solang valley in the winters, a photo from Himachal Pradesh, Nord

Photographer's Note

the earlier photograph was a little dull because of scanning. ive tried to remove that . ive also increased the size of this photograph since some people found the earlier image a little small

this place is in solang valley which is near rohtang pass and manali.this was in the month of january . the person in the photograph is was my father.we had driven down to a place near manali . from there we had to trek to this cave where this holy man was meditating. there was fresh snowfall that day .infact the sun was out only for a couple of hours. we were the first to go up that day after the heavy snowfall. the snow in this photograph is not much in most places it reached p to our necks and we both being about 6 feet tall, the snow definitely wasnt less. we had to make our own way through the snow. what made this trek harder was that the snow being fresh was also very soft so in a lot of places we would sink in till our waist. the soft snow also made it difficult for us to pull ourselves out .
anyway we were there with the baba (holy man) for about half an hour after which we drove back to delhi which is bout 650 kms away from this place.

SophieL, MKING, supereira, shutterbug trouve(nt) cette note utile

Critiques | Translate

SophieL (6042) 2004-08-31 8:15

This is certainly not the kind of landscape I imagine when I think about India from my corner of the world... Thanks for broadening our horizon.
You can really tell the texture of freshly fallen snow, and feel the crispy cold air... And also imagine the slow progress of the walk. Very fresh picture.
There is something weird about the colors though, especially the blue in the sky which looks almost fluorescent! The light is very strong but I like it, it's part of the atmosphere of a sunny day in the snow.

sn00zie (2384) 2004-08-31 10:16

hey.. i liked the earlier picture better.. this one is too bright and high in contrast for my liking

MKING (3054) 2004-09-01 9:54

Exposure is great in this difficult situation; you might have lost a bit of detail here and there in the quick curves adjustment. Result is admirable-- the tonal range of the original is better even if it lacks the edge of this representation.

Looking at the original, I think all that needed to be really done was to darken the shadow sections-- the sihouette of the man and possibly some of the tree to add that "punch". Otherwise the blue sections were saturated without being to gaudy.

Compositionally this is fine; you've managed to include a little lens flare without it dominating the picture-- not an easy thing to do.

Endy (1025) 2004-09-02 0:56

A nice snow picture Sohrab! The sky is very bright and well presented but it seems to affect the remains of your picture which seems too bluish.

I did not know that there is a winter period in India, that's suprised me.

bjtindle (0) 2004-09-05 2:48

I agree with SophieL, I would not have thought this landscape to be a part of India either!!! Not sure exactly WHAT I thought, but not this. Very beautiful!

Nile_sid (129) 2004-09-07 3:02

Beauty! I very much like a snow and the sun! Remarkable work!

supereira (9576) 2004-09-08 8:03

I like very much the colors and the contrast between them. The tree that covers the sun is excelent and the snow all around is really very pretty.

charonferryman (21) 2011-09-07 4:03

Hello Sohrab,

I like the deep blue and the otherworldly feel it gives the image - it goes well with your story of why you went there. I can imagine going from such a place straight back to the crowds of Delhi is challenging...

So far I only know your evocative black and white shots, so it's good to see some colour (of course the strong mood remains).

Great shot,
Sebastian.