Back at Daisy Chain Coffee /  by Matthew Nelson

If you’ve found your way to Daisy Chain Coffee, and you’re looking at purchasing a print, I can’t thank you enough.

The easiest way to purchase, is to send me the correct payment amount for the print you would like, via Venmo. Then, you can show the Daisy Chain Barista your payment confirmation, and ask them for a sticker to block out the price on the wall label/tag, and “reserve” your print purchase. Lastly, you can come back to Daisy Chain after the photo show concludes at the beginning of May, and pick up your purchase.

For any other payment methods, please contact me directly at info@nelstravels.com, and we can work out how to get you a print.

Thank you again for your support and interest!


Best regards,

Matt

"NO DESTINATION" Presented by DAISY CHAIN COFFEE /  by Matthew Nelson

[Scroll Down for Instructions on how to purchase prints]

Poster Design by Fatmir Jusufi

ARTIST STATEMENT:

“To be away from home and yet to feel at home anywhere; to see the world, to be at the very center of the world, and yet to be unseen of the world, such are some of the minor pleasures of those independent, intense and impartial spirits, who do not lend themselves easily to linguistic definitions. Thus the lover of universal life moves into the crowd as though into an enormous reservoir of electricity.” –Charles Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life”

In late 2020, I resolved to experiment with traveling slowly - without a return flight, or any terminal destination to move toward. I wanted to gift myself the space and time necessary to see what my life could become. I took a one-way flight to Tirana, Albania in the summer of 2021 without any idea of when or from where I would return home. Having no end date on the calendar allowed me to focus entirely on being in the present moment, living where my feet are, and accepting fate. Chance encounters opened up an opportunity for me to sustain myself in travel through my photography, eventually leading to assignments in ten countries. 

Traveling in an open-ended fashion enabled me to discover what I’m truly capable of. Travel also became an inward journey, as I was forced to find “home” within myself. After two and a half years, I feel fortunate to be able to showcase some of the work from these travels in my hometown.

“No Destination” is about living in the present, focusing on the journey, and seeing through the eyes of a traveler no matter where your path may lead. I hope it can also serve as an inspiration to others who are feeling a call to travel, a desire to see what lies beyond our screens and self-determined bounds, or to seek out an entirely different way of living one’s life.

*The latest edition of this show features four new images, plus a remix by by painter, muralist, and Des Moines resident, Kuperman Draws.

I want to thank Daisy Chain Coffee for presenting this exhibition.

-M

“Travel is at it’s most rewarding when it ceases to be at reaching a particular destination, and becomes indistinguishable from living your life.” Paul Theroux, ‘Ghost Train to the Eastern Star’

Purchasing Prints?

For those of you at Daisy Chain Coffee - you can order one of my Photographs in one of two ways…

1) You can purchase via my Venmo code (see below) -

Just enter the price on the wall, and add a note with the number of the print you are purchasing, and send the funds. Then you can ask the staff at Daisy Chain for a sticker to block off the price of the image you purchased. You can pick up the photo at Daisy Chain once the show has concluded in February.

Venmo: @matthew-nelson-38

2) You can also just order the print on my online store: HERE

If you do this, you can pay to have the print shipped/delivered to your door. Or you can use promo code “DAISYCHAIN” if you would prefer to pick up the print in person, and nullify the shipping charge (which is automatically applied on my site - so be sure to use the code if you are picking up at Daisy Chain in person).

With this method, the store will collect all of the relevant selection and contact information so I can get a hold of you. You can also pay by credit card this way.

Also - please be sure to get a sticker from the staff at Daisy Chain to block off the price tag of the print you have purchased.

ONLINE STORE

Ladakh, India | REMIXED by Kuperman Draws aka Jacob Kuperman

Pisang, Nepal

Paris, France

Paris, France

Sultan Ghari, New Delhi, India

Things We Can Learn from Bears: Visiting the Bear Sanctuary in Prishtina, Kosovo /  by Matthew Nelson

Kassandra — Photo by Taulant Hoxha, Bear Sanctuary Prishtina

“This is Ero, he’s our biggest bear here, weighing over 350 kilos,” says Taulant. I watch as a massive brown creature on the other side of the fence paces back and forth with stolid determination a consistent line of about 6 meters.

“Why is he pacing like that?” I ask. Taulant explains that some of these bears had lived in cages for so long, that they got used to the limited space in which to roam, and developed a stereotypical behavior. They had been walking in circles or pacing back and forth in a small line to the point where the habit became hard to break, even in such a spacious sanctuary. He then adds, “Also, they know it’s mealtime as they can hear the tractor that brings their food.” Watching Ero move back and forth, I think of how easy it is for past habits and traumas to constrain us in the present, despite the increased amount of space and freedom we supposedly have at our disposal.

Taulant at Bear Sanctuary Prishtina — Photo by author

Taulant is showing me around the serene wooded hill complex that is Bear Sanctuary Prishtina, where he is the Tourism Development Manager. We had first met two years ago while scouting out High Scardus Trail, an emerging sustainable adventure-trekking destination that crosses three countries in the Western Balkans, starting in Kosovo.

When I ask him about the impact of his work here, he shares that some people misunderstand the significance of their work with the bears, against the backdrop of the complex myriad of challenges Kosovo faces as a newborn, developing nation. Taulant explains, “They ask, ‘What have you [Bear Sanctuary] accomplished here in ten years?’ and while the fact that no more bears in this country live in cages isn’t exactly a wow moment, for me, it is quite significant to have Kosovo recognized as doing something good in this space, in a multilayered system of problems, to also have some positive changes.” It also happens that the Sanctuary is one of Kosovo’s main draws for international visitors, as it is often visited by animal and conservation activists.

Anik and Mali — Photo by Taulant Hoxha, Bear Sanctuary Prishtina

Taulant believes that it’s important to make a difference where you can, and even better if it opens an opportunity for Kosovo to be recognized for something good, a challenge to the preexisting narrative of conflict. [Over my years of travels here, when I talk to friends and family back home, they always ask how safe I feel in Kosovo. My answer is always that I feel much safer here than I do even in the US.] As we walk through the wooded hills of the Bear Sanctuary and discuss the implications of recent clashes near the northern border with Serbia, we often come back to the importance of making small progress every day. The only way to make progress on complex issues is to stop arguing about them and start making actual progress.

Taulant guiding a mountain expedition in his native Sharr Mountains — Photo by author

He tells me about the legal challenges and implications of moving wild and endangered animals across borders since Kosovo is not recognized as a UN member state. Sadly, this situation all too aptly applies to Kosovars themselves, as the geopolitical reality is that it is incredibly difficult for those holding a Kosovar passport to travel with ease outside of the immediate vicinity.

For him, an early trip to Portugal in 2012 helped to break down the mentality that Europe is a “promised land”. Being so far away from his culture, he felt isolated. While he still travels in Europe, he spends a lot of that time finding lessons or approaches he can bring back to his work in sustainable tourism. He asserts to me, “Everything I need I have here.” He agrees that the proposed visa liberalization [a chance for Kosovars to finally be able to travel more broadly in Europe without red tape] in January will do only good for the country. Like many Kosovars I’ve talked to, he echoed the sentiment that “People will go, but they will also come back.”

Ari — Photo by Taulant Hoxha, Bear Sanctuary Prishtina

Now on the topic of travel, I ask him about how his work at Bear Sanctuary complements his work as an entrepreneur and tour operator (which is the context in which I had first met him). He tells me that through all of the training and lessons learned, the combination of these paths has given him the expertise to be a leading voice in the industry. Like neighboring Albania, tourism in Kosovo has a lot of challenges when it comes to sustainability.

He elaborates: “The misunderstanding about sustainability, as having to only mean about the environment. Lots of stakeholders claim they ‘don’t have the luxury’ to have a sustainability focus, but that means that once a region or a destination is ruined after over-tourism, then there is no way to earn a living there in tourism. It’s very short-sighted. It’s a generational thing, we weren’t raised in a mentality led by vision or long-term goals.”

Taulant (R) and his friend and business partner, Arian (L) in the mountains of Albania - Photo by author

We talked about the growth of his business over the past ten years. For him, by far the biggest accolade is a mention in an article in National Geographic. Reflecting on it with pride, he reflects, “How did these boys, venturing out into the mountains in Converse shoes and school book bags — that’s all we had,” find themselves mentioned in National Geographic? The satisfaction of achieving that, to him, was priceless. Curiously, this accolade was meaningful for both of us, as the article featured photos I had taken when I had first met Taulant, near the start of his involvement in High Scardus Trail, when I was first attempting to break into travel photography.

Photo by author

His colleagues are often impressed with his ability to come back on Mondays energized for work, despite having led explorers into his native Sharr mountains over the weekend. And it’s due to the balance between his two roles: a dynamic environment at the Sanctuary means for him that every day is different, and he enjoys the ability to go out onto the grounds several times a week to photograph and spend time with the animals. On our walk, he recounted many things he has learned over the past five years about their personalities and behavioral patterns. It brought to mind the shepherd I met at the end of High Scardus Trail, Naum, who even at the age of 61 felt as if he learned from his animals every day.

Taulant at Bear Sanctuary Prishtina — Photo by author

Where I find inspiration from Taulant is in his underlying motivations. The goals in his businesses have never been material — but more spiritual and personal. We talked about the desire to have a reason for being, something that motivates you beyond mere sustenance: “The moment you realize the reason why you exist, it opens up an incredible path in front of you.”

Taulant’s words stay with me as I walk the shoulder of a lonely road through village fields on my way back to Prishtina. If it weren’t for Taulant and the bears, I wouldn’t have traveled out to this secluded place; now passing flocks of sheep at dusk, and coming to a derelict petrol station from where I’ll flag down the next bus back to the capital. On my walk, I think about Taulant’s path, feeling oddly reassured that my own will continue to lead me back to Kosovo.

A village outside of the Bear Sanctuary, Kosovo — Photo by author

EXHIBITION: "NO DESTINATION" /  by Matthew Nelson

Poster Design by Fatmir Jusufi

“To be away from home and yet to feel at home anywhere; to see the world, to be at the very center of the world, and yet to be unseen of the world, such are some of the minor pleasures of those independent, intense and impartial spirits, who do not lend themselves easily to linguistic definitions. Thus the lover of universal life moves into the crowd as though into an enormous reservoir of electricity.” –Charles Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life”

In late 2020, I resolved to experiment with traveling slowly - without a return flight, or any terminal destination to move toward. I wanted to gift myself the space and time necessary to see what my life could become. I took a one-way flight to Tirana, Albania in the summer of 2021 without any idea of when or from where I would return home. Having no end date on the calendar allowed me to focus entirely on being in the present moment, living where my feet are, and accepting fate. Chance encounters opened up an opportunity for me to sustain myself in travel through my photography, eventually leading to assignments in ten countries. 

Traveling in an open-ended fashion enabled me to discover what I’m truly capable of. Travel also became an inward journey, as I was forced to find “home” within myself. After two and a half years, I feel fortunate to be able to showcase some of the work from these travels in my hometown.

“No Destination” is about living in the present, focusing on the journey, and seeing through the eyes of a traveler no matter where your path may lead. I hope it can also serve as an inspiration to others who are feeling a call to travel, a desire to see what lies beyond our screens and self-determined bounds, or to seek out an entirely different way of living one’s life.


I want to thank The Lift for presenting this exhibition.

-M

“Travel is at it’s most rewarding when it ceases to be at reaching a particular destination, and becomes indistinguishable from living your life.” Paul Theroux, ‘Ghost Train to the Eastern Star’

Poster design by Fatmir Jusufi

Opening Night:

Friday, 1 December 2023

The Lift

222 4th St,

Des Moines, IA 50309

Piran, Adriatic Coast of Slovenia / Shot on 35mm Film / 2022

“City of Pilgrims” / Pushkar, Rajasthan, India / 2023

“City of Pilgrims II” / Nashik, Maharashtra, India / 2023

Ladakh, India / 2022

Brod, Kosovo / 2021

“No Shoes” / Tangier, Morocco / 2021

Lofoten Islands, Norway / 2019

Delhi Boys / Mehrauli, New Delhi, India / Shot on a vintage 35mm film camera / 2022

A selection from “Everyday Ephemera” / Grand Mosque, Prishtina, Kosovo / 2023

A selection from “Everyday Ephemera” / Prishtina, Kosovo / 2023

“Higher Kingdom” / Langtang Lirung, seen from Kyanjin Ri, Nepal / 2023

Mehrauli, New Delhi, India / 2023

“Fishtail Dawn” / Machapuchhare, Nepal / 2021

“Samsara” / Chiwang Monastery, Solokhumbu, Nepal / 2021

Mehrauli, New Delhi, India / shot on a vintage 35mm film camera / 2022

Khumbu, Nepal / 2021

Lost in Ladakh, North India / Shot on a vintage 35mm film camera / Somewhere in the mountains with a stranded bus / 2022

Poster Design by Fatmir Jusufi



July 2023: Back to High Scardus Trail /  by Matthew Nelson

My main project for this summer was to return to High Scardus Trail on a press trip organized by a joint Nepali and Norwegian owned company called Ethical Travel Portal.

I joined this time not only as a photographer but as a storyteller, and I’m excited to share that a number of articles I have written since will be coming out from my days in these mountains. This region is especially meaningful to me, as it was where I kindof got my start as a travel photographer and writer, and so it was a wonderful opportunity to come back to this trail in a different season, on stages I had not yet seen all with new companions.

This first one went live last week, about an English speaking philosopher shepherd I spent some time with after our trip had concluded: https://resonate.travel/the-philosopher-shepherd-of-ohrid/

(or click the image below to link to the piece)

If you enjoyed what you just read, please consider subscribing to the email list, for updates on new writing. Thanks for reading, M.

- Pristina, Kosovo 07/24/23

Naum, near Velestovo

May 2023: Featured in National Geographic | High Scardus Trail /  by Matthew Nelson

My second appearance in National Geographic is with the US branch this time, in a digital story written by my friend Siobhan Warwicker about High Scardus Trail, which was my first “official” travel photography assignment, back in September of 2021.

//

After my visit to High Scardus, I wrote a blog post for Trail Angels (Austria) on my experience. To save you some time digging through the archives, you can view that here.

March 2023: Published in Australia, and the UK /  by Matthew Nelson

A couple of my related articles have been published recently in online magazines in the UK and Australia, related to the expedition I photographed in Ladakh in October 2022.

For Australia, I wrote about the expedition for Get Lost! an independent magazine that inspires adventure travel.

And in The UK, I wrote a piece focused more on the impact of the expedition for For Good, a nonprofit magazine that explores ethical and sustainable travel.

November '22 | Croatian, Indian blog appearances | Photography /  by Matthew Nelson

It’s always exciting to see my work on other platforms around the world (especially when included in articles written in languages other than English). A couple of instances where I was published recently include:

In September, my photos appeared in a Croatian blog post that promoted a leg of the ‘Amazon of Europe bike trail’ that passes through Koprivnica County, Northern Croatia.

In November, my photos from an October FairTrails expedition in Ladakh, India, appeared in the blog of Global Himalayan Expedition.

M.

- Gurgaon, India. 11/10/2022


Meaning of 'Mearcstapa' /  by Matthew Nelson

I paused to catch my breath and glanced up the mountainside after hearing the far-off clanging of bells. High above, a shepherd was grazing a flock of sheep that at this distance looked like ants swarming across the grey-green mountain spur. I could easily differentiate between sheep and the strapping, mountain sheepdogs that guarded the perimeters of the flock. They patrolled a shifting, invisible line; the uninvited crossing of which was known to warrant dire consequences. Relieved to find I at least wasn’t alone, deep in Albania’s Accursed Mountains, I continued onward to the unmarked border of Montenegro, where I would continue my trek for a few more hours before dropping back down into an Albanian village to spend the night. In a few days, I would be in Kosovo, the third country that I would pass through on an unforgettable and unforgiving ten-day transnational hiking circuit called ‘The Peaks of the Balkans’. 

The Albanian Alps, seen from Theth | Peaks of the Balkans 2021

Border-crossing to me has always been an exciting affair. Although that process occurs most often at airport immigration checkpoints, which quickly lose their appeal, I’ve also crossed borders via train, bus, and ferry. These means of transit make the business much more exciting. For example, on a train, you can stay seated as the officers come through each compartment, unlike on buses, where everyone scrambles on and off the bus to wait in line at these sort-of “no man's land” border stations: shivering in the early hours while passengers chain smoke waiting for the bus to pass through the checkpoint. My favorite bus border crossing to date was into Montenegro and being post-pandemic, the nation was requiring all travelers to provide proof of vaccination upon entry. We simply stayed in our seats and passed our documents forward to the driver. As I was waiting for my passport to come back, an immigration official stepped onto the bus and barked out orders in Montenegrin. Recognizing me as an outsider, he pointed to me, and then looked down at his left arm as he drew his right hand into a fist and obnoxiously shoved it down to his left upper forearm as if he were injecting himself with an imaginary needle. He looked back at me to see if I understood his non-verbal inquiry into my vaccination status, so I nodded and exclaimed, “Da!” He turned and left the bus without examining a single passenger’s vaccination document, and shortly after that, we were speeding across the border into Montenegro.

Somewhere in Kosovo


But even better than by plane, train, or ferry, is crossing a border on foot. And better yet, doing so out in a nation’s hinterlands, far from any post or checkpoint with impolite guards to question you with suspicious eyes. The outer reaches of nations show you how arbitrary borders truly are: the capitals of Albania and Montenegro might be as different as night and day, but on their borders, I could not tell where one ends and the other begins. Even the people who live on these marches - the shepherds and villagers of either nation are often speaking the same dialect, and are more akin to each other than their countrymen in the civilized hearts of their respective nations. The only indication I occasionally saw would be an old, immovable stone marker, with the letters ‘R.P.S.S.’ engraved in brutal font into the weathered stone. ‘Republika Popullore Socialiste e Shqipërisë’ (‘The People’s Socialist Republic of Albania,’ as it was called in its days as a more or less secret country under Enver Hoxha’s communist, isolationist regime). Aside from those few markers along the Albanian frontier, only empty leagues of mountains and valleys remained stretching to every horizon.

Summer settlement for shepherds, Doberdol

It is also so much more time-consuming and challenging to traverse these frontiers on foot. In the Accursed Mountains, most villages had no cell service, creature comforts were few and far between, and food depended solely on what my host had on hand (seated at a kitchen table in Babino Polje - literally translated to “grandmother’s pasture” in Montenegrin - while watching a huge Montenegrin man who spoke no English frantically cook up sausages and noodles across the room). Periods of solitude and silence came and went as new companions joined and left the trail. At times it was physically demanding if not excruciating: pushing myself upward into difficult, occasionally exposed, terrain, often scrambling over slippery karst formations of sharp limestone. There were many times on that particular trek when a song would come to mind as I put on the miles. And more than once, a song called ‘Mearcstapa’, by Fleet Foxes. Being one of my favorite songs for a while now, I had long ago looked up its definition and found it to be an old English word, appearing only in Beowulf, in reference to monsters that dwelt on the fringe of humanity, literally translating to “mark stepper.”: “The grim spirit was called Grendel, the famous mearcstapa, he who held the marshes, fens and strongholds…” Mearcstapa is also often interpreted as “boundary crosser” or “border walker”. I loved that theme/image and found it understandable that it came back to me at a pivotal time in my life, walking this path more or less alone (which most blogs suggest not be undertaken without a guide due to route-finding challenges) just weeks before undertaking my first commissioned photography assignment abroad, scouting a new trail on the borders of Kosovo, Albania, and Macedonia. 

High Scardus Trail | 2021

That upcoming opportunity filled me with excitement, passion, and uncertainty, but ultimately life. It would be like nothing I had undertaken to date: eleven full days of photography work, being among the first to walk and photograph one of Europe’s newest hiking trails. And so these days of boundary stepping in the Accursed Mountains, camera in hand, would be my training ground for this trial to come. During the ten days on the trail, putting one foot in front of the other for mile after mile, what I came to find is that perhaps even more significant than crossing these international borders was the revelation that I was crossing boundaries within myself. I realized that the moments in life and travel that are most meaningful to me: the most inspiring, are when I’m out of my comfort zone, on the verge of some unknown, in a flow state, pushing myself as I do something I never before thought possible. Achieving that state has always seemed to usher in a period of transformation.

Photo by Cort Widlowski, 2015

I intend to keep chasing that feeling, that palpable edge of my soul/self, that inward yet outward expansion. And that’s how I arrived at my own interpretation of Mearcstapa: a search for transformation in travel, art, and life. I traveled to the point where I reached that state, and now my goal is to be able to access that anytime, anywhere, without having to go to some far corner of the world. After spending years unsure of what to choose as a pseudonym, I finally decided what resonated well enough with me to change my website and blog name.

The ideas I reached while trekking in the Balkans last fall followed a similar theme that I had picked up earlier in the spring. While struggling through Morocco during a three-month journey last year, I stumbled upon a novel by Paul Bowles called ‘Let it Come Down.’ In it, I found a passage that has struck me more than almost any other writer I’ve read recently. It goes like this: 

"At the same time he was vaguely aware of having arrived at the edge of a new period in his existence, an unexplored territory of himself through which he was going to have to pass."


And just this week, I found another connection to this idea while reading about a behavioral science study by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. In his book, Flow, he says that “The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile." This idea or state is what I’m pursuing in my travels, writing, and life. And I get the feeling that this is something that isn’t only accessed out in the wilderness. What I’m beginning to believe, is that one doesn’t have to physically travel to find these borders. I desire to explore travel as an inward as well as an outward journey. I’d love it if you’d accompany me.

If you enjoyed what you just read, please consider subscribing to the email list, for updates on new writing. Thanks for reading, M.

- Delhi, India 11/2/22

Two lines in the air

Two eyes on the pair

Mearcstapa, on an open sea

But you turn away

No falling today

No wind in the night

You're putting slack in the lines



The eyes of the sea

So easy to meet

Mearcstapa, deaf and blind like me

But the foam doesn't sing

The phone doesn't ring

So what will you find

Mearcstapa of mine?



March '22 / Published in Nat Geo Traveler /  by Matthew Nelson

I found out in early February that there was a chance for some of my photography work to be published in National Geographic Traveler Magazine, alongside an article written by my friend Siobhan, who I had met in Kathmandu, and trekked the Annapurna Circuit with in November.

After a few weeks of patiently waiting to hear back from the editors, I found that one of my photos from the Buddhism Sanctuary Trail was selected as the background of Siobhan’s one-page feature on new travel experiences available in the Himalayas. On March 8, this piece, and my photo, were published in print in the UK, in the April 2022 issue of Nat Geo Traveller. Scroll down for a closer look at the page as it appears in print.

This all came as an incredible series of fateful events and encounters.

Fate led me to meet the Trail Angels in the Balkans in September and then to have the privilege of photographing their High Scardus Trail Project.

After that, fate led my sister to book a flight to Kathmandu, which led me to do the same in order to protect her and travel alongside her. Fate would have it that she could not ultimately board her flight, and so I landed in Nepal seemingly for no reason.

From there, I abandoned a trek to Everest Base Camp due to what I had thought were Covid 19 symptoms.

My early abandonment of the trek led me to meet Siobhan upon her arrival in Kathmandu, and subsequently to befriend her as we undertook the Annapurna Circuit Trek together, where we chance met a new friend, Kevin, who would later aid me in scouting the Buddhism Sanctuary Trail for the Trail Angels in December. It is Kevin who appears in the image that was published along with Siobhan’s article, as he scans the horizon dominated by Number and Kharyolung.

I’m beyond grateful to have had this opportunity and the privilege of being published in such a prestigious magazine. It’s been an inspiring and validating moment, and I intend to keep working towards more opportunities to be published as a travel photographer.

As always, thank you for reading. Head here to subscribe to the newsletter.

And next is the same image in its original orientation: