Hi. I’m Michael Robert Powell from New Zealand – a wanderer without fixed plans, living out of a backpack and traveling the world alone, since 1988 (age 21).
I’ve explored 100+ countries & territories and today I continue this minimalist, global-nomadic existence in pursuit of knowledge, fun and freedom.
Driven by the desire to see the beauty of the world – landscapes, monuments, nature, different cultures – I travel the planet, continuously.
I have been taking photographs of my travels since the first day but my output and interest really switched on in 2001 with the purchase of my first digital camera and some photo-editing software.
I am a traveler that likes to take pictures … But I don’t hunt for images or go out of my way to make the best shot; simply, I act on spontaneity and photograph whatever I come across and in whatever light as I travel the day.
I like to think that I draw with the camera and paint with the computer.
Sometimes I leave my color images as shot, other times I convert them to Black & white. Other times I oversaturate colors, or mix them up way too surreal. Still other impulses have them cut up – reborn within a collage or montage to make new art. But however I “produce” my travel images, I am always going for my take on the scene. And sometimes, that has nothing to do with the purist conventions of travel photography. I make my own reality; this is how I see the world …
