity. After days spent in the vast openness of the American Southwest, the landscape suddenly tightens — streets, houses, waterways, and neighbourhoods packed together in a way that only this city can manage.

As we descended toward JFK, the Shellbank Basin Canal came into view, a neat ribbon of water threading through Queens. It was a small detail, but it marked the moment the trip shifted from wide‑open spaces to dense, urban life.

From above, the neighbourhoods around the canal looked almost like a model city — tight grids, narrow streets, and rows of houses pressed up against the water. It was the kind of view you only get for a few seconds on approach, but it captured something essential about New York: even its quiet corners feel full of life.

First Night — Times Square in Full Glow

We were staying just around the corner at what was then the Milford Plaza, so naturally our first night was spent wandering through Times Square. Even if you’ve seen it before, the first encounter always hits the same way — the lights, the noise, the sheer volume of it all. Billboards stacked on billboards, crowds moving in every direction, taxis weaving through the chaos. After the quiet of the canyon, it felt like stepping into another universe......

Read more about this post on my Substack page:

https://paulvisscherphotography.substack.com/p/new-york-city-arrival-lights-and

As part of the 20th anniversary of my 2006 world journey, this series explores the photographs I captured along the way — the moments, the places, and the stories behind the images now available on my website or by request.

This next chapter of the journey carries a very different emotional temperature. Visiting Ground Zero in 2006 wasn’t just another stop on the itinerary — it was a moment of reflection, memory, and quiet reckoning. And revisiting these images now, in 2026, as the world marks the 25th anniversary of September 11, adds another layer of weight to the experience. A quarter of a century has passed, yet the memories of that day remain as vivid and immediate as ever for those who lived through it.

My first trip to New York had been in 2002, just before the one‑year anniversary of the attacks. The city was still raw then — still processing, still surrounded by reminders of what had happened. I remember the giant void where the towers once stood, the construction fencing, the tributes, the silence. Those images were captured on 35mm film, and I’ll revisit them in a future post once I’ve scanned the negatives.

Like so many people, I remember exactly where I was when I first heard the news. In Melbourne, it was late evening on September 11 — early morning in New York. I’d gone to bed early, unaware of what was unfolding on the other side of the world. The next morning, driving to work, the radio broke the story. I still recall the exact place on my daily commute where I heard it. I had been listening to a CD for most of the journey, and only a few minutes from work I switched to the radio to catch up on the news. All they were talking about were planes striking the World Trade Center towers in New York......

Read more about this post on my Substack page:

https://paulvisscherphotography.substack.com/p/ground-zero-2006-a-place-of-memory

As part of the 20th anniversary of my 2006 world journey, this series explores the photographs I captured along the way — the moments, the places, and the stories behind the images now available on my website or by request.

Staten Island Ferry

New York greeted me with motion — not just the physical kind, but the emotional weight of a city rebuilding itself. Inside the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, a red neon ticker scrolled overhead, announcing that the reconstruction of Lower Manhattan was underway. It was a stark reminder that the city was still healing from the devastation of 9/11, even as life surged forward around me. People streamed through turnstiles, escalators hummed, and the whole space felt like a crossroads between memory and momentum.

Out on the water, a packed Staten Island ferry pushed off into the harbour, its top deck crowded with tourists leaning over the rails, eager for their first glimpse of the skyline. I watched the boat carve its way through the waves, a floating balcony of anticipation. Moments later, I found myself on my own ferry, the wind sharp, the city receding behind us.

Then came one of my favourite frames from the entire trip: an American flag snapping in the breeze, with the Statue of Liberty just visible through the haze. Two symbols layered in a single moment — freedom in the foreground, promise in the distance. It felt impossibly cinematic, the kind of image you think only exists in films until you’re standing there, watching it unfold in real time.

Read more about this post on my Substack page:

https://paulvisscherphotography.substack.com/p/new-york-city-landmarks-symbols-and

As part of the 20th anniversary of my 2006 world journey, this series explores the photographs I captured along the way — the moments, the places, and the stories behind the images now available on my website or by request.

New York has a way of lingering with you — not just in memory, but in the body. It’s a city that moves at its own frequency, and after a week of walking, watching, absorbing, and being swallowed whole by it, I could feel that rhythm settling into my bones. These final hours in Manhattan weren’t about chasing sights anymore. They were about letting the city reveal itself in the quiet moments between the obvious ones.

What remained were fragments — murals, towers, reflections, vantage points, and the feeling of being suspended between the familiar and the unknown. These last twelve frames became a kind of farewell letter.

The City as Canvas

One of the things I loved most about New York in 2006 was how unapologetically it used its walls. Entire facades became billboards, murals, or cultural statements. The DKNY wall — iconic even then — felt like a distilled version of the city: bold, graphic, impossible to ignore. Nearby, other buildings carried their own visual stories, layered like the city’s history itself.

Read more about this post on my Substack page:

https://paulvisscherphotography.substack.com/p/new-york-city-the-last-glimpses-before

As part of the 20th anniversary of my 2006 world journey, this series explores the photographs I captured along the way — the moments, the places, and the stories behind the images now available on my website or by request.

There’s a particular kind of tired that only comes from an overnight transatlantic flight — the mix of excitement, disorientation, and that strange second wind that kicks in the moment you step into a new city. London was our first stop after leaving New York, and even through the fog of jet lag, the city felt instantly alive. It was as if the energy of eight million people seeped straight into our bloodstream.

I’d been to London before — in 1994, 1999, and again in 2002 — but this arrival felt different. Maybe it was the momentum of the trip, maybe the nostalgia of returning to a city that had quietly become familiar, or maybe just the thrill of seeing it again after crossing the Atlantic. But there was something else too: this was my first time photographing London in the digital age.

On those earlier trips, I carried my old faithful Minolta 35mm SLR, the camera that shaped so much of my early travel photography. But in 2006, slung over my shoulder was my Nikon D200 — a camera that would become a brilliant and reliable companion for many years. It felt like stepping into London with new eyes, and a new way of capturing it.

We dropped our bags, splashed some water on our faces, and headed straight out the door. No plan. No itinerary. Just the simple joy of rediscovering a city I’d visited three times before — this time with a digital sensor ready to soak up every moment.

Read more about this post on my Substack page:

https://paulvisscherphotography.substack.com/p/london-first-steps-after-crossing