Photographing Street Painting

Each year over Memorial Day weekend, Mission Santa Barbara hosts I Madonnari, a revival of Italian street painting. This is a very popular event which draws many of the visitors in town and also local residents. The event benefits the Children’s Creative Project, sponsored by the Santa Barbara County Education Office (http://www.sbceo.k12.ca.us/~ccp/ccp_catalog.shtml ). Local businesses and non-profits purchase squares and sponsor members or independent artists to decorate the square with appropriate art work.

I have visited this event numerous times with my camera, usually focusing on the art work. This time, I decided that picturing the artists themselves would be more creative. As the day was sunny, I realized that they or their faces would be in deep shade, due to umbrellas, hats, or just because they would be facing their work on the ground. There is an example in the first picture.

In order to combat this, I brought my flash and one set of my PocketWizard wireless controls, a MiniTT1 and a FlexTT5. These devices allow my Canon 580 flash to communicate with my camera and control the amount of light produced by the flash. I set the flash on the ground pointing toward the artist, as shown the second picture.


I normally have my Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC) set to +2/3 (about 150%) and left it there for my tests on Saturday. Looking at the LCD on my camera, I could see that it was working. However, when I looked on my computer that night, I could see that it was really too much, so I went back Sunday to try other amounts of compensation.

It turns out that, the correct amount may be a matter of trial and error; somewhere between -1 (50%) and -2 (25%) of the amount computed in the camera. This probably depends upon factors which are outside the photographer’s control. You can see in the last picture the natural looking light with the FEC set to -12/3 or about 30% of the metered amount of light.

May 4 – The Trip to Tiger’s Nest

One of the “must do” events on any trip to Bhutan is the visit to Tiger’s Nest, a monastery perched high in the mountains above Paro. There are two ways to travel there, either to walk all the way or to rent horses part way and walk the rest of the way. To the traveler, there are three important stages on the journey. First is the cafeteria, about half-way up, where most of the horse trips end. The second stage is the view point across a valley from Tiger’s Nest, where you can go by horse if you pay extra for the ride. This is as far as anyone can go by horseback. The third stage is a walk down about 300 steps to the valley floor and then back up another 300 steps to the monastery itself.

April 27 – April 29 – A Sixteenth Century Palace and a Village in Rural Bhutan

During this period we experienced really one of the highlights of the trip. We visited the village of Ugyen Choling. This village just received electricity in the past year, and is not presently reachable by car or bus. The main attraction is the 16th century palace of a former governor, which the descendants have turned into a museum and formed a foundation to maintain it as a cultural asset.

After a morning visit to the Jakar Dzong and the winter palace of the second king of Bhutan, we are on the road. Fifteen minutes after leaving Jakar, we turn off the paved road to a hard-packed but unpaved road. We will drive this road for about a half-hour to a nunnery which we will visit. While we are there, James will have his head shaved by one of the nuns. At the end of our visit it is noon and we have our lunch on some tables adjacent to the nunnery.

The Bridge at the end of the road and the start of our hike

After lunch, we climb the unpaved road for an hour until we reach a village at the end of the road. There awaiting us in a field by the river are women from Ugyen Choling, who will help carry our luggage the rest of the way to the village. We have all pared down our luggage to essentials, clothes for two days, and our camera equipment. We and our own guides and drivers will carry the camera equipment.

We started up the trail under cloudy skies and all brought ponchos or other rain gear. We had a one hour uphill walk ahead of us. The trail is hard packed dirt about as wide as a single lane road. It rises in slopes about 50 yards long with a landing at the end before the nest slope in the opposite direction, like a set of ramps in a building. As we went on, it started to drizzle, and then rain, and then rain harder, and then rain was mixed with sleet. We are at 8,000 feet climbing upwards with a camera or two on our persons, and I was making it to the next ramp, so that I could catch my breath for a minute or two. When the sleet started, I forgot about catching my breath, and just wanted to get to the end of the journey and under shelter as quickly as possible. Finally, we reached the village, and then the guest house, and up the stairs into the great room, where a bucari was warming the room. The hike up the hill had taken an hour and four minutes, at least thirty of those minutes in pouring rain and sleet. Our luggage had already arrived and I went to my room and took off my soaked jeans and put on my sweat pants/pajamas for the trip. We had tea and our evening meal. I then retired to my room with its own lit bucari, arranged my jeans near the bucari to dry.

Raising Prayer Flags

The next day we awoke to a breakfast of porridge, eggs, and toast in the great room. After breakfast we went outside to help Namgay raise a set of prayer flags that he had wanted to place around the chorten at Ugygen Choling.. We had some long poles made from shaved trees. Long strips of different colored cloth were tied almost the whole length of the pole and then each pole was placed in it s position around the chorten.

Afterwards in the morning, there was an archery match between our guides and drivers and the men of the village. I watched for awhile and then toured the museum which has artifacts from the original owners of the property. Afterwards, Robin invited me to tour a local farm house with him. It was well constructed and in the traditional style. There was an extended family of grandmother, the farmer, his wife, and their grown children. The grandmother is 83 years old and has lived in the house all her life. It has a wood stove in the kitchen, a treadle-powered sewing machine, and everyone sleeps on quilts on the floor. However, electricity reached Uygen Choling last year and there is a flat screen TV with cable input. It is interesting to see the shift to modernity play out in Bhutan.

Lawn Darts

Lawn Darts

The Peanut Gallery

After lunch, there was a lawn darts match between our guides and drivers and the local men. This was a holiday for the village, and the whole village turned out to watch. Lawn darts is somewhat like archery on a shorter field. There is a target at either end of the field and the players alternate throwing at the two targets to compensate for wind effects. Interest is added to the game when one of the spectators (tourists) sponsors a target. The sponsor places a bill either dollars or ngultrum (Nu) on one target or the other, and the first player to hit that target wins the money. Nu is the Bhutanese currency, which is pegged to the Indian rupee, and both currencies are accepted equally in Bhutan.

The lawn dart game continued all afternoon with women and children from the village watching and cheering the players on.

The Palace

Dancer in Costume

During the match, I went into the temple in the main building to photograph a dancer that Robin had hired to dress in costume and pose for the photographers on the tour.

Awards Ceremony and Dance

We had dinner at six, and then went over to the main building for a ceremony to present the awards for the archery and dart matches. Again all the people from the village were present and there was dancing to Bhutanese music. After the dancing, there was an award ceremony. We had brought all the prizes. A local farmer had won both the archery and darts matches and he was awarded with a new set of arrows. However, there were prizes for everyone. Prizes for all the other local players, prizes for the local girls who had sung and danced during the lawn darts match. In addition, the tourists had brought gifts which were handed out, including reading glasses for some of the older people. After the awards there was more dancing and celebrating.

Guesthouse where we stayed

The Way Down

The next morning we woke up and after breakfast started the hike back down to the cars. This time it was downhill and the weather was pleasant. The walk was easy and we took pictures of the farms and fields on the way down. When we reached the footbridge and the cars, it was the end of a wonderful part of our journey. It is likely that people who visit Ugyen Choling in the near future will be able to arrive by car or at least four wheel drive vehicle. There is a plan to construct a vehicle bridge across the river, which has only been delayed due to a local official misappropriating the funds allocated, but the bridge will probably be complete within a year. While tour busses won’t be able to make the climb, certainly the 4WD vehicles that we were using could, and the village will be changed, in some ways for the better, and in some ways not.

April 26 – Another Festival and the Ride Home

On Monday we woke up at the River Lodge and went to the village of Ura for the second day of its festival. This was a quite different experience from our two days at Domkar. We were just a few of the many tourists attending this festival. In fact, the tourists outnumbered the Bhutanese attending the festival. According to Robin, this had started out as a small local festival and was now becoming quite commercialized. This might be the last year that he would bring a group here.

We did see some dances that we hadn’t seen in Domkar. The highlight was the Black Hat Dance. In this dance the dancers assume the appearance of yogis who have the power to kill and recreate life. The dancers wear brocade dresses, wide-brimmed black hats, and black aprons with an image of the protective deities whose images are kept in the chapel devoted to them.

I have included two photos of the dance, one of the dancers lining up at the beginning of the dance and one of a single dancer, taken from the second story of the temple. You will see in both cases, tourists in the picture.

We had our lunch, which we had brought from the River Lodge, watched one more dance and then left to return to the River Lodge for our second night, before leaving for Ugen Choling the next day. On the way home I took a couple of pictures of typical passing situations on the roads through the front windshield. These are not noted for their photographic quality, but I believe give you the idea of the roads in Bhutan. These were taken on the main highway that crosses the country from east to west. There is a new section from Paro to Thimphu that is straighter and wider, but what I have shown is more common.

Just before arriving in Jakar, we had a great view of the valley with storm clouds billowing up. Tomorrow we leave the River Lodge for the village of Ugyen Choling. It is the site of a sixteenth century palace, now a museum, and a guest house where we will spend two nights. In this setting we are able to interact with the local farmers, who were recently brought into the 21st century when electricity came in.

April 25 – Last Day of the Festival, a Monastery, and More

We packed and left early to return to the festival grounds by 8:30 to catch the important event of the last day of the festival, the unfurling of the Throngdroel banner and the blessing of the crowd. Everybody was out in their finest clothes, used only on festival day for the event. We arrived in time and as we had the day before roamed the grounds looking for interesting photos.

The Throngdroel was hanging on the temple when we arrived shortly before 8:30, and the musicians were assembling their instruments. At 8:40, the ceremony started, the abbot and dignitaries facing the Throngdroel and gathering around the altar set up beneath it. They then moved to the other end of the festival space, donned ceremonial headgear and the music began. After this ceremony, the Throngdroel was taken down and furled up. The people then lined up to pass by the abbot by the altar near the temple to receive the blessing.

After the blessing there were several more dances and at noon the festival was over. We then left for Jakar in Bumthang where we checked in at The River Lodge, our hotel for two days and had lunch.
Actually there are two villages near each other, one called Jakar, and the other Chamkhar. It was unclear to me which was which, so I’ll refer to the area as Jakar.

After lunch we were free to select several sights in the Jakar area. James and I were with Namgay. Our first stop was the Kharchu Dartasang monastery, where 500 boys are training to be Buddhist monks. When we arrived they were in a common room reciting the scriptures before lunch. We saw them and were able to take pictures of the boys from the doorway of the large common room that they were in. There were three lamas at a table at the back wall opposite the doorway, leading the recitation. We were not allowed to take their picture, however,

We are learning the do’s and don’ts of visiting Buddhist temples as we have entered an average of two a day on our trip. Do take off your hat. Do take off your shoes. Don’t take pictures of the altar.

After the monastery, we visited the Then on to the Kurjey Lhakhang where we took pictures of some young boys playing in the yard and Namgay had the disciplinary lama pose for pictures in the doorway. I gave Namgay a copy of the picture, so that he could have it printed for the lama.

From there we went and walked up the main street of the village, taking pictures. The people of this village are also going to be moved a short distance away. We saw their new homes under construction on our drive to the monastery. Like the others, they will be concrete apartment blocks, with less character and charm than the houses they presently live in, but hopefully with safe water and a better infrastructure.

We returned to the River Lodge for dinner and our nightly guessing game as to how long the power would be off. The previous night a rain storm had shut down the power for some time. This night, the lodge was running on a generator, supplying lights and other low current items. It appears that a previous storm had caused a transformer to blow out. The power company was replacing it, and the replacement was scheduled to be completed at 9:00 PM. The power actually returned at 9:45.

With no lights after 8:00 and an early start to get to the Ura Festival the next day, I retired early. The next day was to be the second day of a festival in Ura.

April 24 – Domkar Festival – Day One

We left the Yangkhil Resort at eight for the Domkar Festival. The power still had not returned. Outside of the power failures, the Yangkhil provided very comfortable and clean accommodations. The room was large and the bathroom plumbing in good shape. There was even one large bed in the room as opposed to the two smaller beds in many of the hotels. We will return to Trongsa and the Yangkhil for two nights on our return trip to Paro.

I was in the car with Robin as guide and Djordi as driver. Robin was not feeling well, he had gone through a bad night, waking up with chills, fever, and intestinal problems. He left the festival early and went to the hotel where he went to his room all day. Marcia, who is a nurse, visited him later and discovered that he had a case of food poisoning. However Namgay is very capable and is leading the trip as required.

Robin and our Bhutanese tour company, Rainbow Tours and Treks, have supported the Domkar Festival and the local temple, so we are treated as honored guests. When we arrive, there are several other groups of tourists already present, they watch as we are led into the temple of a welcoming tea with the lama. The dances and dancers are outside while we have tea and present some donations to the lama.

After the tea we go out to spend the rest of the morning watching the dances and photographing. This is a relatively small festival, compared to the ones in Paro and Thimphu, but as we find out, it provides excellent photographic opportunities. The festival is a holiday for the local area and families sit around watching the entertain ment. Everyone is free to circulate to get their desired camera angle and picture and there are many pictures of the audience as well as the dancers. As I said yesterday, the Bhutanese are in the main willing to have their and their children’s pictures taken, and their reward is ust being able to view the picture on the camera. The photographer’s first reward is the broad smile on the face of the subject when they see their picture.

Besides us there are perhaps twenty other tourists, some from Poland and some from Australia. There are maybe 100 – 200 villagers in attendance. We have very little problems taking good photos without tourists in the way. A couple of times during the day, one of the other tourists would stand in from of my position by the bandstand to take pictures of the band. I would then take a photo of them.

The Festival consists of a series of dances each about a half hour or more in duration. These are all traditional and handed down through the generations. There are the masked dances with men in costumes doing extremely physical gyrations, and these alternate with women in traditional costumes performing is a more restrained fashion. The women’s dances are really an intermission for the men to rest and change costumes for the next vigorous performance.

After about three sets of dances, it is noon and time for lunch. Again we are honored to have lunch with the lama in the temple. The other visitors must go offsite to a hotel or restaurant for theirs, or bring a packed lunch.

The afternoon continues with more dances men in costumes alternated with women in kiras. The men’s dances in costumes are depictions of the viewer’s journey after death to nirvana. The women’s dances are times for the men to rest and change costumes for the next act of the drama. During one of these “half-time” periods, we have an invitation to go up to the temple, where the men are dressing and take pictures.

We alternate taking pictures of the dances in their costumes with pictures of the villagers attending the festival. At 5:00 the last dance of the day is performed and we return to our lodging for dinner. We will arise early to attend the last day of the festival, when the ________, a large banner is unfurled and all the attendees pass by the lama to receive his blessing.

Wangdue to Trongsa - Worse than the road to Hana

We left Wangdue at about 8:00. I was assigned to a car by myself with Wangdi and Thinley as guide and driver, respectively. Robin had given the guides, a challenge to find a beehive, an orchid, and a monkey along the road. The road we were to follow for the next seven hours is a windy road cut into the sides of mountains, following the course of a river. The paved surface is barely wide enough for two cars to pass. Many times we had to stop and pull over to the minimal shoulder to allow a truck coming toward us room to pass. The top speed is about 25 mph. Large trucks in Bhutan are marked 30km which means that they are not allowed to travel faster than 18 mph. Robin had figured that from curve to curve on the road was about nine seconds of driving time or about 100 yards. Sometimes one can see around two curves. This was the road all day up to a mountain pass where we had lunch and then back down on the other side.

I will give a few incidents and a few pictures; to recount the whole seven hours would be tedious and I am a day behind writing this up as I will explain later.

It was about 8:30 when Wangdi spotted a beehive on the cliff across the river. The beehive is a large black half-circle that stands out on the white cliff. I documented the find with a picture and we moved on. About 20 minutes later, Wangdi spotted several trees with orchids growing in the branches, and we photographed several plants. We finally finished the trifecta when I had pulled over to photograph a white rhododendron and Wangdi spotted the monkey down at the bottom of the cliff. I took the picture with the longest lens that I have with me and the monkey is hardly distinguishable. The picture here is a crop of the full frame from my camera, which makes it a 2:1 blow up.

We passed a group of women sitting under prayer flags at the top of he pass and they were gracious enough to allow me to take their picture. Almost without exception, the people here are willing to have their picture taken and some even ask when they see your camera. The big reward is when you show them their picture on the camera screen, they giggle and laugh and are really pleased.

We continued along. Either I would see something that I wanted to photograph and ask Thinley to stop or Wangdi would see something and ask if I wanted to photograph it, which I usually did. We stopped to photograph several nice waterfalls along the way.

The three cars joined up for lunch at about 2:00 PM. After lunch we moved along much quicker as the scenery was not as interesting and it was clouding up and beginning to look like rain and this road did not seem like the kind of place I wanted to be after dark on a rainy night.

We reached our destination, the Yangkill resort a little after four and went to our rooms. They were supposed to have an Internet connection so I could send the three blogs that I hadn’t been able to send before, because of time constraints and because the place we stayed in Wangdue didn’t have Internet.