I always go off on my Bhutan photo tours with the best intentions to write Blog entries as I travel with new images daily. Occasionally it works out as planned and I put up the odd entry as I travel… Not this time, not even one entry. I think this was a result of pretty hopeless internet, and a tour group who were so enthusiastic to do and see everything that I was run ragged every day. By the time we were finished for the evening it was all I could do to drag myself to bed!
I also embarrassed to say that I have barely looked at my images from that trip, again as a result of too little time, or at least the desire to sleep during whatever time I had.
This image is of two of my Bhutanese guides, Tshering (on the right) and Kezang, having a laugh with some local kids at the festival in Ura Valley, it’s a candid shot facing away from the action of the dancers at the festival. Shot on a Nikon D810 and the 24-70mm f2.8 lens
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 »
Kirkjufellsfoss on the Snæfellsnes Peninsula in Iceland has got to be perhaps the most ideal of landscapes, it’s a landscape photographers dream location. First there is the mountain, Kirkjufell, which from this angle has a lovely alluring shape, especially with a sprinkling of snow on it. Then there is a beautiful glacial river and waterfall that runs right past it, and then from the waterfall to Kirkjufell you are facing roughly North-West, which is ideal for dawn colours in clouds. The trick is to be prepared for those random rain showers, snow flurries and near cyclonic winds, but it’s ok, it doesn’t seem to last very long so you just need to wait it out to get your shots.
This is of course the same location as the previous post, and a much earlier post from several months ago Kirkjufellsfoss at Sunrise, all three images were shot on the same morning only a few minutes apart from different spots around the scene. I’m sure there are many more possible shots at this lovely location and I’m looking forward to returning later this year with my Photographic Tour to Iceland to explore it a bit further.
This image shot on the Hasselblad H4D-60 and the 28mm lens.
The Snæfellsnes Peninsula is North of Reykjavik and seems absolutely crowded with beautiful scenery. Wild coastline, stunning waterfalls, eerily shaped mountains and lava fields, small stone churches and shaggy Icelandic horses, to name a few of the highlights. This images is shot from the small stone bridge crossing the river just above Kirkjufellsfoss (the waterfall) looking down the falls to the coast at sunrise, just as the clouds had parted and the light poured in. Just a few minutes earlier it was a different kind of pouring as it both rained then snowed on me while I waited for the dawn. Hey, not that I’m complaining, the Icelandic people have many sayings about the weather… the one that is relevant here is… “there is no bad weather, just incorrect clothing”. I had the correct clothing for a change, even my camera had a rain jacket!
Shot on the Hasselblad H4D-60 with the 28mm lens.
Photographic Tour to Iceland Early Bird Special expiring soon
Hey I’ve got a couple of spots left on my Photographic Tour to Iceland in August this year, and the early bird special runs out in 3 days. It saves you about US$400 so if you are thinking of coming, now is the time to book…
Karijini National Park is one of the true gems of Western Australia, or the world really. It’s like nowhere else on Earth I have ever been, especially Hamersley Gorge, which is the place that visitors to Karijini often miss because it’s outside of the park and requires a considerable drive to get there. That’s a shame really, since I think it’s probably the most beautiful gorge in a National Park full of beautiful gorges. Hamersley Gorge is the location where the age of the rocks and the folded layers in the Earth are most pronounced and visible, it’s where I feel most strongly the brevity of human existence.
Shot on the Hasselblad H5D-50 with the 28mm lens, very early in the morning.
Yet another Icelandic waterfall, Selfoss is about 1km upriver from the massive Dettifoss on the Ölfusá river, in the North East of Iceland. From Dettifoss (previous Blog Post), I ran all the way trying to get a shot with some of that great colour still in the sky… Just made it. The landscape around these two waterfalls is almost how I imagine the moon to be, but with water, or rather as if a glacier had just passed through here. There are no trees and almost no vegetation at all in this region, just miles and miles of volcanic rock and boulders. The only greenery around is the ubiquitous Icelandic moss, that grows over the lava fields softening the landscape. It’s a place where you can really imagine yourself a million years in the past just after an Ice age, or in fact in the middle of one.
This Image of Selfoss in Iceland was shot on the Hasselblad H4D-60 with the 50mm f3.5 lens.
I think it’s time for a couple more waterfalls from Iceland, the country that has literally thousands of waterfalls! This first one is Dettifoss, the most powerful waterfall in Iceland and thus Europe. The vast volume of water and the huge drop over the edge into the ravine below means that this is a very wet place to stand, the spray from this waterfall sometimes extends hundreds of metres into the air above and around the falls. The day I took this shot I had planned this as my sunset destination, though as I had so many unscheduled stops for roadside attractions (See previous Blog posts for explanation) I barely made it. The weather had been overcast and rainy all day, which is perfect for Icelandic landscapes, but it didn’t look like I would get much of a sunset at all. Well I couldn’t actually see the sun setting, but the clouds opened up enough to allow some great colour just after sunset. The wild colours in the sky, combined with the massive waterfall and the bleak treeless landscape made for a surreal and otherworldly look to the image.
Image of Dettifoss waterfall Iceland, shot on the Hasselblad H4D-60 and the 50mm f3.5 lens… with lots of wiping of the front lens element…
