What are you reading?

Ryszard Kupuscinski. He wrote a number of books, one called "The Shadow of the Sun," which I just finished, and "Travels with Herodotus." He wrote in Polish and now a lot of his books are being translated into English. He has a truly poetic flair for language. Another great writer I like a lot is Simon Winchester. He wrote a book called "River at the Center of the World," about traveling the Yangtze.

Did you bring them on your recent trip to the Middle East?

I usually travel with just one book — poetry written by an author from the region I'm traveling to, because poets have a way of using words to convey the emotion of the place. So I took a book called "The Gift" by Hafiz, a Sufi poet from Shiraz in Iran. You can spend days on one poem because it's so heavy, and as you're traveling your interpretation of what the poet says changes. I find that to be illuminating.

How do these writers help you bring your own travel experiences home through writing and photography?

First of all, I think when you read great travel writers they give you such a foundation, so when you're going into a place you've never been before you're not completely ignorant. Number two, because you're learning something about that region before you go you're not just pointing out, oh that's a mosque, but that's an Umayyad mosque — it gives you a way to negotiate a foreign place and gives you some guideposts in your head. It helps make rich the experience I convey and gives you something underneath the tourist brochure level experience — for me, anyway.