Bonus Shot: Man in Manali

Thank you to everyone who voted in the best shot of the India trip poll. The three images receiving votes were the three shots I would've called my favorite.

I hadn't planned to post any more shots from the trip, but this one isn't a bad shot, and I haven't had time yet to get out to shoot since returning to the U.S. Additionally, I'm out of town all next week, so this could be the only shot that gets posted for a while.

Last shot from India: Home in Tingriti

This home, fairly extravagant by Himalayan standards, was on the road that I ran and hiked on each morning from our Tingriti camp. On this day, I had actually hiked here in hopes of catching morning light on the town, which is behind me in this picture. Unfortunately, the light didn't cooperate. It was too cloudy to get the picture that I wanted, and having already hiked 35 minutes up the road, I decided to try to salvage the trip by finding something else to shoot. Mostly I just post it because I haven't posted any pictures of homes, here or on my other blog. This one has no shock value, since it was probably the nicest home I saw in India, which is probably best.

This will be the last picture I'll post from the trip. As I said before I began the blog slideshow, I'm not in love with the collection as a whole, but there were a few solid shots amongst the 10-12 I've posted. I've posted a poll question asking you to identify your favorite shot from the trip. I'll be interested in your feedback.

Lahauli Children

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Two for the price of one today. Like many of the pictures I've posted, this picture was taken in Tingriti, as the village's children waited for a lunch provided by our clinic. I believe that she is the granddaughter of the women featured in the first picture I posted from the trip.

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Although the shadows on this image are harsh and the background lighting distracting, I still like it. These two sisters, who lived in a tarp covered hut just above our campground in Sissu, were wonderful subjects.

Photographing people always feels like something of an invasion. I took one more shot of these sisters in better light but cut off the older girl's left foot in the image. Otherwise, it would have been a great picture. Perhaps I should've attempted a third shot, but I felt like I'd already taken more shots than I had the right to take. Take more and it would approach gawking.

Tomorrow, I'll post the last picture from the trip.

Land of the Clouds

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

For my final mountain photograph from the Himalayas, I'll post this shot taken in Tingriti. Like the picture I posted yesterday, this one has grown on me since I got home. It's a fairly simple shot taken at sunrise.

Imposing peaks

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Almost a week ago, I said that I wouldn't be posting any more images of actual mountains, but it seems like any photographable worth the price of his memory cards should be able to take a few decent mountain shots in the Himalayas. As a result, I've gone back and picked the best of the mediocre. This was the view upstream from our campground in Sissu. If I had been really committed to getting a great shot, I would've hiked 2 miles upstream one morning to get an unencumbered view of the rocky peak, but I never made it a priority.

Even so, I think that this shot gives a fairly accurate pictures of what things are like the valleys of Lahaul- massive mountains rising up from the narrow valley floor with even larger mountains behind them.

Waterfall rainbow

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

I took these pictures from our campsite in the Himalayan village of Sissu. The stunning waterfall was situated just across a roaring mountain river from our campground. I woke each morning and took pictures of the waterfall, and around 6:30 each day, the sun would hit the mist and form a rainbow.

It's hard to get a sense of scale in a picture like this, but I'd estimate the waterfall as a 200-foot sheer drop. We hiked to the base of it our first evening in camp.

Lush Middle Himalayan Ridge

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

As much as I loved the middle Himalayas, I only took a single picture there that I'm willing to post on this blog. Being on the wet side of the mountains, this range gets a lot of rain- hence, the lush green ferns in this picture. Unfortunately, that means a lot of cloudy skies, especially in monsoon season. Typically, the mountain tops were hidden in the clouds, and as a result, my pictures there were pretty disappointing.

This shot, however, I like. I'd been wanting to take a picture of a soft ridgeline that curves out of one's field of view, with sky overhead. The ferns and tree provided very good subjects to feature, and the break in the clouds was critical.

The sunlight makes for some harsh shadows, but my options were limited. I took this picture in the middle of a nine hour hike, and I didn't have time to hang out in hope of catching better light. And even if I had, the odds of keeping any blue sky in the background would've been slim to none.

Fence in Tingriti

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

While stone walls are common throughout the Himalayas, barbed wire fences are relatively rare. This fence marked the boundary of the government-built but vacant hospital in Tingriti, and I suspect the choice of material represents the preference of the downstate government rather than local custom.

In any case, I like the image. There are nice leading lines, and I like using short depths of field on repetitive structures like this one. In that regard, it's a bit like the picture I took of steps in Portland. On the other hand, the fatal flaw of this shot is that I cut off the post that is the subject of the picture.

Himalayan Cactus

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

Our arrival in Sissu happened to coincide with the blooming of the Himalayan summer cactus. One morning, I spent 45 minutes photographing these impressive flowers. The plant itself is actually kind of strangly and not particularly attractive, but up close the blooms are quite beautiful.

Taking the shot was difficult because there is so much that has to be kept in focus here. A long depth of field (i.e. small aperture) is a must, because an out of focus spike really detracts from the image. Unfortunately, the single greatest limitation of my camera is that it's smallest aperture setting is F8, which normally would be only medium depth of field.

The one real unfortunate thing about taking a picture of cactus is that you tend to be in the desert. I'd prefer something other than the bland grayish background, but these things grow in sand, and the flower faces up. Hence, you've got to shoot from above onto the sand. There's no good way around it without throwing something in as false background, which perhaps I should've considered.

Doors in Tingriti

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

I took this shot in the remote village of Tingriti. It has been certified as Stephanie's favorite shot of the trip.

Often, especially when I'm rushed, I get stuck with the picture that I took rather than the picture that I wanted. By that, I mean that I see something when I look at the subject, and then the challenge is to set the exposure appropriately, frame it the right way, wait for the right light, etc. Here, I'm pretty happy with the technical aspects of the shot. I like the lighting, I like the framing, and because the subject is mostly gray, metering was easy and the exposure was exactly what I wanted.

Himalayan Sunrise

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

In a series of photos taken during a visit to the Himalayas, one expects to see a lot of pictures of mountains. After all, it's the world's grandest range.

But in fact, this may be the only landscape photo I'll post on this blog. My attempts to take pictures from our campsites and clinic locations proved largely frustrating. I may change my mind a few weeks from now, but as of today, this is the only picture I like where the mountains are featured prominently. Even then, the real subject here is the sky.

I took the shot just after 5:00 AM at our campsite in Tingriti. I purposefully underexposed the shot both to make the morning sky dark blue and to give the silhouette appearance to the mountains. The effect that exposure had on the clouds was really unintended, but I think it makes the shot.

Elder woman in Tingriti

Copyright Nathan Montgomery, 2008

In the many entries from my medical expedition to India on my other blog, I've mentioned that I wasn't thrilled with the opportunities I got for photography on the trip. I simply didn't get the chance to devote the time necessary to take thoughtful images. That said, I'm not too proud to post the best shots I did take, even if they aren't as good as I hoped they'd be. This may be my favorite image from the trip. I took this picture at Tingriti, a very remote village in the Himalayas. This woman and a child who I presume was her grand daughter were among my favorite subjects during the trip. I captured this shot just after a meal that our organization provided to the villagers.