Delhi to Ladakh rejoiced (H series)

[zoossh]

#50

such small people, such big flagpole. such small trees, such big mountains. scale of comparison as shown, taken from diskrit monastery in nubra valley. it is such a pity that we are being told while we stayed at hunder that diskret monastery had horn blowing for their morning prayers, and that morning all of us pulled ourselves up, but our driver came late.... so we are beating with time to see if we can still make it.... when we arrived, struggled to walk up the monastery but to hear from one of the monks there that all the monks in diskrit had already gone off to hunder for some special meeting and that is where we came from...fortunately we are still allowed to enter the monastery by the only two monks who stayed back to guard the fortress.

 

[DinoSG]

haha...i am still very new to photography as compared to you..lots to learn from you...to me, your photos are too good..my only comment is WOW...each of them is so nice..so i got to work hard and learn from all the seniors here..

 

[zoossh]

haha...i am still very new to photography as compared to you..lots to learn from you...to me, your photos are too good..my only comment is WOW...each of them is so nice..so i got to work hard and learn from all the seniors here..

there are many starting a little later, but who now shoot much better than me. dun worry, the curve is fast and 1-2 years pass very fast. some diligent guys with a little talent just take a couple of months.

now back to the slower rate of uploading, to catch up with some of my own work.

#51

a girl at spangmik. rather shy at first but obliging with a few more smiles from us. a way to make approach is to take a fast take from a further distance via a tele, show her what you have got for her. if she laughs or giggles, generally it is easier to ask permission to take at close distance, say maybe 2-5 shots. there is no hard and fast rule of approach, as different people develop different manners of approach depending on their comfort levels. in a place that having photos taken is a pleasure more than an intrusion for them, that is pleasure to me too. i'm sure different approaches need to be develop for say shots in sg or in the west, so i'm just sharing what i'm doing. i'm still learning and many times finding myself in little control and not doing things the best way they can be, many times having to learnt from mistakes, learnt from the others or to combine what is the best from each approach, sometimes trying to be more garang, sometimes trying to be more discreet. it is another big art within photography and not easily spelled out.

well, the girl is similarly featured in roy's shot. it is still very harsh lighting when we walks around, which i think is mid to late afternoon. something very very different in travel portraits and outdoor model portraits is the control we have in direction. we have the villagers who are willing to pose for us, and we try not to oblige them too much unless they are too much in the backlight and fill in is required. i'm not good with flash and decided that the side lighting is good enough and did a little shadow retrieval on processing. the sky blue color is also too saturated for me and i dull it to make a more smoothing feel in my own opinion. as can be seen, the high attitude and harsh weather have brought a roughened and tanned complexion even to a girl which i think is probably between 13-17.

 

[zoossh]

#52

in between the more decently taken shots, i would like to slot in some of the less well taken but with a better story to tell kind of shots, like what a travel mate said, sentimental shots, although that "sentimental" doesn't mean i look at the photograph, i will cry nonstop.

my first experience of printing pictures right at the spot for the streets shots. another travel mate saw a printing shop and suggested that why dun we print it out for them there and then so that we dun need to come back to sg and then to print and send to them, which is so much a hassle. so we printed in the shop and then distribute there and then.

it created a little commotion and a few other tibetan women who are a little shy at first now takes the active and eager role to ask for a shot AS WELL AS the print, and the others become more obliging (many of them are already quite obliged especially after seeing their neighbours shot on the camera LCD - now the LCD have additional value and becomes more important a specification as compared to what they are to me before).

however, the print out is not very good by our standard, with the strips of lines from the bubblejet visible like a A4 lined paper. in the end after returning to sg, i decided that since i managed to get some good shots for them which i think is deserving of better printing quality, i got them printed at Kim Tian color lab next to chinatown complex, and is pretty impressed with the prints (pls choose gloss over matt). delivered over after a month have passed. depending on weight of letter (with photos inside), each set costs me about $1.10 to $2.50 for delivery.

of cos, the below shot is a documentary shot of the printing in leh. the photos shown within the photo is again reprinted in sg.

 

[zoossh]

#53

another of the documentary kind of shot that is not so lovely in terms of colors (washout, skin hue is off, contrast too low but cannot increased without affecting details) but again tells a story.

the girl (think younger than the one in #51, probably between 12-15), who never actually seem that excited or probably not at all interested about being photographed while the aunties are lining up, as she always stand away on the side, not really looking nor showing much expression. she was one of the last to be approached, for we wanted some xiao meh meh shot after we got a little too much of the wrinkles. she obliged but is only willing to give a shy and limited smile at the last shot after 3-4 tries. actually i never tried so hard to make someone smile in front of the camera (she might have make me improve a little on my approach to subjects).

but then to our total surprise, when we are printing, she is so eager and ganjiong to get her shot that she creep slowly from the doorstep, into the shop and then slowly next to the computer, watching as the printing lab orientate the photos for printing onto the A4 size printing paper which would be hand cut into individual photos (cutting is not very straight, on top of the printing quality, the paper is also very thin).

she said something in the ladakhi language to the boss of the printing shop, and after that, i also tell the boss to process her photo first since she is so eager to get it. we all laugh... and i think she probably have already ask for that to be done... just before i said the same thing...

this lass. :bsmilie: sometimes when a women say no or dun seem interested at all, dun take it as a definite no...

 

[zoossh]

#54

landscape somewhere around magnetic hills between rizong and leh.

 

[zoossh]

#55

side profile of a tibetan dragon, nyinmapa temple at manali. which is why i say i feel a pity not having more energy to shoot still life. they are one of the easier subjects to hunt for great colors. for the hardy people they do landscape and be satisfied with few but spectacular shots (vantage does not vary much until u walk a long distance away), and on the contrary, street still life is full of little surprises, and the more foreign, the better they are.

 

[zoossh]

#56

Let's go, baby, let's go, baby, come on. The pose reminds me of this song but i googled and realise the british pop group who sang this actually named themselves Wang Chung (initially Huang Chung, yellow bell), wooo... quite unusual. now i shall try to find that "nepalese tourist song" that is played with this dance as the ladakhi prepares for a performance near shey for some important indian gov officers coming to visit.

 

[CT 3833]

#54

landscape somewhere around magnetic hills between rizong and leh.

Zoossh,
I am amazed that you made capturing such high contrast scenes like a breeze. can share how did you do it? GND? PP? or what special cam setting?

 

[zoossh]

Zoossh,
I am amazed that you made capturing such high contrast scenes like a breeze. can share how did you do it? GND? PP? or what special cam setting?

special camera..... just kidding.

the car is moving like a breeze, not me. the setting is made to freeze the frame sufficiently against the movement and bumps of the vehicle, done at the expense of depth of field and sharpness. alternatively, a slower shutter duration can be used at the concave turn of a road (like angular panning), thereby catching the far distance as fixed, and the nearer distance as blurred.... but with motion sickness aboard, this technique can be better left to the more persistent and better conditioned players.

as the jeep bumps a lot, i have to grip my arms around the edge of jeep window to dampen the movement so as to secure a framing (i dun like doing blind). it is like a cockroach or a moth clinging on a moving car against the wind. if u ask me, apart from the colors and the beauty of the subject itself, this is still a technically poorly taken shot given the shooting technique/situation. it deserves a smaller aperture both handheld or tripod, for a focus on the stupa in the foreground, and to go nearer the stone wall to increase foreground volume.

ISO 1600
Matrix (or evaluative/multi pattern) metering and EV-0.7
f/4.8 at 14mm (x1.5)
AF-S focused at the gompa in the far distance, no flash
post processed to increase contrast through selective area leveling.

 

[zoossh]

#57

my travel mates have no idea why i'm so obscessed with rapeseed flowers. but after seeing some of the very best shots from eikin, hosea and binbeto on it, i have always wanted to try it out. and in the end, it looks simple but not that simple. first of all, we are sort on in a little rush with time, which leaves little time for exploration. next is that the light then is very harsh and unexpectedly i realise how difficult it is to cope with the exposure and my settings given that the yellow flowers seem to reflect much light and that the dynamic range of the sensor is poor, so the yellow colors either get too dark for taste or start to merge together with loss of contrast when bright. thirdly is i realise how difficult it is to judge depth of field and focus accurately, and to think well about composition in a myriad of flowers. eikin has done some very good shots and selected out the fine composition of what he wants to stand out and what to be off focused. that is what i'm hoping to achieve, but not this time around. and fourthly, i start to realise what i miss out in focal length, as my lens are 10-20, 50, 80-200mm, which is a bit loopy for still life shots at close distance which would be good around 30-80mm. naturally a macro lens would be good to play around here too...

there are many such patches in saspol, and i failed to take more incorporating the houses. this is definitely a place for one to spend at least 3 hrs exploring, if not a day or two. one can consider staying over here if time is not tight. if i'm to go again, i will do that. if not, a day trip from leh would do, but one will be tempted to cover all the locations in that same round trip.

 

[CT 3833]

....

the car is moving like a breeze, not me. the setting is made to freeze the frame sufficiently against the movement and bumps of the vehicle, done at the expense of depth of field and sharpness. alternatively, a slower shutter duration can be used at the concave turn of a road (like angular panning), thereby catching the far distance as fixed, and the nearer distance as blurred.... but with motion sickness aboard, this technique can be better left to the more persistent and better conditioned players.

as the jeep bumps a lot, i have to grip my arms around the edge of jeep window to dampen the movement so as to secure a framing (i dun like doing blind). it is like a cockroach or a moth clinging on a moving car against the wind. if u ask me, apart from the colors and the beauty of the subject itself, this is still a technically poorly taken shot given the shooting technique/situation. it deserves a smaller aperture both handheld or tripod, for a focus on the stupa in the foreground, and to go nearer the stone wall to increase foreground volume.

ISO 1600
Matrix (or evaluative/multi pattern) metering and EV-0.7
f/4.8 at 14mm (x1.5)
AF-S focused at the gompa in the far distance, no flash
post processed to increase contrast through selective area leveling.

zoossh,
I didn't know it was so challenging taking this picture. I am amaze. And thanks for your effort for sharing so much of you valuable experience in great detail.

 

[zoossh]

zoossh,
I didn't know it was so challenging taking this picture. I am amaze. And thanks for your effort for sharing so much of you valuable experience in great detail.

i like to at times describe how a photo is taken...

of cos photography is just like cooking. some people just like to eat, they dun care how it is being done or what it is called. but since we are in the process of making things, be it cooking or photography, it is the subject, the process and the results that makes the whole picture complete. i feel that discussion on subject (approach) and technique is too little, and opponents of "too much gear talk" are not all in the forefront of talking about the other important components, other than asking others to "just shoot more". i like the forum to be more down to earth. there are certain things that is always better learnt on the trip, but since there are portions that can be learnt online, why waste it?

 

[zoossh]

#58

(80607 manali / 16 hadimbamata temple / format i)

ibex skull at hadimba-mata temple in manali. Hadimba is the wife of Bhima in the epic of Mahabharata.

the temple is built in 1553. it has a pagoda shaped roof and a surrounding corridor like what i saw in nepal many years ago. on this corridor that one need to take off his shoes but allowed to walk around, the walls are decorated with deer antlers and markhor horns donated by local hunters, some of which are made of wood but some are real as i read.

the one above showed a curved unbranched horn that is not corkscrew like the markhor. i went searching around and realise this is the skull of the asiatic ibex. the one further up should be a deer antler, or what we see in the chinese medicine hall - lu rong.

Every May there is a major festival at the temple where sacrifices are carried out in honour of Hadimba Devi, but i wonder what happened to the sacrifices. does the animal that is killed ends up being eaten and the skull taken for decoration, so let's not waste it... like the food we served during praying for ancestors...? would there be one day the animals can be killed in a less scary and painful way....?? cos i still remember till today the screams of the goat that was beheaded for the ceremony in nepal... though i was hiding somewhere behind so that i dun see the real scene.

 

[zoossh]

for those following the thread, here is the video roy has made and we are laughing non stop just now during the gathering.
i got to know it is made public on you tube and i have updated in the first post but since not everyone read the first post, i update here as well

Youtube video on this trip: redoxsim

 

[sigg]

for those following the thread, here is the video roy has made and we are laughing non stop just now during the gathering.
i got to know it is made public on you tube and i have updated in the first post but since not everyone read the first post, i update here as well

Youtube video on this trip: redoxsim

kewl stuff :thumbsup:

 

[zoossh]

kewl stuff :thumbsup:

you went szechuan with binbeto, didn't you... think i saw some good pictures potential for video / storyboard slideshow too - the nasi lemak act. :bsmilie:

 

[sigg]

you went szechuan with binbeto, didn't you... think i saw some good pictures potential for video / storyboard slideshow too - the nasi lemak act. :bsmilie:

yes i did.....and that trip was :thumbsup: and the same goes for your trip i'm sure, from the pic i have been admiring from afar

else we could have met today if not for something i had to attend to last minute....

nasi lemak? hmmm.....smells something fishy :think:

 

[zoossh]

yes i did.....and that trip was :thumbsup: and the same goes for your trip i'm sure, from the pic i have been admiring from afar

else we could have met today if not for something i had to attend to last minute....

nasi lemak? hmmm.....smells something fishy :think:

there is a different variety in ladakh, but the snow portion seems much better on the eastern tibetan part and the skin of the kids are also nicer... cyrn have so much good shots and i think cs is missing out on that...

 

[night86mare]

#56

i have recently been experimenting with correction of distortion in UWA for people shots on the street, etc.. for the times when you cannot avoid. have you considered stretching the photograph simply by increasing height while keeping width constant? this should correct the weirdness here. any further problematic things can be easily rectified with careful liquification.