Journal

Notes on photographing Bali

Longer pieces about working in Bali — where, when, and what the calendar is doing.

• The Balinese ceremony calendar, and why it matters if you photograph Bali

  How the 210-day pawukon and lunar saka calendars decide when Balinese ceremonies happen, and how to use them to photograph Bali beyond the festivals everyone already shoots.

• Photographing Karangasem: the east Bali most visitors drive past

  A working guide to photographing Karangasem in east Bali — the water palaces, Amlapura, the black sand coast and the inland villages, with light, timing and temple etiquette.

• Denpasar street photography: the city visitors only see from the airport road

  Denpasar is a city of a million people and the least photographed place in Bali. The markets, the quarters, the hours that work, and how to photograph it without being a nuisance.

• Photographing Bali in the wet season

  The Bali wet season runs November to March and almost every photography tour avoids it. For photographing people rather than landscape, that is a mistake.

• Singaraja and the north coast: the Bali that was the capital

  Singaraja ran Bali for a century and almost nobody photographs it. The old port, Pasar Anyar, Lovina at dawn, and a north coast with a different history to the south.

• Munduk and the highlands: photographing Bali inside a cloud

  Munduk sits at 800m in cloud, coffee and clove country. The crater lakes, the plantation villages, and why highland weather is a collaborator rather than a problem.

• The best time of year to photograph Bali

  Dry season, wet season, the ceremonial calendar and the tourist calendar — a month-by-month guide to when to photograph Bali, and which of those actually matters.

• Photographing Balinese ceremonies without being a nuisance

  Balinese ceremonies are unusually open to photographers, which is exactly the problem. The actual rules, how to ask, cremations, and why a long lens is the wrong instinct.