Travels

I went to Chitwan over the weekend to catch some wildlife and spend some time with the volunteers I trained with. It was a crazy experience that began with literally the worst travel day of my life. All in all though it was a lot of fun, I got some good shots, saw some amazingly beautiful scenes, and like all horrible travel experiences I ended up with a good story.



Whitewater rafting on class III rapids, sat at the front which was so much fun. Floating through the valley was incredible. It was one of the most serene scenes I've seen. I sealed my camera away in a water proof bin so no pictures from the rafting itself. Unfortunately I swallowed a mouthful of dirty river water along the way which is the likely result of my GI problems the next day :(


So here's the travel story. I got up at 5 am to get to the bus station by 6:45. For the first leg of the journey I was schedule to be on a "tourist" bus (meaning that at least I had my own seat). 3 other volunteers I trained with were joining me. We were dropped off at the rafting site around noon and finished rafting around 3:00. We hopped onto a local bus after that to go the rest of the way to Chitwan. The local bus part means that we were crammed into a wayyyy overstuffed bus where we were in the last row along with 2 other people which made for 6 of us crammed into a tiny space along with our bags on our laps. Not to mention the bus was scorching hot with a humidity off the charts. This would all have been tolerable if the journey was actually 2 hours as scheduled but as luck would have it, a truck ahead overturned on the narrow two lane road that winds through the hills, so we were stuck for about 3 hours going no where. Finally reached Chitwan at 9:30 at night.




This girl's stare is permanently etched into my mind. Having been stopped for over an hour due to the accident, I decided to hop off the bus and walk around. I saw this girl just staring at me unblinkingly. I motioned to my camera and then at her. She didn't respond at all. As I took the photo she continued to just stare at me. The sun had gone behind the hills so the lighting was very low. This photo is going to need some post processing to crop in (didn't zoom in so I could maintain a low aperture number and minimize shake) and perhaps some brightness adjustment. The picture will never do the scene justice though.


I'm pretty sure taking photos of military posts is not encouraged to put it mildly, so I chose this more "artsy" angle that also gave me a bit of deniability if I got caught :)








This one's for you Shan. Photographer photography :P








I went elephant bathing while I was in Chitwan. It was a much needed respite from the killer heat during the day.


Ah the famous one horned rhino. Unfortunately this is the only animal I saw in Chitwan (aside from some birds). I want a shirt that says "I went to Chitwan and all I saw was a lousy rhino"



I have a lot more pictures that I want to share but uploading just these took an hour so the rest will have to wait.

Got Rupees?

The mere existence of distinct "paying" and non-paying wards surprised me. I suppose I expected it, but I didn't expect the discrepancy to be so clearly labeled. When I was passing by the ward entitled "Paying Ward," I naively asked the med student I was following what that ward was for. He looked at me confused and said he didn't understand the question. In my head, it was a section where patients pay up their fees or perhaps an odd misspelling of "pain" (believe there are some hilarious spelling mistakes here). It never crossed my mind that they would actually state the economic distinction between wards, but then again perhaps my brain is so used to the political correctness of the US that when someone simply points out the obvious inequality I can't process it.

There appear to be several distinct "levels" of general pediatric inpatient wards depending on how much one can pay. Conditions range from 12 beds stuffed into a room all the way to nice private rooms with air conditioning. Fortunately from what I've observed the doctors seem to devote the same attention to their patients regardless of which ward they belong too. I'd be interested to see outcome statistics for the various wards. Sadly, I can't imagine that having twelve sick children packed in one room without even curtains to divide them is very sanitary.

Ethical Photography

Street photography brings with it a very unique set of challenges artistically, technically and ethically. In poorer nations (but also wealthy ones), the streets are typically filled with countless numbers of poor. For a variety of reasons, tourists are told to avoid giving money to beggars (the money rarely goes directly to the beggar especially in the case of children, could be reinforcing a chemical dependency, etc). So what then of the poor who allow themselves to be photographed for money? There is little dilemma for me in the case of street performers or musicians, I always pay if I am going to photograph them. It is how they make their living, and I am paying as a sort of exchange whereby their art enriches my own. But the situation is considerably more muddled when we consider the following typical situation:

A foreign photographer is walking along the streets near a temple when a group of children rush up to him/her. It's a great scene with lots of emotion so the photographer raises his camera to snap a few pictures. The kids begin to smile and pose. After a few shots the photograph starts on his way only to be once again surrounded by the now sad faces of the children who are now asking for money.

Sure, we can exonerate the photographer of any moral guilt on the basis that when he was taking the photos, he had no idea they would ask for money, but this is a consistent pattern on the streets of a lesser developed nation so while initial ignorance is possible, a familiar pattern will soon establish itself.

After a few times of the same scenario playing out, our hypothetical photographer once again finds himself in the same situation this time knowing that the children are only posing with the end goal of money? What should he do? Our photographer cannot hide in the innocence of ignorance anymore. Some might say that he should take the photos and pay. They might argue that their "modeling" for a photo is no different from paid models in the west or that paying them is essentially the same as paying a street performer. It is a "business" transaction . But it seems intuitively ridiculous to compare poor children posing on the streets of an LDC to paid models in the west. If he pays, is he not reinforcing the same cycle of exploitation of children as beggars?

He has two other options, take the photo and not pay or simply not take the photo. There is no right answer. Personally I choose to not take the photo if I know it is only money they are after. To me, paying a child for a photo perpetuates the same cycle of exploitation of child beggars so that is not an option. Meanwhile photographing (knowing they seek money) and not paying seems exploitative on my part. Furthermore it is simply heart breaking to see the sad and sometimes even weeping eyes of the children when you refuse to give them money.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the situation.

Note: The only exception I have made is the following image which I honestly took with the sole purpose of depicting the situation:

Streets and Temples

Short post this time. Since training has started there has been very little free time to roam around. We've been doing intensive language training in the morning and touring the city in the afternoon. I think it's a combination of the heat and pace but I find myself crashing at 10.

Yesterday we visited the monkey temple in Kathmandu. Perched on one of the hills that make up the valley, the temple was constructed around 1200. It is a primarily Buddhist temple although interestingly it has statues of Hindu deities. This is because at the time there was great conflict between the Hindus and Buddhists. The king at the time sought to reduce such division by essentially creating a mixed temple.

I've been converting images into small size on my camera for upload but I recently noticed that the aspect ratio on the small size is different from the full size pics so my photos are getting cropped. In many cases the composition gets messed up b/c of the cropping. Oh well... I'll try to upload the originals if I ever find a good connection.
























Especially in tourist areas, people will pose for a photo and then ask money for it. It's a sticky ethics situation. My fellow photographer was followed for about 20 minutes after taking a picture of these kids.








At the monkey temple in Kathmandu, there are these metal scrolls that believers spin for good luck 1/20 @ f13 iso 100

Made it!

I have now been in Nepal for a little over 24 hours. The flight was smooth and uneventful expect for being able to see the peak of Everest above the clouds. Epic.

My initial impression of Kathmandu is that it is much like India. Motorcycles, bikes, cars, and people all fill the streets driving much too close to one another for comfort. Interestingly, I have not seen a single autorickshaw here which is pretty shocking. I'm staying in a tiny single room at a guesthouse/hostel. It's spartan but sufficient (haven't taken photos of it yet).

There are a bunch of volunteers here from a diverse set of backgrounds. There people from Canada, England, Scotland, Australia, and of course the US. I've found a fellow photographer buddy so at least someone here understands why I'm on the rooftop of the guesthouse at night taking photos or shooting pictures of people on the street.

It's really interesting to learn about other countries. Even though we all have English speaking backgrounds there's a lot of differences in education system, language, mannerisms, etc. I've already started picking up a mix of accents so I'll prbably come back with a mixed aussie, scottish, english accent. Perhaps I shouldn't have made fun of Laura so much...

Pictures as follows. They're small sized to 640x480 because of the slow internet. Have to use in camera processing (never thought I'd use in camera software) to resize them. Street photography is quite the challenge. Life on the streets is fast paced and you only have a fraction of a second to compose and shoot else you risk being run over by a car. I think the main part of my people photos that is lacking is closeness. Right now I'm about 5-8 ft away from people when I shoot. I need to get closer to establish more a connection with my subject. People here are generally receptive to being photographed. All it takes is a smile and a motion of the camera.


Mount Everest. The airplane window was a bit dirty so this image is probably blurry. It was epic to see the snow blowing off the peak.


Typical street in Nepal, Thamel district (main tourist area). Looks a lot like India.


Bangles at a street shop.


Kathmandu at night as shot from the roof of the guesthouse. 1 minute exposure @ f8. 200 iso. It's actually much darker in real life.


Another shot of Kathmandu. 2 min exposure @ f8 iso 100. Again it's really dark at night. Although it's a big city pretty much everything is shut down by 10 and only a few lights poke through the darkness.


Nepali schoolboy being carried home by his mom.


Shot of Darbaar square in Thamel.


One of the pagoda like temples in Darbaar square.


There are large sorta pagoda like temples rising up in the center of the squares here. Most of the locals rest in the shade under their large roofs.

Always talk to your taxi driver

Taxi cab drivers are often some of the most interesting people you'll meet. Most of the time, they're the most talkative "strangers" you'll encounter. Especially when I'm traveling I always make it a point to strike up a conversation. Today it turns out the cab driver was a big time photographer until recently. I probably learned about photography talking to this guy in the 30 min cab ride than I have from any photography book or fellow photographer. Most useful tip I learned is as follows:

*Photography jargon ahead, if not interested then skip paragraph :)* So we were talking about seeing a scene as various stops of light and he asked me if I could correctly determine the exposure of a scene without looking at a light meter to which I admitted I could not since I'm not 80 years old and all cameras for the last 20 years have had built in light meters (ok I didn't actually say the last bit). But anyways he was telling me that the way to see a scene in gradients of light and not as the details or the colors that compose the scene is to squint your eyes as much as possible so you lose all detail and everything becomes blurred. Then you start to see the scene before you in terms of the varying brightness of objects. It's a neat trick and it's an excellent way to practice seeing a scene. So why in this lovely age of light meters is it handy to be able to see in stops of light? Simple. Light meters are easily fooled by high contrast scenes. Ever been in an outdoor corridor that has light peeking through in certain areas? It's crucial to be able to "see" the difference in light of the various objects in each scene to determine the correct "middle" exposure to use.

There wasn't quite enough time for a full life story but it seems that up until just a few years ago he was a fairly successful business man and an avid photographer. It's the tough times he's fallen on that prevent him from continuing his hobby. He even lived in California for a period of time and extensively did underwater night photography. That's one of the best parts about talking to a taxi cab driver. While you generally leave with an incomplete story (or a sense of relief like the time pranay and I had an ex-felon as a cab driver), you do leave with a little piece of someone's life story.

And now that I'm done jabbering, here's some pictures from downtown Singapore. I'd strongly recommend clicking them to view them in higher resolution. Thumbnails just don't do nightscapes justice.


Shot of the Sands Hotel and Casino. This is now the premier hotel in Singapore. It's an incredible structure with a fascinating architecture featuring what is supposed to be a massive boat perched on top of 3 buildings that are shaped as waves. In the foreground you see helix bridge. Yep that's right a bridge that has an external structure of a DNA double helix :)


On the left of the photo is the Singapore opera house (affectionately named the durian after the popular local fruit it was designed to resemble). On the right is a giant ferris wheel.


Shot of the freeway and ferris wheel. There was actually some epic lightning going on in the background but I never could seem to catch it in the nearly 40 shots I took. Oh well, my quest for a good lightning photo continues.


Good look of the most popular and architecturally stunning area of downtown Singapore. The bleachers overlook a "floating" stadium where soccer matches and other events are held.



Shot from under a bridge in downtown Singapore, I rather like the symmetry and lighting.


Another shot from below a bridge in downtown. Just a different angle on a popular hangout spot.

Seoul!

You gotta love Asian countries and how tech advanced they are. Seoul airport has free internet so this blogpost comes from the land of Starcraft. Smooth flight despite having a middle seat. Fortunately the two people around me were both small people :) The awesome amount of up to date movies makes the trip go even faster.

Some random pics from Seoul airport:






Note to all the camera people out there: All the above photos were taken on a canon powershot, small but mighty :)