Here is a behind-the-scenes of my shoot last week in Kyiv with dancer Iana Komarnytska and make up artist @anja_barsa for My Inner Dancer. We were doing a cool boho style shoot and it got me thinking about traveling to different countries and what can be learned if we pay attention. Take Kyiv for example. The city has some beautiful studios, of all kinds. I’m always very impressed with the caliber of photographers, models, and make up artists here. Maybe struggle forces you to strive for excellence. Maybe it’s something in the water. Or genes. Who knows?

But the cool thing of seeing how folks in distant lands go about their lives is not in comparing what is better or worse in your particular neck of the woods, but figuring out how you can learn from them. Travel seems to be about taking a sip of all that experience, embedded in the water, the genes, the stories, the language. 
When you just compare, you rob yourself of the chance to create something new.