Multimedia from India hits Traveling by the Lens!
By scott.poniewaz | July 20, 2007
Give me a couple days in a hotel room with budgets, finances and pouring through receipts in one of the most incredible places in the world, and I’ll probably get a little side-tracked and stir-crazy. Especially when I’m hanging back to do this work and a group is trekking. I can’t really complain too much though, its just one of the minor downfalls in an otherwise prime occupation that takes me around the world.
Going back to the learning curve associated with multimedia, I spent this morning away from receipts giving myself a little “Scott time” and putting a short video together. It is nothing spectacular, but as I said in my last post, I want to put a DVD together using a lot of my images from around the world, maybe it’s a little influenced by the film “Baraka,” but also just so I can help my friends and family understand a bit more about where I’ve been without having to read my lengthy posts and of course I can incorporate my beautiful voice. For now, I just have a little local music with me, but the Ladakh section’s song is a bit more…well, Hindi pop music. I apologize for the use of these songs, but as anyone who travels over here knows, the 150 song pop CD I picked up didn’t really have a list of names, so I can’t credit them. Please feel free to email me, so I can properly attribute these songs to you!
Note: Quicktime is required to view this content. Please visit www.quicktime.com to see what software you may need to view this footage. Also, please note it may be slow to load, as I can’t tell how slow being on such a slow computer myself!
I recently purchased a Leica D-Lux 3 digital point-and-shoot to add to my repertoire as a high-quality, but compact camera to just throw in my pocket when I didn’t want to lug my big and burly Canon 20D around. As I’ve been finding, I’ve been using both and the Leica has me playing a bit with video. As you will see the streaming quality isn’t the greatest, nor am I skilled with video (yet), but in some places it just helps to get more across in an area. I feel like the vast Indus Valley is better represented with the video footage and the still photographs still come across as more powerful, but its yet another way that Traveling by the Lens is growing in the way it can show you the world.
A woman makes her way across the desert to the 800 year Festival held in Potang, Ladakh. Please click here to see a gallery of images!
Thanks to some conversations with a new friend, I’m becoming inspired to expand on my site in my ‘off-season,’ and begin to illuminate many of the global issues in the areas that I travel and work. I may even begin to ask others to help me with this site as contributors, so if you know of anyone traveling the globe, interested in expanding the world understanding of certain areas and likes to photograph and write, point them in this direction. My idea for this is coming from my insight into American media as an outsider at this point. Lately I have felt that America is missing out on a lot of important issues around the world and many of these are difficult to find outlets for publication sadly. I would like to start to be on the lookout for people interested in publishing high-quality pieces that they have been sitting on for awhile or are willing to have published in helping to get this site rolling. I purchased www.travelingbythelens.com and will be transferring much of this site over, so it can be a slightly more independent site and start to expand its content.
I’ve been realizing lately that by living in these fascinating places for a good portion of the year, I sometimes forget that the things I am seeing now are things that I only could have imagined when I poured through pages of National Geographic when I was little. At times it keeps me from picking up my camera and photographing things that I now see as cliché in these corners of the world, but despite those thoughts, I am trying to continue to look for new things and push my own boundaries a bit more.
For those of you not familiar with Leh, or the Ladakh area, it is essentially a moonscape nestled into northern India. Approximately at 11,500 feet in Leh, the surrounding peaks tower in excess of 20,000 feet and three of the world’s highest roads go through this region. Situated in the disputed zone of Kashmir, it is highly militarized and many areas in the vicinity are regulated by permit-only access. Most of these permits are not difficult to secure, but when you are about 40 miles from both Tibet and Pakistan, in an area that has been fought over for such a long period of time, you can understand their necessity. Despite being in this disputed area, of which my friend Eric Segalstad spent last winter skiing in near Gulmarg and closer to the India and Pakistan “Line of Control,” it is a safe region due to the rich Buddhist history that India is working to preserve here. If you want to see a bit more from this fascinating region, a little more in the realm of winter and skiing, check out Eric’s website from the time he was there at: www.thelineofcontrol.com
You will also see in this post that there is not only a video, but as usual, I have also made a gallery of still images from around India. Much of my time has been spent doing administrative work, but you’ll see a couple galleries from earlier in July from His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s Birthday party.
A quick lowdown on the video, since the text came across quite small, it begins at Bangla Sahib, a Sikh temple in Delhi, which is a quite new cross between Hindu and Muslim beliefs, then holds a basic belief that is similar to both the “golden rule” and karma. It is a sacred bath and I have spent a bit of time there and each time I enjoy the tranquility and kindness of the Sikh people more and more. I have probably learned more about their religion in my time here, than the Buddhist religion surprisingly. The next section takes you up to Ladakh and opens at Hemis Monastery, the biggest in the Ladakh area. You then continue to travel throughout the Leh area along the Indus River and into the mountains to Thiksey Monastery. After the Thiksey Monastery, the footage is from the Phyang Festival, a popular annual festival featuring the unfurling of a beautiful Thangka. Following another drive, you find your way to Shanti Stupa at sunrise (and some prayer flags from Shey Palace), which overlooks Leh. The finale takes you to the 800 year festival of the Drukhpa lineage, the major Buddhist lineage for the Ladakhi people. It was an incredible event and as you can tell, a beautiful day. I would love to have the actual sound from the event, however my point-and-shoot camera, not video camera isn’t exactly meant for capturing all the natural sound. Oh, and of course, the credits image is one of the most incredible bathrooms I’ve ever been in (with the exception of most in my wilderness tour of Alaska probably, you can’t beat playing Plinko in a crevasse!). It is at Thiksey Monastery, stunning, eh?
On a closing note, I would also like to mention that many of the monasteries shown in these photos and the video are sites where I made offerings for my late grandmother who passed away last week. Many of you already are aware of this difficult loss for my family and I, which was made even more difficult with the fact that I was unable to make it back for the funeral. I would like to thank my family for their understanding and want you all to know that 108 butter lamps at the Shey Palace are helping to guide and light the way for our grandmother/mother/friend to whatever heaven she may find, or next life she decides to choose. Grandma, I will miss your humor, your optimism and the overall joy you brought to this world. We know how proud you are of our family from your children all the way to your great-grandchildren. We will carry you with us in our hearts and continue to share your laughter with the world.
Topics: Travel, Photo Galleries, India, Multimedia |
2 Responses to “Multimedia from India hits Traveling by the Lens!”
Comments
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10:31 am on July 25th, 2007
Scott,
as always… thanks for the wonderful insight, and new views of the world.
We miss you and look forward to hearing more stories (in-person) sometime again soon.
Love,
‘Roger Radke Family’
7:15 am on August 12th, 2007
Scott!! this is great! keep more videos coming!