Taking Payment

Whenever you go to a third world country, the number of options for alternative transportation seems to go up exponentially. And they all seem to exclude Westerners by design. This little enclosed tuk-tuk like vehicle packs 7 or 8 people and there must be a system for getting from A to B but I have no idea what it is. They are all over the place in Kathmandu. 

I had actually posted this once before to my Flickr account, but I think I prefer the way I have done it this time. I am using Remask2 a lot more now too, here I used it to ensure that Adjust wouldn't affect my main subject, the money taker.

Impossible View

When I was at Swayambunath this past summer, a picture like this would have been impossible. Apparently they blocked off the upper levels of the stupa a few years ago. This photo was taken on my first trip to Kathmandu about 15 years ago.

Originally taken on slide film. Slightly tweaked.

Take a Spin

Around any stupa in Nepal (and everywhere else around the world) you will find these prayer wheels. They line up so that you can walk around, spinning the wheels as you pass your message forward. I have hundreds of photos of these things. Its easy to take a picture, but to create a great image of them is a bit more difficult. Something out of the norm. This isn't it yet, but as I said, I have hundreds more on my machine (plus many only on slides) and will find one I love eventually.

At least the dog cared about me

One early morning I went out to Dhurbar Square in Kathmandu to see the place before too many people arrived. That plan didn't work because there were swarms of people already there. Behind the main square I found an interesting mini market area. I set up to do a large panorama, but this was a quick HDR I did just in case the panorama didn't work out. I haven't gotten around to trying the pano yet. But I stood there from a good hour, taking photos. And no one noticed me. I don't go to places expecting an audience, but when someone who obviously looks different (color, weight, height, etc), I notice them and wonder what they are doing. Well, at least the dog cared about me.

5 image HDR. No filters.

Viewing the Construction

Durbar Square in Kathmandu is undergoing lots of renovation. I guess they are hoping that they can get all of this done before the tourists start showing up again after 10 years of civil war.

This is a mix of 3 separate HDR images. First is a 5 image HDR to get most of the building. Then two of the source images were fed through Photomatix to get single image HDRs highlighting the two main people. Those were then masked in to the main HDR using the technique described in the Stuck In Customs HDR Tutorial. Finally different sections got different applications of Topaz Adjust using Topaz ReMask to select them.