Memories of the Ura Valley in Bhutan

I’m nearing the end of the mammoth Bhutan processing job. Almost all 4000 images are captioned, keyworded and checked for dust-spots. I should finish that today and then just have a bit of post-production work to do before I can begin uploading. However, by way of a reward, I’ve returned to a series of pictures of some kids taken in the Ura valley. The light was too harsh for decent photos but these snapshots provide memories of a favourite moment.

Towards the end of our Bhutan expedition we travelled out of Jakar to the Ura valley for a day. The Lonely Planet guide to Bhutan says that Ura is believed to be “home to the earliest inhabitants of Bhutan” and that “Ura is one of the most interesting villages in Bhutan. There are 40 closely-packed houses along cobblestone streets and the main lakhang (temple) dominates the town, giving it a medieval atmosphere“.

Whilst I’d suggest that there may be some poetic license in that description, Ura was a charming location and the picnic we had overlooking the valley was one of the more memorable meals of the trip. Young Tewfic has posted a photo that reveals a moment which remains clear in his memory and it made me think about how spurious and serendipitous such moments are. Despite travelling as a group, our individual memories of Bhutan will inevitably vary a great deal and even though we may have been standing and photographing nearby, we will have seen, noticed, observed and recorded very different things. And that’s what reminded me of these kids in Ura.

After visiting the lakhang in Ura, two of us took a walk around the village. It was pretty deserted, most inhabitants having probably left to visit the tsechu (festival) in Jakar. However, my friend Wink and I came across a group of children playing cards beside a ramshackle house and it wasn’t long before they noticed us and came to the garden wall to check us out. They spoke excellent English and explained that they lived with their grandparents.

There’s always at least one little girl who captures my heart on these trips and, truth be told, there were dozens of kids in Bhutan who made my heart melt but this girl was perhaps the most charming of all. We asked the kids their names and I started to sing an impromptu song, repeating the names, which the kids soon joined in with. I wish I could remember the names and the tune although you’ll be relieved that I can’t as I might have been tempted to record some audio for you to “enjoy”. So, despite the harsh light, these shots record a special moment shared, not only with the winsome Wink but with these delightful kids.

Captioning, keywording and dust-spotting is tortuous. My mind isn’t designed to suffer boringly repetitive tasks for very long and I’m constantly distracted by anything and everything that crosses my mind. My apartment is never as clean as it is when I’m keywording. For some reason de-scaling the kettle and cleaning the grouting on the tiles in the bathroom takes on urgent and immediate importance when I’m keywording. Dust-spotting is even worse. Peering at pixels for hours on end is a nightmare. At least, I imagine it would be, I don’t think I’ve ever managed more than twenty minutes dust-spotting before an inescapable desire to scrub the kitchen floor with a toothbrush takes over. The other disturbing thing about dust-spotting is seeing pictures blown-up to 200% on a vision-filling monitor. No details are left to the imagination and every blemish and boil becomes frighteningly prominent. I’m seriously considering not taking any more close-ups.

The other post-production work is different. Getting the white balance and exposure just right, pulling detail out of the shadows and retrieving the highlights, it’s like alchemy, pulling the best out of a RAW file. I think I’d be over-stating it to suggest that it’s like a sculptor chipping away at a block of stone to reveal the statue within but it feels like that sometimes. You have a final image stored in your head, something you saw in your mind’s eye when you took the shot, and it needs to be brought out from the relatively flat and lifeless RAW file that’s come out of your camera. I’m not talking about trying to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, a bad photo will remain a bad photo no matter how many clever digital effects are applied but there are occasions when good photos can be made better photos by some careful post-production work. I have a certain image in mind for a Lightroom tutorial on this very subject so check back here within the week and I’ll try to put it together for you.

Posted on Saturday, October 25th, 2008 at 12:30 pm. Filed under: My work, Travel Tags: bhutan, slideshow RSS 2.0 feed.