Adam Saligman Photography

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Adam Saligman Photography

Nomad and photographer who aims to bring the most esoteric corners of the world to your walls. Originally from St.

As a nomad who loves traveling the world, I aim to bring beauty of some of the world’s more esoteric places to peoples’ homes. I want my experiences of awe and wonder abroad (in over 100 countries) to resonate on customers’ walls, inviting people to see, imagine, and aspire to international adventures. Louis, USA, I have worked as an educator since 2007, empowering middle school, high school, and

university students with writing skills, critical thinking skills, analytical skills, and other gifts from the humanities. I have worked in Shenzhen, China; Detroit, USA; Tokyo, Japan; Sofia, Bulgaria, and Almaty, Kazakhstan. Raw and stark landscapes, rich architecture, and strange histories inspire me the most. Composition and real colors (not altered, no significant post production) translate landscapes into dreamscapes. Travel and photography have been blessings as hobbies, and I am grateful for all the support I have in people buying prints of my work.

08/31/2026

In Palau, the most beloved activities for visitors include snorkeling, scuba diving, and swimming in a lake full of harmless jellyfish. I loved taking a small plane to fly over the gorgeous “70 Islands” formation, where mushroom-shaped islands rise out of a gorgeous, multi-colored atoll.

Mostly, I love the shadows and varying depths of these milky blue waters at high tide.

The first image of these three is now available on my website in sizes that range from 7x10 inches in an 11x14 inch matte to 24x36 inches (60x90 cm) on fine aluminum. If you want summer vibes on your wall, I don't think this one will disappoint.

https://adamsaligman.com/prints/milky-shadows/

adamsaligmanphotography 🇵🇼

08/28/2026

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am eager (and a bit sad) to open up my order form for my 13th (and final) annual calendar. My annual calendars began in 2013 as a "Christmas card" for family and friends, but expanded quickly when friends started asking for them. I took to this project because travel is something that is so important to who I am, and I rarely talk about it with people when I'm not on the road. These calendars became my platform to share the moments and experiences that became the highlights of my adventures.

These are 4 of the 13 photos in this year's calendar. I will release more before November 1st, but like in previous years, there will be some surprises, as I will not release all 13 images by November 1st.
For everyone who has ordered one of my calendars before and/or who orders one this year, thanks for your support, but an even bigger thanks for engaging in my adventures.

The deadline for ordering is November 1st.

St. Louis folk--I will NOT be vending at the John Burroughs Unique Boutique this year, so please do not look for me at the event. Please order a calendar through the link or message/call me directly.
https://docs.google.com/.../1ruIpF.../edit

06/01/2026

Welcome to Abomey, Benin. Once the capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey (from 1600-1904), Abomey faced destruction by its own king in 1892, but is on a long trajectory of resurgence, earning recognition from UNESCO as one of the most historically significant sites in West Africa. The palace, one of the few buildings that survived 1892, holds the promise of being an epic place to visit, but it’s not there yet. The UNESCO status will surely help restore more of this impressive place to such glory that it will be worth returning here. Abomey may not seem like much beyond its UNESCO site, but the classic mud brick architecture and fascinating voodoo temples make it a worthwhile visit in Benin.

Photo 1: A voodoo temple in the shape of a chameleon. My friend posted an image of this temple the day before I visited Abomey, so I asked my guide if we could visit it as well—he had no idea the temple even existed. Thankfully, we were able to find it.

Photo 2: Part of the palace’s expansive complex. I love the color. I love how the images tell stories of the kingdom’s history/past kings.

Photo 3: Three different types of mud I saw—this mud plays a crucial role in the city’s architexture.

Photo 4: Inside the voodoo temple shaped like a chameleon.

Photo 5: A “legba,” denoting a vodun (vioodoo) deity that gatekeeps access to the divine, separating the physical and spiritual realms.In West Africa legba often took the form of “virile” gods with lots of testosterone. One temple wall had a ph***ic statue actually extend from the wall.

Photo 6: A little friend who provided the cuteness during our visit to the chameleon-shaped temple.

Photo 7: The “muddy” palace again

Photo 8: Tombs

Abomey is the farthest north I made it in Benin. I will post some images of local voodoo dancing near Abomey (which will look quite different from the images I will show from the Voodoo Festival in Ouidah) soon.

05/31/2026

Here is Accra's slave castle. While I merged photos of the slave castles in Elmina and Cape Coast in with my posts about those cities, I want to slow down in Accra and give just a little bit of information about this facility.

The Portuguese came to this area around 1550, but the Danish built the original fort here around 1660, after Sweden and the Netherlands both controlled the area for little stints. While this castle was a trading port for ivory and gold, it became most infamous during the slave trade. In all of Ghana's slave castles, one can see nice rooms where the colonizers slept, including the bedroom in this post where Elizabeth Windsor (Queen Elizabeth II) slept when she visited. One then gets to see the dark, disgusting cellars in which slaves were kept to live (or die) in their own excrement, mostly starved, beaten, and worse (especially for female slaves, I won't go into specifics here, though). Eventually, survivors of this imprisonment, emotionally and physically broken, would pass through the "door of no return" (you can see the photo of the door on the beach) to board ships that would begin their long journey overseas.

In recent years, Ghana has been a leader in spreading "Pan-Africanism" as a cultural movement while promoting opportunities for descendants of the slave trade to return to Ghana and walk right back through that "door of no return," taking a grim reminder of a brutal past and molding it into a beacon of optimism. I like the message this sends, and I admire the sheer resilience of owning one's past and rebranding it accordingly.

05/30/2026

Jamestown is a historic district in Accra, the bustling capital of Ghana. Originally a fishing town, Jamestown saw lots of economic investment when the British moved the capital of the "Gold Coast" colony (what is now Ghana) from Cape Coast to Accra in 1876. The lighthouse and many classic buildings show what Jamestown once was and was intended to be. Now, disrepair and poverty indicate a harsh reality, but energetic citizens and idealistic nonprofits (in tourism, education, and infrastructure) highlight an infectious, optimistic resolve to build a good future from a traumatic past.

In these photos, I show the old lighthouse juxtaposed with a slum (I avoided taking photos of the harshest poverty, as I had no desire to exploit people, and locals find unsolicited photography rude). I also show some old school buildings with professional graffiti and street art that highlight national pride in Ghana, elevating it past its colonial and slave-trading past. Lastly, I show a local school aimed at getting kids off the street and giving them an international education, and the fishing port.

Fishing boats may venture all the way across the coasts of Ghana, Togo, and Benin into Nigerian waters to catch fish, due to overfishing. In the other direction, some boats will sail as far as Côte d'Ivoire, and possibly to Guinea to catch fish.

There is a China Aid facility in this area at the waterfront, but photography of it or any sign affiliated with it is strictly forbidden, and our local guides compared what this office does to 19th-century colonialism. No one was able to/willing to give me an objective description of what it is they actually do in Accra.

05/29/2026

Some views from Cape Coast, Ghana! These images include the Cape Coast Slave Castle, a lookout tower atop the city that I would not recommend walking to alone, the beach near the hotel I stayed at, and various other sights.

Prints are available of any image you see here, on this page, or on my website (adamsaligman.com). Please feel free to DM me or leave a comment if you have any questions.

03/30/2026

Some photos from wandering around Elmina, Ghana on a nice January morning.

I quite enjoyed Elmina, it's a cool town located a very short distance from Cape Coast, Ghana.

03/28/2026

In and around the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire. 🇨🇮

Many geography buffs may be inclined to say that St. Peter’s Basilica, which takes up a substantial portion of the world’s smallest country (Holy See, also known as Vatican City), is the largest Catholic church in the world. They’d be wrong. This absolute beast of a church proved that when measuring the size of churches, the one in Côte d’Ivoire, completed in 1990, is bigger. The Vatican was apparently reluctant to consecrate it, citing that the local government wasn’t using its resources wisely—implying that vanity may have helped inspire this massive project (an accusation which makes me chuckle). Pope John Paul II eventually relented, and the consecration happened when the local government built a hospital nearby. 🇨🇮 🇨🇮

03/25/2026

This year I tried to visit a famous Sudano-Sahelian mud mosque in Burkina Faso, but a (reciprocal) travel ban prevented that from happening in January. Undeterred, I planned a visit to 3 famous mud mosques in Ivory Coast in March. I only got to one of those three, sadly, but thankfully, it was the best one, and the ultimate bonus is that I got to share the experience with my travel buddy Emma.

Pictured here is the Grand Mosque of Kong, situated in the far north of Ivory Coast. The other picture we see is a much smaller, "cuter," mosque adjacent to it. The larger one was probably built in the 17th century, but was damaged/destroyed and rebuilt several times. It is now a UNESCO site and a beautiful glimpse into the cultural heritage of Western Africa.

03/18/2026

"Walking the Horizon" in Kakum National Park (near Cape Coast), Ghana.

A short drive from Cape Coast, Ghana, Kakum National Park stands out as one of the nation’s top attractions. While the park itself boasts a wide diversity of wildlife, including rarely seen elephants, monkeys, and many species of birds, the Canopy Walkway is the highlight. Seven suspension bridges offer a view of the forest from atop, quite unlike a typical “walk in the woods.”

Can you see my shadow in the second photo? Which one do you prefer?

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