Archive for the ‘Bhutan Festival’ Category
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011
In my previous posting, I mention that our company provides top-notch American tour leaders AND unusually small group sizes – all at a price competitive with other top-tier companies offering similar tours, but in much larger group sizes.
How can we do this?
Simply put, we are a much smaller, highly specialized operation. We do not have the much greater operating expenses of the larger, more generalized companies. These companies must cover the salaries and insurance expenses for dozens of employees.
They also publish annual catalogs of their many trip offerings around the world. These catalogs are can be over 100 pages in size, and they are bulk-mailed to tens (or hundreds) of thousands of households. These catalogs make for great armchair travel and reference material – but the costs to produce and mail these is enormous, and those costs – along with all other operating expenses – are passed along to each and every client, in the form of higher mark-ups on the tours they offer.
Tags: Adventure Travel, Bhutan Cultural Tours, Bhutan Luxury Tours, Bhutan Photo Tours, Bhutan Private tours, Bhutan Private Treks, Burma Luxury Tours, Burma Photo Tours, Burma Private tours, Ladakh Photo Tours, Ladakh Private Tours, Ladakh Private Treks, Myanmar Luxury Tours, Myanmar Photo Tours, Myanmar Private Tours, Nepal Photo Tours, Nepal Private Tours, Nepal Private Treks
Posted in Adventure Travel Tours: Cost Vs. True Value, Bhutan, Bhutan Festival, Bhutan Photography Workshop, David Samuel Robbins, Ladakh, India, Nepal, Photography, Private Journeys, Uncategorized, comparison shop Himalayan tours, professional travel photography tips, top 5 tips for great travel photography | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
1. Prior to a travel shoot, create a daily shot list schedule, based on the subjects’ locations relative to the arc of the sun (compass bearings), such as building facades, etc. Of course, the weather doesn’t always cooperate, so chasing the “Great Light” may involve repeat trips to any one place. Tenacity pays off!
2. Your experience will be far richer if you read up on the culture before you arrive. One’s first impression of an “exotic “ country may be sensory overload, often accompanied by a somewhat indiscriminate photographing of everything that’s new and unfamiliar. For the people who do some advance research, they’ll enjoy the same visual excitement, but will have a broader context for understanding and appreciating these new sights and experiences – historically, philosophically, politically, etc. They will also likely shoot less but make stronger images.
3. Language: the more obscure the language, the more you will be rewarded for any efforts you make to committ a few words and phrases to memory. Buy a phrasebook in advance of the trip, pick the most useful words / phrases, and write them down on index cards – the phoenetic english spelling of the foreign word on one side, the translation on the other. Most people have a much better “visual” than “aural” memory, and within a few days of occasionally looking at the index cards, you’ll be “seeing” these words in your mind’s eye – and on your way!
Learning a bit of the local language is the ultimate gesture of respect for the culture. It also shrinks the gap between photographer and subject, helping to make more relaxed, intimate portraits of virtual strangers.
4. For fill lighting, I much prefer collapsible reflecting hoops to electronic flash. The hoops show you the effect in real-time, and they can be slowly moved around for very nuanced adjustments of direction and intensity. Of course, this requires an assistant – but sometimes enlisting a nearby local just enhances the “interactive” part of the experience, making it more engaging for everyone involved.
5. For those overcrowded, heavily touristed iconic locations: get up early,(or stay late!), beat the crowds, and charm your way in to the ideal vantage point!
Tags: Bhutan, Himalaya, Ladakh, Nepal, photography workshops, professional travel photography tips, Top 5, Top 5 tips, travel photography
Posted in Bhutan, Bhutan Festival, Bhutan Photography Workshop, David Samuel Robbins, Ladakh, India, Nepal, Photography, Private Journeys, Punakha, Tibet, professional travel photography tips, top 5 tips for great travel photography | No Comments »
Friday, February 19th, 2010
Driving past impossibly lush terraced fields, we round a bend and enter a clearing. There, nestled in the confluence between two sacred rivers, is the massive and majestic fortress monastery of Punakha Dzong. We park and walk to the river’s edge, and suddenly everyone falls quiet. For a few long and delicious moments, we hear only water rippling over rocks, the wind in the trees, and the cry of an occasional raven.
Something about this place commands our reverence. The rivers that flank the monastery are called the Mo Chu (Mother) and Po Chu (Father), and indeed, Punakha is where modern Bhutan was born. This has been considered a deeply auspicious site since the 14th century, and all seems timeless and serene.
When we return the next day for the annual Punakha festival, the ambiance has completely changed, but it is equally enchanting. The grounds and inner courtyards of the monastery are packed with Bhutanese families, dressed in their finest and picnicking with their friends. Some have walked from distant villages, eager to witness the monks’ masked dance performances called Tshechus. Morality plays choreographed to music, these dances meld spiritual instruction, theater, and comic relief into a single, highly anticipated social event.
For the Bhutanese, the worldly and the sublime, the mundane and the profound, are equally cherished – and equally celebrated.
Tags: Bhutan, Bhutan Photography Workshop, David Samuel Robbins, Mo Chu, Po Chu, Punakha, Punakha Dzong, Punakha Festival, Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, travel photography, Tschechu, Tsechu
Posted in Bhutan, Bhutan Festival, Bhutan Photography Workshop, David Samuel Robbins, Photography, Private Journeys, Punakha | No Comments »
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