Adam Monk Photo Tours & Images Gallery

I’m in a hotel in Bangkok on my way to Bhutan for this months 15 day photo tour to Bhutan.  Got to get up at 3am tomorrow morning for the flight to Paro which should take about 4.5 hours, including the stop at Guwahati airport in India.  Last time we got stuck on the runway in India for about 6 hours waiting for the fog to lift from the Paro Valley so the pilot could see the runway and not actually crash into the mountains.

It’s certainly an exciting descent, going through 3 valleys with the edges of the cliffs brushing the wingtips… Not the sort of thing you would want to do if the valleys are filled with dense fog!  Anyway, the 6 hours on the runway turned out to be very interesting as we were in the plane with about half the government of Bhutan (in economy class), who seemed to be a lovely humble bunch who were more than happy to chat to the wide eyed curious foreigners about the working of their little Himalayan country.

I can’t say I’m actually hoping it will happen again, 6 hours in sweltering Assam province of India in a metal tube in the baking sun with no A/C was not something I am keen to repeat, but still, sometimes the most amazing things can come out of trying circumstances.

What does all this have to do with the image I am posting?  Nothing really, other than it was shot in Bhutan and I am on my way there now…

The image is actually of a young novice Monk studying his lessons in the tenuous warmth of the early morning sun at the Gangtey Goemba, a tiny Monastery in Central Bhutan in the Phobjikha Valley

I was going to put up a post this morning saying Bhutan Photo tour for November has only 3 places left (from a total of 10)…  But that was before I got to work.  After arriving at work my Bhutan Photo Tour for November 2015 is completely full!

Bhutan Photo Tour 2016 Dates soon

I will be headed to Bhutan in a couple of weeks and one of my objectives while I am there will be to research locations and festivals for the 2016 tours, so keep an eye on the blog.  If you would like to be on the early notification list you can send me an email at: am@adammonk.com

I wonder if the views I found so spectacular in Iceland are so spectacular to an Icelandic resident who grew up there, or is it just that it’s so different to where I am from that makes Iceland so unique to me?  I wonder if I will ever truly know the answer to this question, and in fact if it actually matters?

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Spa Pool Hamersley Gorge, Karijini National Park

This image was shot on my last trip to the Pilbara in the middle of last year, Spa Pool is a small rock pool (about the size of a big spa) in Hamersley Gorge which is part of Karijini National Park.  A lot of visitors to the park skip Hamersley Gorge since you have to drive quite a way outside the park to get there.  It looks inviting doesn’t it?  Like it would be nice to sit in, as the name suggests?  I have seen people swim in Spa Pool… Briefly. It’s very very cold.

This image was shot in the early pre-sunrise light of dawn, so there was no sunlight bouncing around causing havoc with the shadows.  At that time of day the light is still directional as the eastern part of the sky (where the sun is about to rise) Read the rest of this entry »

I’m selling my Epson Stylus Pro 4900 photographic printer.  It’s the A2+ (43cm or 17″ wide) desktop model in Epson’s 900 series printers, and is the top of the range with 11 colours (including mat black and photo black), paper tray up to A2 size, roll feed and rear flat feed for heavy media.
The printer still running on 10 out 11 of the original first charge cartridges.  It comes with an additional full set of 11 200ml Epson Ink cartridges (one has just gone into the printer), and 4 extra 200ml cartridges, so 15 extra 200ml Epson ink cartridges.

UPDATE

I’ve sold the 4900, thanks for all your interest folks.