Hayfield in Twilight

It was 9pm in eastern Montana. Miles and miles of nothingness stretched all around me. And piercing through it towards the western horizon was the long silvery snake of pavement. Interspersed between undulating hayfields and cattle ranches were tiny farmsteads and rolling hills, gradually leading to the snow-capped massif of the Rockies, the spine of the country.

I had a couple of hours of driving left, but the sun was already taking its last glance at the landscape all around me. But as the road rose above a small hill, the scene opened up, and I finally reached a vantage point that captured the essense of the pastoral scene so characteristic of eastern Montana. A tight crop with a telephoto lens captured the rolling landscape with bales of hay randomly scattered on the fields. At ISO 3200 and 1/80mm at F9, it was a noisy shot, but it did allow me to capture the colors well.

Great Falls
MT USA

Wild Sky

The gentle breeze brushed against my face as I turned towards the eastern horizon. Down below, the sleep villages of Cappadocia had barely woken up on this cloudy dawn, and the windy roads that threaded their ways through the unique formations remained fairly empty. While up here, in the domain of the clouds, the beautiful vista of the still morning was occasionally interrupted by the gush of burning propane, reminding me that I had not transformed into a bird, but that I was merely a passenger in a giant balloon, drifting over the landscape and catching the directional winds.

Whilst past sunrise, the dense patch of clouds had obscured the sun, leaving behind silhouettes and shadows of the unique topography of the region. From my vantage point, I could make out volcanic cones, twisted canyons, ragged cliffs, and smooth farmland all set in a very complex and folded landscape. And all around, dozens of balloons swirled around and bobbed up and down depending on the vagaries of the present air current.

This experience was a dream come true, and I did not want the ride to end. But alas, all good things must. Touchdown was a mere 30 minutes later, but the hour-long sojourn into the sky felt like eternity. This image was shot with a 3-stop Grad ND filter at F11, ISO 1600 at 1/80s

Goreme
Cappadocia Turkey

Courting the Registan

I turned around the corner on a hot and dusty day in the city of Samarkhand in Uzbekistan. And the ensemble of madrasas came into view, carrying the impressive name Registan, meaning the "Sandy Place". And I had to pause a moment, nay many, to admire the scene that unfolded in front of me.

As I was working my way from West to East along the Silk Route, the historical monuments I had visited became more impressive with each new one. It, however, truly culminated in the Registan, the heart of the ancient city of Samarkand of the Timurid dynasty, which dated back to the 14th-16th century. The trifecta of three madrasas, the Ulugh Bek Madrasah, the Tilya Kori Madrasa, and the Sher-Dor Madrasa, suffered heavily from a lack of maintenance over the last few centuries, and it was the heavy-handed Soviet-era restoration that brought these beautiful edifices back to their former glories.

I returned back to the Registan during a summer evening, and I was surprised to see rare cloud formations take over the sky. As the sun slowly set and lent a bit of color to the sky, the lights of the Registan turned on, and provided it with its nightly attire. It was this that I had hoped to capture. And even with a wide field of view of the 16mm lens, the grand scene in front of me was hard to capture completely.

This image is a 3-image HDR composite shot at 17mm and F11 at ISO 100

Registan
Samarkand Uzbekistan

The path of prayers

Deep in the heart of mystical Kyoto lies the Fushimi Inari shrine, made famous by the thousands of vermilion torii that line the various concrete pathways that snake up the hill. Perhaps they serve as an object of devotion, or perhaps as objects of donations by wealthy patrons. Whatever it may be, walking through the hallowed portals, each one just slightly different from the next, but all in the brilliant vermilion, was quite an experience.

There were some sections so dense with the torii that the world outside barely peeped in, whereas there were others where the soft glint of the warm afternoon sun highlighted the vibrant colors of the torii. Every turn presented a new composition or a new perspective, and I thoroughly enjoyed exploring the different nooks and crannies of this beautiful shinto shrine.

Shot at ISO 3200, F9 at 1/13s (handheld). I had to edit to remove a person from the scene as well.

Fushimi Inari-taisha
Kyoto Japan

Escaping the rain

Kyrgyzstan is a Colorado-sized country with mountains run amok, with giant lakes nestled wherever there is space. It is a truly unique travel destination with no other parallels.

One of the unique destinations I visited was the Song-kol lake, a 25km by 40km lake at 3000m surround by snow-capped peaks all over. Driving around the lake, I spotted a viewpoint that provided an eagle's eye view of a landscape, that rose from a steep river canyon that formed the outflow of the Songkol Lake, all the way to the 12000ft towering snow-capped peaks and glacier-carved valleys lined with just a carpet of lush green grass.

Standing on that vista point and admiring this jaw-dropping view with absolutely no sign of civilization anywhere sans the sinous road that made its way down, I felt lost in the sheer magnificence of this place. But I was snapped back into reality by a pelting hailstorm (whose beginnings you see above). This was ensued by a mad dash back to the car and a hair-raising drive down the sharp hair-pins to escape the brunt of impending storm. Nevertheless, that image was forever etched in my mind.

This was a single fram exposure at F11, ISO 800, 1/400s with a Graduated ND filter to control the exposure.

Songkol
Kyrgyzstan

Memories of Michigan

As I get ready to pack up and leave from the mid-west, I looked back to see what my photographic journey over the last 18 months has been. While the process of getting another graduate degree has occupied much of my time, I have realized that I have managed to sneak in a few photography trips in the Midwest, apart from the grand travel adventures that have spanned multiple continents.

Perhaps one of my most memorable ones was a trip to the Michigan Upper Peninsula during the tail end of Fall of 2016. While the foliage in many parts of the Upper Peninsula had progressed too far to make for worthwhile imagery, there were certain locations which would remain forever indelible, including a drive in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

As I drove around the curve, a long straight stretch of tarmac appeared, lined on either side by the vibrant golds and yellows of peak fall foliage. A gentle fog added a sense of aura and mystery to the colorful forest punctuated only by the blue tarmac and matching yellow lines snaking through the middle of the highway. While I never made the connection then, this long line of Yellow and Blue stretching to the horizon portends my long relationship with the maize and blue of the University of Michigan.

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore
MI USA

When the sky sings

When the sky sings, it does so in spectacular ways: the crack of thunder, the roar of a hurricane, or the sizzle of a lightning. But when the sky lights up with the aurora borealis, what you see is a brilliant visualization of a magnetic storm, replete with twirls and swirls, loops and waves, of jets and microbursts.
Being able to witness a display so bright as to light up the entire night sky, and reflect in the bay in front of you is a unique feeling. The excitement and joy of that experience was so strong that the discomfort from the freezing cold conditions, or the general tiredness from the long day of driving across the country, all but melted away.
This is but one snapshot of a northern light display that lasted into the wee hours of the morning somewhere in the northern part of Iceland, a country I hope to return and travel again.

Saeberg
Iceland

While in Mono....

While in Mono, you do things the Mono way; ie, you wake up at 4 in the morning, drive the few long straight miles under pitch-black conditions and find your way to the lake shore, then spend a few more minutes delicately traversing the fallen remains of the tufa towers to get to the few choice sunrise spots while praying they are not taken, set up you tripod and pray that the waters of the vast salt-lake around you stay still, shiver and tremble in the freezing cold at 6000ft, and take a deep breath as the sun crests the peaks on the horizon while your finger presses the shutter. And then you repeat this all over again for sunset. And for the next sunrise and so on.

Such is the life of a photographer who visits the Eastern Sierras of California. I was fortunate enough to witness one such beautiful sunrise at the Mono Lake South Tufa Reserve during an early summer trip to the Sierra Nevada. A silhouetted reflection of the 'temple' formation there highlights the beauty of a rare calm sunrise.

Mono Lake South Tufa Reserve
CA USA

Lion's Head

As I turned around the corner deep in the bowels of Lower Antelope Canyon, I came across the Lion's Head, a natural formation in striated walls of the twisted canyon. Seeing this almost organic form set in the inorganic structure of sandstone took me by surprise. The strange forces of erosion had sculpted this unique canvas into such a familiar shape.

Perhaps what added to the atmosphere was one of the nearby tour-guides who scrambled up a nearby wall and started playing his Native American flute. A soothing melody filled in the small cavernous space around, increasing in clarity and meaning as the crowd grew silent trying to catch the song. The mellifluous song transported me to the past, to an age sans civilization, to an age of nature.

While I could never hope to capture that otherworldly feel in a static photograph, I did the best in capturing the essence of the Lion's Head that day in Lower Antelope Canyon

Lower Antelope Canyon
Page AZ

Misty Mountains

'Far over the Misty Mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day
To find our long forgotten gold'

As I watched the misty fog roll over the steep ravines of the mountains yonder, this ode to the dwarves popped into my head, and I was instantly transported to Middle Earth. I imagined the ragged valleys through which the orcs would attack, the meandering rivers over which the elves and the dwarves would team up to defend, and the distant peaks from which the nazgul and the great eagles would watch the entire show.

Then the seemingly out-of-place picnic bench came into view, transporting me back to reality. Nevertheless, I spent many an hour mesmerized by the motion of the clouds and entranced by the soothing sounds of gurgling water. And to this day, photos like this made me realize why it was so hard to bid adieu to the land of Middle Earth.

Lake Tekapo
Canterbury, New Zealand