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!

My lovely assistant looking natural on a construction site.
The beautiful interior of what will be a very large reservoir in a few years.

The construction company is finishing the structure of the dam, but shepherds still graze their goats and cattle here on the lush grass while they can.

Pre-mentioned shepherd.

We eat our dinner at a classy hotel, then gladly sleep after a very long day of traveling and work. We sadly don’t have a chance to explore the city of Vizag before leaving in the morning. The night before we were told to be ready by 7:45am, so we come down at 7:40 and are told to have our breakfast. The ad rep still is no where to be seen till sometime after 8am. Our flight is at 8:55, but I sit back unworried. If we miss our flight, I am in no way responsible. We get to the airport by 8:30 and hurry through security. Getting to the gate well after the boarding time we find the line still long to enter the gate.

In Hyderabad we shoot a few projects underway around the airport and head towards a major residential apartment complex being constructed in the suburbs of the city. It will eventually be 13 towers of 30 floors, with any amenities you can imagine, including a putting range.

I cover any angle of the constructed sight I can think of, then they send me up in a giant crane to get some overview shots. I enjoy this. I would love to shoot a lot of things from this angle.

Amy enjoying herself with the construction workers while I float around in the crane basket.

I love the possibilities of shooting directly down on your subject. It’s a view that is rarely seen

Amy glad for a break from holding the weight of my camera bag.

Sunday, we do a shoot inside one of their completed residential projects and finish up some odds and ends. Finally, Amy and I have time to explore. I take her to the site that Hyderabad is known for, Charminar.

Being a tourist

The first time I came to Hyderabad in 2007, my friend Shrav took me (and his bride’s family members) to this ice place not far from Charminar. I couldn’t remember exactly where it is, so I ask the rickshaw driver where there is a famous ice cream place on this street. “Nearby? No. No ice cream. Do you mean Nampally?” he asks. Umm, yes?

Why yes, this is it! It’s even called Famous Ice Cream! How convenient

A friend of mine is having a World Cup Final party, and we watch the regular time match, but it’s already 12:30am and we have to wake up at 6. A friend of Joel’s takes us back to our guest house (Hill View, a beautiful place sitting on a hill in Jubilee hills that overlooks much of the city, including Golkanda fort). We celebrated, yelling very loudly, at 2am when spain finally scored a goal, in the 2nd half of their 30 minute extra time.

I ignore my alarm at 6am and the ad rep finally calls at 8am asking if we are ready. I am supposed to do headshots of one of the directors of the company, but a car never comes to pick us up. We finally get to his house around 10:30am, when our flight is at 12:10pm. We rush through the shots, then jet to the airport – further away than I remember it being. We are the last ones to check counter (They immediately call the gate saying we are coming, please wait for us). We hurry through security and to the gate while they repeatedly call our names over the intercom, “Mr Clark Scott and Mr Amy Zeigner, please come to gate 24. This is the last call for boarding.” Thankfully, we get to our seats and enjoy the flight home.

It’s good to be working again. Although its stressful and frustrating at times, I enjoy what I do. I can’t ask for much more than that.

I’m getting ready for another bout of traveling. I may be able to update along the way this time.

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 —>>

The trip is uneventful till we reach a military checkpoint before entering Kashmir Valley. Cammy discovers she lost her passport. She doesn’t remember if the money exchange teller at the airport gave it back to her. The police hold us for over an hour, finally letting us go when Cammy gives her drivers license and Ravi leaves all his contact information. The officer calls Ravi repeatedly till we have the passport number, but still we can’t find the visa number (losing your passport is a big hassle!).

[Turns out Cammy was right. The Forex teller delivered the passport to the Delhi Airport Authority who would not release any information in the passport to us. Finally, after three days of repeated phone calls, emails, trips to the Srinagar Airport, the US Consulate gained control of the passport and sent scanned copies to Cammy we would could continue our journey.]

Back on the jeep journey: After we pass the military checkpoint and go through a 7km long tunnel through a mountain we enter “The Magical Kashmir Valley,” as one of our fellow travelers (who looks like a Kashmiri Bret, from Flight of the Concords) called it. We arrive in Srinagar quite late and the driver drops everyone off except our group. At each stop suspect looking men try to jump on board, attempting to convince us the go to their guesthouse or houseboat. Ravi sets up a houseboat for us over the phone and with insistence asks the touts to leave the vehicle.

The major attraction in Srinagar is Dal Lake, where hundreds of houseboats sit in shallow water seemingly only for tourists. To get to your houseboat you must take a shikara, a fancy human-powered water taxi. Our houseboat has two bedrooms and a dining room. Where the othere were fine with this kind of kitschy tourist accommodation paid for at a premium, I would rather stay in a guesthouse for $2 per night. I also do not like being dependent on the water taxis for transportation. You can’t just walk out your door down the street.
The entrance to the houseboat.

The water lane called home by our boat.

Carrie enjoying piloting our sinking Shikara around Dal Lake

A lone Shikara hiding amongst the weeds

The tunnel of trees. We were wary to go any further. (3 pts!)

Carrie gets us safely out of there

Don’t stop here, read the next chapter, “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 —>>

The second: a mountain spring flowing through fountains and troughs. At the top you can drink from a small waterfall before the water is contaminated by people’s feet. Ravi challenges me, “I bet you can’t walk across this retaining pond [filled with mountain water]”, and without a second thought I step confidently into the ankle-deep water. In slow motion one foot slides from under me, then the other. I fight to stay upright, flailing and running in place. All hope of standing disappears with a splash as the right side of my body submerges. Of course, I’m holding my camera in my right hand and despite my valiant effort it receives its first bath. I guess it needed to be cleaned since the Holi incident, but full submersion of the 5DmkII is not recommended. But credit Canon, with a quick drying effort the camera seems to have survived the incident, accepting its brutal cleaning. Ravi looking over his domain

Immediately after falling into the fountain. You can’t see it so well, but I am soaked.

We eat South Indian food in the northernmost state for lunch, then despite my objections of going to yet another garden, we spend the rest of the afternoon lounging on soft grass under the shade of a mighty tree. It’s hard to complain about that.
Lounging in the shade of a giant tree on soft grass with great friends = amazingness.

Carrie has lounging in the grass down to an artform

Why yes, that is a roll of toilet paper in a Russian hat

So we do a Russian dance

And then handstands and handsprings

This of course is followed by ridiculous jumps

While Carrie tries to ignore us and pretend she didn’t come with us

The park, despite my unwillingness to go in, was beautiful

A bridge in the middle of Dal Lake. I don’t know why.
The gardens were built by the ruling Mughals several hundred years ago

As of yet, we really haven’t experienced the mountains besides seeing them in the distance. Wednesday we had to escape the city into the beautiful mountains in a private car. We take a break near the river, enjoying the views and the cold mountain water before moving on to a village for lunch.
Shikaras awaiting passengers

Carrie testing the waters near Pahalgam, Kashmir

Cammy enjoying the scenery

Carrie refreshed after getting splashed in the face by Ravi (The water is quite cold)

Taylor “not posing”

And the close-up

Guides try to get us to do horseback tours from the village, but I think the trails would be too crowded with Indian tourists. We go on to a foot trail leading across the river and up a smaller mountain. It’s late in the day so we don’t have a ton of time.
Beauty

Carrie miniturized by the towering trees

I can feel my lungs straining to keep up as we climb at 8,000 feet, but the exercise energizes my body. This is only a taste of what I live for – I want to fly, to go until my lungs burst and my muscles refuse to go one more step. I wait for the rest of the group to catch up; glad that I’m with friends, but wishing we were on the same page. The path takes us first past scenic guesthouses along the river, then up into the trees, tall and reaching for the heavens. We reach a grassy meadow fit for a Bollywood love song where horses graze. A skinny mare allows me to get close enough to pet her mane. I miss my youth riding my uncle’s pony, Bam Bam. I follow the sound of a mountain stream beyond the next rise and see a collection of piecemeal huts lining the hill. Children come running to us, neighing like horses. Why? I couldn’t tell you.
A pony!

Can you get much cuter?

yes.

Carrie in her usual position, internalizing thoughts in the beautiful spot where I’m trying to photograph…

This kid is a character

Cammy for her close up

I love my 50mm f/1.4 lens!

No words…

Sporting my aviator shades

Carrie doing her impression of Jesus with the Lamb

We spend time exploring the stream and the young boys excitedly show us their sheep. For living in makeshift tents on the side of a mountain in India, they seem to have a pretty good grasp on basic English. Hopefully that means they are getting to go to a decent school. The families invite us into one of their dirt floor dwellings, the mud stove sharing the same space as the baby calves. They serve us salted butter tea, which many of us find hard to stomach; it’s thick and overly salty. But we are grateful for their hospitality. I think if Kashmiris would want to be called only one thing I would be hospitable – notable even in a country that prides itself on hospitality.






Proving that I am, in fact, the king of the hill

Don’t stop here, read the next chapter, “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 —>>

Typical valley village in Ladakh

SNOW!!!!!!!!!!! This excites me.

Very curvaceous

A lady from NYC I met along the way recommended Zapati guesthouse for us and without any other known options we set off through Leh, looking for it, knowing only roughly the area to look in. I ask a man in the market for the direction to Karzu, where the Zapati is located, and he informs us he owns a guesthouse. We follow, but I am skeptical. He leads us up a long alley, and after several turns we reach his building. The rooms are beautiful, large windows wrap around two sides of the room providing beautiful views of the mountains and a stupa – a temple of sorts perched on the peak of a hill. The windows are framed by a nice brunette wood, topped by intricately carved designs that lead to the ceiling supported by thick blonder organic log posts retaining their natural blemishes and shapes. We are only paying $4.00 per night per person in the nicest room I’ve stayed in India!

My climbing friend from Mumbai owns a cafe and bouldering gym in Leh and organizes guided treks around Ladakh. When looking for a place for dinner, I see the sign for the cafe, GraviT. It’s a nice little shop with a bar for mixing drinks and a few tables; two walls feature artificial climbing holds on brightly painted plywood. Vaibhav says some locals are coming regularly, but he’s just now getting advertisements put up in guesthouses and cafes to attract foreign tourists. Another friend, Viraj, from Mumbai is here for a few weeks climbing. I am hoping to stay with Vaibhav when my friends leave Wednesday.

Don’t stop here, read the next chapter, “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 —>>

Inside the temple in the palace

Rock on mr. five arms

We hike further up the hill to the monastery that sits atop the peak surrounded by Tibetan prayer flags. After every few steps you have to stop to rest, completely out of breath because of the elevation (after living at sea level for almost a year, 11,000 feet makes your lungs really work to get their oxygen). We climb to the very top of the monastery, using very sketchy wooden ladders, but what you see from the top is worth it.

Traveling with a group of friends has its benefits, namely, fun group photos

The Leh Monastary

Another view of the Monastary from GraviT Cafe

Leh from the Monastary

Self portrait overlooking Leh

Vendors selling dried apricots on the street while religiously spinning their prayer wheels


Ravi stays back again Sunday to meet with the pastor of a Moravian church, while Carrie, Taylor, Cammy and I head to the mountains. We catch a bus to the village of Stok, a name the group started calling me after our bus driver couldn’t pronounce my name. It drops us at a tea stall at the base of the mountains. Our tea, coffee and pineapple juice finished, we begin we begin our trek along the rocky river bed that cuts through the valley between the arid, loose rock peaks while snow capped behemoths taunt us from just beyond our reach. Wonderful blue skies surround us on three sides, but dark gray clouds spitting precipitation sit directly over the path in front of us. As we head into the gully the storm seems to move away as if we were pushing it. Wild horses gather in the riverbed to eat any grass that may be growing between the stones.

We’re crammed onto a minibus, heading to Stok

A few kilometers after we start, we see something resembling human made structures topping one of the peaks in front of us. Carrie reasons, “If someone built something up there, it can’t be hard to get to.” The slope leading up to it is full of landslide-threatening loose sedimentary stones with a few solid rock lines intermittently rising to the ridgeline. I start climbing, digging the sides of my feet into the loose stones and thrusting my way up till I reach solid rocks to climb, still wary of the crumbly rock’s habit of coming loose in your hand. The girls are much more timid in their climbing, try to use both hands and feet, which causes their feet to push more out than down, making them slip far more frequently than if they would confidently trust their feet and press directly down. With much encouragement, we all reach the top and climb over the man-made stone wall into the remaining foundations of an ancient monastery or palace. Some of the structures remain partly intact with the help of mud mortar, but many are just rocks stacked no top of one another. While we eat lunch, three local girls come bounding up the backside of the ridge like they do it every day and make it to the very top of the structures. Now we have to do it.
Carrie and Taylor scrambling up the sliding mountain face

The incredible view from the top in the undecisive weather. (Behind us were still rain clouds)

The ruins of the fortress or monastery

The views are incredible looking back over the valley. The weather is constantly changing, giving the surrounding mountains different characteristics. We go down the way the three girls came up, and I find it easier to slide with the loose rocks like I was snowboarding than to carefully pick my way down. The girls again are more timid and make their way down the solid rocks. Eventually, we find the remains of the staircase that led up the mountain now mostly buried layers of loose rocks.

Sometimes, you just have to look up and enjoy the clouds

The bus conductor told me the bus would be back at 3:30, so at 2:00, we start back towards Stok. I don’t like taking the same trail twice, so I walk on the opposite side of the river, bushwhacking my own trail, jumping from stone to stone. I enjoy this kind of hiking immensely – it uses much more of my brain capacity having to carefully place every step.

Showing Cammy why I carried this big plastic circle (my ringflash) around with me the whole day. To take portraits

We reach Stok just after 3:00 and wait for the bus at the tea stall. We wait. 4:00 PM, no bus. We ask when the bus should come: “5:30.” I suggest we start walking back towards Leh rather than just waiting, and we find a taxi willing to take us for a very fair price. The views are spectacular of the mountains from the taxi as the sun dropps lower in the sky and plays on the on the backs of the clouds sitting neatly over the peaks.
This can never be a good thing

Here, all of the cows seem to have horns, but you can tell when what you’re looking at is a bull. They just look meaner

When I saw this, it somehow reminded me of a Creme Savers candy – how the clouds create a patterned shadow on the mountains.

Great example of Virga: precipitation evaporating before it reaches the ground

Every night we would meet with Ravi at an ice cream shop and have mango shakes. It’s a tradition I don’t mind repeating. We find a restaurant open late called Tibetan Friends, where the waiter serves us with an enthusiasm unmatched by any waiter before him. Ravi suggests, “I think he’s the only one open because he suffers from insomnia. That’s the only way to explain his craziness.”
Mango Shakes!!!!

Don’t stop here, read the next chapter, “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 —>>

Ravi’s first chance to really play in snow!

We stop in what looks like a dry lakebed with the finest brown sand. Our legs enjoy the stretching. Wild horses graze in the distance between the bases of the brown, rocky hills. (On the return trip we pass this place, I do not recognize it because the sand completely changed shape.)

Ravi inciting his usual imaginative games

One of my favorite shots from the entire trip

Cammy being athletic

Carrie wondered off again

More horses

Carrie working her poses

Seizing the opportunity to do a quick product shot with Cammy’s Merrells

In a sea of brown the first sighting of the blue water takes your breath away, a beauty that cannot be properly stated by words. The thin lake stretches off into the distance, into China, lined by peaks of different shades of brown on one side and snowcaps on the other. The small waves shimmer in the sunlight, reflecting the flawless sky. Round, flat pebbles dance underneath the surface, as clear as if you were holding them in your hand. The others roll their pants up and splash in the freezing water while I wander off trying to find how to properly capture such a scene.


Carrie and Taylor feeling out the freezing water

Click on image to see larger

f/1.4, love it or hate it, there it is

Tstanzin, the driver

We eat a quick lunch of mostly pastries Taylor picked up in Leh, then explore more of the area. The driver, somewhat impatiently asks us if we are ready to leave. The light is going, so must we. I use the spectacular location and the availability of a beautiful subject to practice my adventure sport photography, getting exciting photos of Cammy running along the shore.

My favorite kind of self portrait, shadow

The light dances playfully off he desert floor, falling lower the closer we get. The pass is mostly deserted, and the sun is mostly gone. With the last light the stars appear, too numerous to count and too many to find most western constellations. Orion’s Belt disappears into the abyss of countless sets of three stars in a straight line. We had talked of going to Nubra Valley the next day, but it proved dangerous to Ravi’s schedule if just one thing went wrong. I voted against it because my body couldn’t take another daylong car ride. Ravi decides to leave the next day and the girls end up leaving Wednesday.

The girls and I go visit the stupa in Leh

Carrie challenged me to do slap push ups

Don’t stop here, read the next chapter, “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 —>>

I love the open road, the long empty stretches on the high plateau with no other traffic. I mostly keep the throttle wide open, but at this elevation the small engine struggles to go faster than 60 kmph on mostly flat sections. In comparison, my 150CC Pulsar gets to 100 kmph without much effort at sea level in Bombay. The brown mountains fly by, snow-capped peaks in the distance, and cattle, goats, and horses graze on the sparse grass. The pack on the back somehow makes cornering easier, forcing me to lean into the curves. I still am not completely comfortable making sharp turns, but as I go on, I get better.

By the time I reach Alchi, after some 65 km and two and a half hours, I am dirty and tired. I take the first guesthouse I find and sleep for a bit. I look out my window to find a quaint old village with a donkey pen, a central grazing and watering hole, traditional blockhouses proudly waving Tibetan prayer flags, and the ruins of an old palace of the ruling family skirting the side of a rocky hill top by religious stupas.
The scene outside of my guest room window.

Donkeh!

I seem to be the only foreigner or tourist in the guesthouse, or even the only one in this small village. I follow the maze between the houses to the east of a cliff overlooking the river valley, the skinny green poplar trees breaking the monotony of the monochrome brown hills, the rice crop almost florescent in its stark contrast, and bright yellow flower patches completing the color scheme. I climb the rocks higher and reach the stupa, ruins of mud bricks covered in a white plaster to see the rest of the beautiful valley. In the distance I can see the rest of the village surrounding the famous Alchi monastery.



As good of place as any, I guess

I decide that it’s a good idea to climb down the backside of the rock instead of going down the way I came up. With my first step down, my bag catches on the rock and flips over. Something goes hurtling down, bounces off the rock and lands with a distinct thud. Maybe 20 feet below, my 50 mm lens sits taunting me. “Why’d you leave your bag unzipped, hotshot?” I climb down and find the lens looking to be intact, with no visible maladies, so I tuck it back safely in my bag, and zip it shut.

Off in the rice fields, I see workers wearing colorful clothes that contrast against the bright green. As I point my camera I hear “No, no, no,” from an old woman adjusting the flow of amazingly intricate, but incredibly simple watering can system. They stuff clothes and rocks at the intersections to affect the flow. The women really do not like being photographed, which is very frustrating for a photographer.

Construction workers build the foundations of a house, placing each granite rock, mixing the simple sand and water mortar by hand. I take out my 50 mm lens to do some portraits and I find that it will only fire at f/1.4 and even then, the focus is off. At any higher aperture, it loses communication with the camera for some odd reason. Splendid. Guess I’ll be paying the Santa Cruz Canon Master Repair facility a visit soon.

First shot taken with my now broken 50mm lens. Sad.

This is the furthest distance it will focus

Lying in bed journaling, I see the tops of two foreigner’s heads bob into view from my second story window. The local women laugh and make faces with the couple, encouraging them to dance. I casually run into them as they photograph a boy in front of his house and find out they are a couple from San Diego, CA. They tell me about the amazing murals inside the monastery (I never end up getting to see them, the monastery is closed the one time I try). We go to the other side of the village for dinner and chat till well after dark. I walk the 15 minutes back in complete blackness. Any time I hear another body approaching, I jovially say, “Julay,” their multi-use greeting, to hide my nervousness of their approach.

I take a quick breakfast in the morning before mounting my motorcycle and take off to explore the surrounding villages. I turn the bike down an empty road that parallels the teaming river and the “main” road full of traffic, but in seemingly worse shape. I fly over slight rises and valleys, leaning into curves, enjoying the freedom of the road.

The road begins to break; the natural overpowering the man made. A mountain creek fully wins its battle, flowing proudly where the road should be. I back up and take a run at it, fully soaking my feet in the resulting splash. Around another bend, road workers reconstruct the existing surface while more workers build a water trench twenty feet up the hill. When I pull out the camera the workers get excited. Everyone wants a photo. The foreman writes his address and requests I send some of the photos. Photos of the road workers will follow later in a photo story

Valley of Mangue

I reach Mangue to find the road abruptly ends. On the map, I can continue on to more villages, but the road just disappears into massive piles of stone. An old man hobbles over and requests I follow him. He leads me through the steep maze of the village to the courtyard of a Tibetan temple. He disappears and returns with a set of keys to unlock the inner chambers of the temple. A statue of Buddha sits in the dark, surrounded by small religious artifacts and intricate murals on the walls.






The village school of Mangue is requesting volunteer English teachers. If you’re interested I may be able to get you connected.

I had hoped to continue on to more mountain villages, but without the road this is impossible, so I have to return to the main road. The weather starts to turn as I leave the village; the wind threatens to blow me over and raindrops pelt me in the face. I decide to try and find lunch in Saspol, just across the river, to wait out the weather. I enter the town and ask for a dhaba or restaurant. Everyone looks at me like I’m dumb. Why would they have a restaurant? For that I have to go 25 km. The weather quickly gets worse as I scour the village for any safe place. At least I can go to my guesthouse and get food and shelter. I turn to go back and suddenly, I can’t see. Somehow, my left lens of my glasses fell out without warning, bouncing on the road behind me. I stop and search the ground, covering the bad eye so I can see somewhat clearly. Old men gathered across the street watch this comical spectacle. I ask a nearby shop for a screwdriver to tighten the screw that secures the lens, and then hurry back across the river with the wind screaming by to my guesthouse. By the time I get back, my clothes are soaked and rain drains onto my face through my helmet.
Ladakhi woman carrying firewood

A ram left outside to bear the brunt of the heavy weather

I ask for a menu in the lunch hall in the guesthouse. No menu, only dal rice and beans. Two Israeli girls just finishing up their lunch tell me it’s completely worth it, the dish is delicious. They just got into Alchi, walking the few kilometers from the main road after taking a bus from Leh. I am no longer the only one in the guesthouse.

I take a nap waiting for the weather to clear. When I wake up the sun is shining, but I’m not feeling like going back out on the motorcycle. I sit in my window for a bit and draw the scene before me. I hear some women yelling and laughing and I see the Israeli girls surrounded by villagers, tugging at them. They see me sitting in the window.

After dinner I find Mia, one of the girls, in the garden. “What were you doing in the window?” she asks. “Drawing.” “Can I see it?” “It’s nothing, really. Just line sketches I like to do.” I show her the sketch in my journal. “Do you do anything else creative?” she continues to ask. “Besides photography? Well, I write some music.” “Oh, my friend has a travel guitar. We like to sing together. You should come join us.” I play a few of my songs then we flip through her songbook and sing classic American rock songs like Hotel California. They seem to have a better grasp on classic American rock than I do, playing me some songs I’d never heard before.

The morning’s blue skies promise good weather for the day, but in the mountains, you can never tell. I eat a quick breakfast before packing up my motorcycle, balancing my pack precariously and snapping one of the elastic cords in the process. Clouds loom in the distance, threatening to make my trip back to Leh a wet one. The road oscillates between impeccable surfaces to hardly resembling a road. I enjoy some of the long sections of good quality tarmac with very little traffic, feeling the curves moving fluidly through the folds of the arid mountains. I would not want to be stuck here with no transportation. The desert is not a friendly place.

Along the way I stop and photograph teams of road workers, digging and moving large rocks by hand. Men and women work here while children not old enough to walk play in the dirt beside the construction. They come from Bihar and Nepal to work during the warmer months; they come and endure backbreaking manual labor. These things in the west are done by machines, not by human hands. But getting the proper machines here proves difficult.

I climb down into the pits to photograph them at their work before they break for lunch. An older woman waves me over, sitting on the lip of the pit amongst the torso sized granite stones. Laid out in front of her are plastic bags and thermoses. She hands me a white porcelain teacup with blue etchings on it filled with milk tea. Other workers come and sit around us. The begin ruffling through the plastic bags, pulling out multiple food dishes and flat breads. “Take some. Have it!” “I don’t want to take your food. I can get some very easily.” “No, eat. You must.” They hand me this amazing flat bread that I have no idea what it is. It was sweet and delicious. I ask what it is. “Bread.” Thanks. It’s not the typical Ladakhi bread, which is also delicious but very different. They “force” me to eat their chapatti and veggies, despite my pleas of not wanting to take their food. Finally, after my captors think I’ve had enough they let me go. (It’s funny watching the people staring at me from the passing SUVs while I eat with the road workers) Again, these images will be part of a photo story on the Road Workers of Ladakh

The weather continues to deteriorate as I grow closer to Leh. I take a side road to a village between the grasp of two mountains, but because of the impending precipitation I turn back and keep going towards Leh. White flakes begin falling from the sky and hitting me in the face as Leh comes into view. Viraj and Vaibhav are hanging out at GraviT Cafe, and greet me as I come in. My motorcycle adventure is over.

Don’t stop here, read the last chapter, “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.

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.

It’s been a busy few weeks here in Mumbai. I’ve been working to get all of the photos from Ladakh edited while trying to get some other things accomplished. I shot a project for a magazine on friday that I will hopefully post soon (I’ll probably have to wait until its been published next month). Anyway, here are a few more shots I did in Ladakh.

After the rest of the group took off I was free to explore on my own. I took to the hills on a motorcycle for a few days then came back and stayed with my friend Vaibhav, who owns a rock climbing café (a small café with a bouldering area). On Sunday we went out to a boulder project he has been developing above the city of Leh. It’s a beautiful boulder, isolated by its size from the rocky landscape, located near a religious temple. The boulder promises a few short sport routes and several bouldering problems. Vaibhav is projecting this little beauty.

This is GraviT, Vaibhav’s cafe in Leh. If you ever go to Ladakh, you have to stop in here. It’s a great place for a banana shake.

World Cup mania is in full swing here. Finally the Indians are distracted from their beloved Cricket, and focusing on a real sport. The rains have come and it is relief from the heat. I’m knee deep in editing the photos from Kashmir and Ladakh and will have an update eventually for you (Travel Journal). Here’s a teaser:

I’m leaving momentarily on another adventure. The plans are sketchy at best. My friend’s keep asking when I’ll be back, but I honestly do not know. So fare the plan is to take the overnight express train to Delhi, arriving Saturday morning. I will meet up with my friend Carrie and stay with her friend for the night. A few more people are flying in Sunday afternoon and we are catching a train to Jammu in Kashmir. We will spend some amount of time in Srinagar and the surrounding areas while waiting for the highway to Leh, Ladakh to open (It was closed recently because of mud slides). We may go for a trek in the high deserts (well over 11,000ft up) and I might get some exhausting high elevation bouldering in. At this point anything resembling a plan ends. I’m leaving the group and finding my own way back to Mumbai, hopefully through Mussoorie so I can see the family I stayed with in 2007 and another friend doing a Hindi course there.

I have no expectations for this trip, so…well, let it begin. See you guys sometime in June.

Kashmir and Ladakh were a treat, both in scenery and in temperature – an escape from the mind-numbing heat of Mumbai. I’m sifting through over two thousand images to select the standouts. It’s a task. But I had the pleasure of traveling with a group for the majority of this trip, an experience I’m not used to. Cammy came along to visit her friend Taylor in India and happened to be the perfect running model. I asked her if she’d be willing to do some shots with me and she thankfully agreed. These are a taste of the kind of work that I am striving to get involved with.

Above Stok Village, Ladakh.

Pangong Tso Lake, Ladakh – very close to China.

While I was home a friend asked me to do some head shots for her. She’s a doctoral student for Performance Violin at the Jacobs School of Music. Needless to say she is quite talented. Our schedules finally lined up on the Saturday before I left. We had a good time shooting around the Union on the IU campus. 

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The Conrad is a beautiful five star hotel in downtown Indianapolis. A friend of mine connected me with the Marketing Manager at the hotel, and she welcomed me to shoot around their beautiful property. I showed up with all of my lights and no assistant, clumsily moving everything around in a luggage cart. My friend, Alison, called and asked if I still needed help and, thankfully, she came down to lend a much needed hand.

I love photographing people, so in many of these shots I wish I could have used a model. The environments are so inviting and someone feels distinctly missing. But the shoot was a great exercise for me in expanding my interior portfolio.

More Photos After the Jump –>

I had spent my entire morning shooting at a five star hotel and was on my way to a friend’s party on the north side of Indianapolis. On I-65N I passed this skate park, so I took the nearest exit and found my way back to it, passing through Marian University’s campus. I’m glad that I stopped. I enjoy unplanned shooting like this. Most shots are with my 16mm and a flash fill, but the closer ones toward the end are shot with my 50mm at f/1.4.

More Images After the Jump!

This seems like a good idea…

Doing the jerk (Watch a tutorial here)