Latest News from Adam Monk

My Photo tour to Bhutan just seems to get more popular each year, I had six places taken before I even started promoting it, and the last 4 before I could print the flyer!  If you are interested in going to Bhutan with me at some stage and you would like to get the early notification  please just send me an email and I will put you on the early warning list.   am@adammonk.com

I will be running another Photo Tour to Bhutan in 2016, and if I have time I may even run a second tour in October/November 2015.

My Photo Tour of Bhutan for 2015 has filled up really fast, as of today I only have one place remaining…  So if you have been sitting on the fence, sit no longer.  The Tour is strictly limited to 10 people, so once I reach that number that’s it for this year

You can read all the details of the tour and download the booking form right here>

Hamersley Gorge is one of the most beautiful gorges in an already phenomenal place, Karijini National Park.  When tourists come into the gallery and say to me, “I have 2 weeks here in Australia, where should I go?”  9 times out of 10 I say, go to Karijini, and don’t skip Hamersley Gorge!

Hamersley Gorge is outside the main part of the park, and requires a drive of a couple of hours to get to, but it is so very much worth it. I was back there again a few weeks ago and after many visits it still takes my breath away.  This is the first of the new images of Hamersley Gorge from the last trip, shot with the borrowed Hasselblad H5D-50 (While my Hasselblad was visiting relatives in Europe).  It’s actually the first time I have been to the park with a digital camera…  Such a relief to not be shooting with a 6 x17 camera any more, it’s such a painful format!

Eagle Rock Pool is a magic little waterhole not far outside Newman in the Central Pilbara Region of WA.  It’s a place I had heard talk of from locals for many years, so on my recent trip to the Pilbara I thought it was time to go and have a look.

Although I have current topographical maps, and even a GPS navigator, the track to Eagle Rock Pool seemed to have vanished.  I drove past the location where the GPS told me the turn off should be 3 times, before finally concluding that the track had actually gone…  Never one to give up easily I kept going up the road a few km til I came to a fire break that ran in approximately the right direction, and turned down that.  After a few km of bone jarring driving the fire break crossed an overgrown track, which my GPS navigator told me was the one I was looking for.  So off I went.

The track bumped along in the right direction nicely for miles and miles, until I was a couple of kilometres from my destination (according to the GPS), when suddenly the track ended in a huge windrow pushed up by a bulldozer, and a railway track… That wasn’t on the map either…  Lacking other options I followed the railway track , which was headed in more or less the right direction, until I ended up at the biggest iron ore mine processing and outloading facility I have ever seen!  That was a little intimidating I must say, lots of guys in reflective vests and hard hats looking strangely at me.

After lots of discussion over two way radios, and talk of being “escorted” off the facility, a friendly bloke in a ute (wearing a reflective vest and hard hat) turned up to do the “escorting”.  Apparently that’s the rule, that although I found my way onto the site, I wasn’t allowed to find my way back out…  In case I pinch some iron ore I guess, or a big monster machine squashes me…

When I mentioned Eagle Rock Pool to my escort, he said, “Sure, I can take you there”.  So off we went, all around this enormous scar on the landscape, all red and bleeding with no trees left.

Anyway, after another half hour of driving on mine-site tracks he led me to the other end of the track I had been following in the first place, the one that had been cut off by the mining operation and the railway, and left me there to make my own way.  I arrived finally just after sunset, about 2 hours after I thought I would get there.

The next morning I went for a walk with the Hasselblad H5D-50 that I had borrowed, as my H4D-60 was in for service (in Sweden I mean) and found the below image, which makes it all worth it really.

Dates are up and I am open for bookings for my Photo Tour of Bhutan for 2015.  Each year I like to modify the nature of the tour from things I learn the previous years, so it just keeps getting better and better.  Everything from which hotels are nicer or have better food, to complete changes to times of year or itineraries.  This year I have made changes to everything!

Bhutan Photographic Tour 2015

The tour for 2015 is from April 27th to May 12th which is later in Spring than last years tour.  I have also shifted from 2 buses with 2 Bhutanese guides to 5 4WD cars and 4 guides (and me as number 5), which means we will all be a lot more comfortable with plenty of space for camera gear, lots of leg room and you can ask as many questions from the guides as you like!

Perhaps the biggest change for this next tour will be the internal flight from Paro to Bumthang in Central Bhutan, where we meet our cars, drivers and guides.  This way rather than drive out from Paro to Bumthang, then drive all the way back (there is only one road), we fly out and drive back much more slowly, with less hours spent driving per day.  This means more time meeting the locals, seeing the sights and making photographs.

Still only 10 people.

Something that hasn’t changed from last years tour to Bhutan is that it’s still strictly limited to a maximum of 10 people.  Small groups are nicer to travel with and much more personal.

If you would like to read more about next years Photographic tour to Bhutan, all the details can be found on my Bhutan Photo Tour web page, including the early bird special price that will save you $500 if you book and pay your deposit by November 30 of this year.  You can download the booking form directly off the page, or if you have more questions, you can use the contact form at the bottom of the page or give me a call.

Some more stormy moody skies from last years Bhutan Photography Tour, this time over the Chumey valley in Bumthang, Central Bhutan.  This is one of my favourite valleys in Bhutan, it is wild and open and the main road, which is the only road is a small winding one that is only 1 lane wide that meanders across the valley and then up through the passes.

I think this image is really defined by the sky and all the moody texture with sunbeams breaking through the clouds.  Imagine it with Blue cloudless skies… It really wouldn’t be a “keeper” at all like that would it?

This was shot using the Hasselblad H4D-60 and the Hasselblad HC 100mm f2.2 lens.  I shot it with the panoramic crop in mind and simply cut off the top and bottom…  Having 60 megapixels to play with is very handy!

The “small” building on the ridge with the sunlight falling on it is actually one of the King’s Palaces.  This image looks fabulous blown up big and actually featured in an international exhibition on Bhutan in Copenhagen earlier this month, as did the one from the previous post.

My next Photo Tour to Bhutan will be leaving in April 2015, dates and costings are being finalised right now and details will be up soon

This is an image I shot last year while on my Photography tour of Bhutan, I’ve been meaning to put it up for ages as I rather like it.  Really, the light makes the shot, though I guess that’s a common thing with photography.

For this image it had been raining and windy on and off all day, and this was a small break in the weather.  The clouds were moving rather fast, so the sunbeams were shifting and changing all over the place.  I took about 10 exposures on the Hasselblad H4D-60 and a 50mm lens (about the equivalent to a 32mm in full frame 35mm speak), but I liked this one the best, with the sunbeams illuminating the green field in front of the house, a little on the hill behind it and the forest on the hillside opposite.

Halls Head Beach in Mandurah with the Hasselblad H4D-60 medium format Digital camera.  Sometimes size does matter!  I took this a while ago at a beach I have been going to for many many years, this was the first time I had ever taken a camera down there… Sometimes its difficult to see what’s right in front of you…

I think Bhutan is almost unique in this modern world, in that the culture and beliefs are strong and firmly rooted in their present day society,  The Bhutanese have mobile phones and computers, they wear Nike shoes, many of them study overseas, almost everyone speaks English, yet they daily wear traditional dress, eat their traditional foods, participate and believe in their culture and festivals.  It is an amazing country with a beautiful juxtaposition of the old and the new existing side by side and rarely conflicting.

This image is of a young woman who works for the local government of Punakha, she has a few minutes before her work day begins.  She works in a 17th Century Dzong, she wears traditional Bhutanese dress and she is sending a text message on her iPhone 5…

Shot with the Fuji XPro-1 and the 35mm f1.4 lens

When I take a tour group to one of these stunning cultural festivals in Bhutan I try to remain as unobtrusive as possible, bearing in mind that this is their festival, and I am a guest.  I tend to stand quietly in one place for quite some time, on the corner of a building or off to the side of some steps, watching and when the opportunity presents making an image, like this one.

Dancers having a Tea Break at the Prakar Lhakhang Tshechu in Chumey

Not Getting in the Way

The Bhutanese are lovely friendly people and a regular occurrence when they see me standing at the back is to invite me forward (to stand in front of them) so I can see better… Now I am 180cm tall and most Bhutanese are somewhat smaller than that, so if I stand in front of them they won’t be able to see a thing.  Naturally I decline, but often that simple interaction is enough to start a conversation where I often discover that the person I am talking to studied in Australia (Engineering, science or similar), or has a brother, or sister, or Son or Grand Daughter studying there.

Image shot with the Hasselblad H4D-60 and the 100mm f2.2 lens… without getting in the way or being a nuisance.