Final Thoughts On Ladakh

This is my final post covering the recent Lumen Dei tour of Ladakh. I’d like to thank David duChemin and Matt Brandon for their wisdom, patience and good humour throughout the trip. Both these guys have, through the blogs, been a constant source of inspiration to me over the last year. Meeting them and watching them work (both as photographers and as teachers) just raised them higher in my estimations. I’d encourage you to check out their blogs, Matt’s excellent podcast, Depth of Field (also on iTunes) and David’s three books, Within the Frame: The Journey of Photographic Vision, VisionMongers: Making a Life and a Living in Photography and Vision & Voice: Refining Your Vision in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

Moreover, I’d like to thank all my fellow participants in the tour. Truth is everyone on the trip managed to take stunning images and watching the way they all approached the subjects and scenery made me think a lot about our photographic individuality and the way we express our vision.

Reading back over my other posts in this series, I know my focus has been on how taxing and tiring the trip was. But, that’s only part of the story. It was also a lot of fun; an adventure, in the truest sense of the word. Sure, the altitude was tough, the trip full of delays and the roads often appalling. But, our spirits seldom lagged, the photo critiques were thoughtful and fun and throughout the trip we all joked, laughed and made the most of it.

Looking back there is no question that the experience was worthwhile. I learnt a lot; making adjustments and improvements to my photography at every stage, from setting up the camera, to post-processing images. The experience was also good for me as a break from the high-tech digital lifestyle in Hong Kong.

In the next few weeks there will be an event here in Hong Kong to showcase some images from the trip and I will be making a few of the images available as limited edition prints. More details on that next week.

Below are the other posts in this series. If you have any questions about the trip, what I learnt, or anything else, feel free to put them in the comments below.

Downtime In Ladakh
Back In Delhi
Lessons From Ladakh
Ladakh Wallpaper
Thiksey And Visual Aggression
Staged Beauty
Longing In Lamayuru
Lost Amongst The Nomads