Attention to Detail

I did a shoot in Andhra Pradesh for a development company at the beginning of July. I thought I had been hired to do interiors for finished residential projects, but I mostly shot infrastructure. I did one interior shoot in an impressive apartment of a pilot. This is his entertainment room...

One hand held speedlite in the corner pointed at the recliners

One of the things I've found frustrating here in India is getting detailed information before a shoot. It seems I go in blind even though I demand more details. And somehow an infrastructure project turned into a portrait shoot of one of the directors.


One speedlite shot through translucent lite disc in front and to
the left of the subject. One bare speedlite behind and to the left.

I am leaving Monday for a week back in Hampi and then flying to Malaysia for a week. I hopefully will have something to show from both of these trips. (My camera is being repaired by Canon India, and it's up in the air whether the camera will be finished by monday morning. They've had my 50mm lens for a month and half, so I'm becoming doubtful.)

Bidar - January 2010

While in Hyderabad in January for a job, I went to visit my friends, the Lunberrys. They took me with them to Bidar, Karnataka for a day trip to look at the bidriware artisans in this small town. I realized recently that I never touched the photographs I took that day. Here are few examples.
This fort in Bidar was built in the 14th & 15th centuries by the Bahamani Kings. It's a large fort, surrounded by 3 miles of wall.

More Photos after the break! -->>

Glad to Fly

I love to fly. Maybe it's because my dad is a pilot or its the young boy in me that can't get enough of seeing jet liners, but it's undeniable either way. That being said, I don't like being late to ALL of my flights on a trip.

Last friday, my girlfriend, er Assistant, and I left for the airport at 4am. Strangely, it took us almost half an hour to get a rickshaw. We ended up waking a sleeping rickshaw wallah and offering him a huge bonus for taking us. I get us moved past the line because of the immediacy of our impending flight, and we rush through security, getting to the gate just as they are boarding. Yes, I took longer to pack in the morning than I should have, and yes, I should have arranged for a rickshaw the night before, but we got there - barely.

Flying over Vizag, Andhra Pradesh, I was quite surprised at the beauty of the city and the surrounding landscape. The city wasn't even on my radar of places to visit, but now, someone else was paying me to be there. I'm fine with that. The beach on the Indian Ocean looked inviting and not polluted and the city itself looked worthy of a good exploration. The ad firm representative greets us as we get off the plane, and we start off on our busy three day shooting schedule.

Up till now I had received little details of what I was actually taking photos of, but I learn that todays shoot was all about infrastructure. The construction company is working on an oil refinery just outside of Vizag, and a dam project about two hours drive from the city.

They give us rubber boots to wear around the muddy construction site, but after walking for a while I develop large blisters on my sockless feet. So, I find it more comfortable to walk barefoot through the mud. I imagine that OSHA would throw a fit about the safety of me walking around barefoot on a construction site, but you got to do what you got to do.


A little bit closer now.

More Images and Story after the break!

Chapter 1: Journey to Kashmir

May 22-24



The beauty of Kashmir even before we reach the proper valley.
This was taken out of a moving van window, not ideal conditions for photography
Regretfully, I've found that I rarely do things without reason. I guess this comes naturally with my stringent reliance on logic and reason (I am an ENTP personality with close to 100% on the Thinking category). While this is not all bad and I generally relish and embrace my need for sound logic, in this particular case I wish I would operate more freely on feelings. I cannot seem to get myself to travel merely on the wind urging me to go. I sit mostly content in my unscheduled but somehow always busy life until some distinctive reason says, "Travel!" I wish I were more spontaneous. This reason can be quite large or quite small: my family visiting my eldest sister in Europe so I take a month to travel "freely" or a distant whispering, "Hey, lets go climb a mountain in Indonesia."

Rumors of a road trip to the Himalayas started spreading some time in February. Even while being wary of group travel, I said I was interested. Through the flurry of emails plans were made, changed, and changed again. At last it's time to leave, plans only partially formulated - how I prefer it. I'm taking a train, arriving in Delhi Saturday morning. Carrie flies in that afternoon and we meet her friend's empty flat. "I'm only going to be here three more months, so why bother with furniture, right?" the friend told me. Carrie and I have about 30 hours to waste in Delhi before the rest of the group arrives and we take our train north.

The first time I came to Delhi in 2007 I didn't really care for it. I do not naturally like cities, so something really has to grab me if I am going to say I like it. But now, after living in Mumbai, a city that I enjoy living in because of the amazing international cultural activity, I am impressed by New Delhi. Where Mumbai is constantly bustling, incredibly packed; the streets encroached by markets, street vendors and every possible variation of vehicles, no open space left unused; Delhi has a multitude of green parks with walking space and trees, open roads with traffic that never seems to get overly packed - at least Mumbai-every-day packed. Some of the roads even have bicycle paths separate from the motor AND foot traffic - which I enjoyed seeing the locals taking full advantage of. Bicycle shares with rentable green colored bikes sport he length of the path. I felt a sense that I could stretch out; I could breath. But the flipside is everything in New Delhi is really far apart, and haggling with rickshaw drivers makes me miss Mumbai's that automatically use the meter with no debate.

Ravi, Taylor and Cammy come from the airport to Khan Market, and after picking up kebab rolls to go, we race off to an outlying train station. Luckily it is on a metro line (Delhi has a very impressive underground metro system that is still expanding. It should be finished this summer for the Commonwealth Games. This system makes the quality of the NYC subway seem Third World). Rushing to get on our train on time, we arrive with only minutes to spare - but it doesn't leave for almost 45 minutes after the scheduled time of departure. Finally we can enjoy our kebabs. We are mostly Americans, and we are incredibly loud, joking and laughing into the night. I am glad I travel with earplugs because the large Indian man on the bunk above me has one of the loudest, most intense snores I've ever heard.

Jammu is hot. We try to find a bus to take us to Srinagar, but none of them seem up to par. A conductor of a shuttle yells to us as the vehicle pulls out, "Other bus stand, five kilometers. Have deluxe bus. Yes." We quickly find on arrival that there are no deluxe buses. We cram into a shared 14-passenger microbus and bounce off toward the mountains.
Everyone excited to be on our way to the Kashmir Valley. The stars of the show: Taylor, Cammy, Carrie, and Ravi.

The view from my seat in the van.
Click image to see larger.

Taylor Enjoying the sunlight on the road to Srinagar.

Don't stop here, more story and images inside --->>

Chapter 2: Srinagar and Pahalgam

May 25-26


Carrie and I relaxing on our luxurious shikara ride

While Cammy and Taylor are at the airport trying to sort out getting the passport, Ravi, Carrie and I do the "Tour of Srinagar." A rickshaw takes us to one garden after another. The first has manicured grass, interesting flowers, shrubs and trees, and an aptly named "Mini Lake."

Ravi and Carrie fully enjoying their time at the gardens

Don't stop here, more story and images inside --->>

Chapter 3: Journey to Leh

May 27-29


Thursday we plan on waking up early to catch a bus to Kargill, the halfway point between Srinagar and Leh, but Balill informs us as he serves us tea the bus left at 7:00 AM. We have to hire a jeep to take us, which winds up being nice in comparison to the prospective hellish bus ride. The road is extremely curvy, but mostly in good shape. The Toyota SUV flies past lories (very large trucks) as it climbs the mountains. Ravi takes nonstop photos of the mountains and asks why I am not. It's cloudy and dark; the photos taken from a moving vehicle's window would neither do the mountains or my photography justice.

We go through incredible passes with remarkable views of valleys and peaks. A monument covered by Tibetan prayer flags lightly covered with fresh snow slaps in the wind - I wish I could have photographed this, but there was no opportunity to stop. We are hoping to reach Kargill by 9 PM, but we are stopped by the police at a checkpoint, the road is under construction for the next three hours, so we wait till six when we can move again, only to get stopped by a landslide for another hour. We reach Kargill around 12:30am. After getting turned away from a few guesthouses, Ravi gets us a deal for a room and we crash on the floor and the bed. The bus supposedly leaves at 5 AM. We get to the stand by 4:45 to find it sold-out. A group of Indian travelers and two Frenchmen also desperate for a way to Leh hire a private van with us and we arrive in Leh in the early afternoon.

Don't stop here, more story and images inside --->>

Chapter 4: Leh, Ladakh

May 29-30


After lunch on Saturday the three girls and I decide to explore just outside of the city. Ravi wants some alone time. We find our way through the streets to the entrance to the Leh palace, an impressive structure built on the ridge of the steep hill over looking Leh in the 17th century. The palace has a commanding view of all Leh, perched high on the hillside. We explore the rooms and views over the city sprawled out between the hills; the simple block structures of the homes helps me to imagine what it would have looked like 400 years ago.



Click on image to see larger

Don't stop here, more story and images inside --->>

Chapter 5: Pangong Tso

May 31-June 1

Since Ravi had not done any of the exploring with us so far, we wanted to do something with him. All he had talked about up to this point was seeing Pangong Tso, a salt-water lake that sits at 14,000 feet and lies both in India and China. We have to get special permission to go, so we can't leave till Monday morning at almost 11:00 AM. The driver, wearing aviator sunglasses and skinny blue-jeans, takes us up the forever-winding road, feeling each of the curves with his body like I used to do playing racing video games as a kid. Jamming to an eclectic mix of music, from Celine Dion and Lady Gaga to System of a Down and plenty of Hindi songs, he brings us closer to the spotless blue sky with every turn till we reach Chang La, the third highest motorable pass in the world at 17,500 feet. Surrounded by snowy peaks, soldiers team about the place. A sign invites us into a building for free tea. I don't know if it's just because of the elevation or what, but that is the best tea I've ever had. Delicious. (If you ever get offered Kashmiri Kava tea, take it).
Chang La Pass, 17,590 ft, the highest I've ever been

Don't stop here, more story and images inside --->>

Chapter 6:The Open Road

June 2-June 4th

Photo by Cammy Andrews.
I rent a motorcycle, a 180CC Bajaj Pulsar, strap my oversize pack to the backseat, and take off into the desert mountains. My friend Vaibhav told me about a village of Aryans, that was somewhere in this direction. When I stop for lunch, I ask and the waiter doesn't know. The road varies in quality from pristine, newly paved asphalt with crisply painted line to an unrecognizable dirt path.
The Mighty Indus river

Don't stop here, more story and images inside --->>

Chapter 7: Finale

June 5-7


I hang out at the cafe, bouldering on the artificial wall for the next three days before my flight out of Leh. On Sunday we go to a large boulder above the city, a project that Vaibhav has been developing. There are several very challenging routes on the north side of the rock. Viraj works on a crimpy boulder problem on the vertical face while Vaibhav and his wife top rope a 6c+ on an angled ledge. I help Viraj clean the moss off of the top holds by connecting to a top rope and climbing down. I am able to the top half with most of my strength, but the bottom crimps are too much for me. Before we leave in the early afternoon, I get Vaibhav to work on his project. It's a roof with anything-but-positive holds and tricky feet till you get out over the edge, then big, dynamic moves to the top.




Amazing view from GraviT Cafe.


I meet the taxi driver outside of Vaibhav's gate at 6am and head to the airport. An assortment of people wait to get inside: Indian army personnel going home to their families, Buddhist Monks and Indian tourists. There is little resemblance of order while entering, though airline employees try to corral their ticket holders into lines. I work my way through the chaos to the first security check. "You must put all your batteries in your checked bag," the security guard tells me as he ruffles through my camera bag. I take out a handful of my AA rechargeable batteries and stuff them into the top of my pack, but I leave some in the bottom of my camera bag. After checking my backpack at the counter I move through Security Checkpoint #2. "Sir, you can't take batteries on the plane. You have to remove all of your batteries from your camera and flashes." "I can't travel without my batteries. It's fine. I'm taking them with me," I try to tell them. This tactic has worked well for me in the past, but this security would have none of it. "You can pick them up in Delhi." I don't trust them, but I have no other option. They wrap up my AA's and take them away. Luckily they left the battery in my camera.

I hoped to get some breakfast before getting on my flight, but inside the waiting area there was only a tiny tea stall. I bought some biscuits and laid down on a bench waiting for my boarding. The entire airport terminal came into this one room with one exit. All of the signs were for Jet Airways, which confused me, but all of the airlines operate from here. Finally the Kingfisher flight is called, and people scramble to get their place in line, shoving and pushing others out of the way. The whole way, soldiers eye us suspiciously as we take the bus to the aircraft. The seats only partially fill, and I have an entire row to myself. The views of the Himalayas from my window over the wing as we take off are absolutely incredible. They serve a simple breakfast, and before I know it the stewardess asks me to shut off my MP3 player - we are landing.





Delhi is not nearly as hot as I expected or when I left almost three weeks before. After grabbing my bag I try to book a flight to Mumbai, asking for standby, but the costs all the airlines quoted me were between $200 and $400. As per the Delhi custom, I argue with the rickshaw driver trying to get his price within reason, and take off to the railway station. I'd like to spend as little time in Delhi as possible. I sit in line at the Tourist Reservation office, realizing as I near the counter that I only have a little money. The Rajdhani express is available, but it's 1500/- ($30). It's faster, cleaner, more comfortable, and includes food. But I only have about 1000/- on me, so I opt for the slower, hotter, cheaper route - only 400/-. I find that you meet a lot more people when traveling in sleeper class. On the bunk across from me is Mark, from England who has been traveling for four years. Made for an interesting 22 hr train ride.

Getting into Mumbai I had this certain feeling that I had been gone for months, although it wasn't quite three weeks. The time away was good. I needed the break from the heat; I needed to be cold. It restores the soul.

With No Camera

Saturday, Mumbai went underwater. The monsoon is in full swing. I was wading up to my knees trying to get out of the train station. They told me a bit further on it was waist deep. The commuter trains were stopped because the tracks were underwater. Hoards of people waded up the train tracks to stations that were not underwater. And through all of this...I had no camera. Not even a point and shoot or a cameraphone. It was painful, but I had fun.

I am almost finished editing the Kashmir trip and will have the update up soon. In the meantime, I've done a couple of shoots in my apartment using just my speedlites.


Self portrait. Keylight: Bare Speedlite high camera right. Kicker over the
shoulder: Speedlite in Orbis Ring Flash. Ambient fill.

I wanted to take photos of Amy for a while and finally got her in front of my camera last week. Love the results.


Bare bulb speedlite high directly above camera. Bare bulb speedlite
camera left hair light. Speedlite in ring flash on camera for fill.


Same as above, except I moved the high key to camera left.


Ring flash held very close to Amy's face and bare bulb camera left for kicker.


I leaned my 72" shoot-through reflector against a tripod and shot a
speedlite through the back of it for the soft keylight. Again, bare bulb
camera left for the kicker.


Keylight: Ring Flash. Fill 72" reflector with speedlite. Kicker: Bare Speedlite.