“Holi” Celebration in Udaipur

Hi friends, I’m back from India! The trip was great, everything went well, and I’m now sorting through the photos, trying to decide what to write about first.

I guess the highlight of the trip was the Holi celebration which I experienced in Udaipur. I hadn’t planned the trip explicitly around Holi, but was very happy to be part of it. What a splendid festival! Once a year the pious Indians let themselves go and celebrate Prahlada’s belief in Vishnu by symbolically burning of the evil on the first day and playing with powder in many different colors on the second day — throwing it in the air or rubbing each-other’s faces with it. As the sun gets higher and the alcohol consumption rises (most Indians do not drink alcohol on any other day of the year) the games become rougher — water guns and water balloons get thrown around, instead of purely organic colors, chemically-based ones come into play, and when these are over even cow dung starts flying in the air.

Most traveler books suggest that tourists spend Holi in the safety of their hotels, but to me it was clear — there was no way I’d miss the colorful spectacle. So I made a few rounds during the earlier hours of the day. The atmosphere was spectacular, and I was not the only photographer out there and definitely not the only tourist.

Even though I stayed away from the roughest parties and returned to my hotel at noon, I got a good bit of color on my face and even more on the photo bag. But after an hour of blowing, brushing, scrubbing and washing I was able to get it all off.

And I thought India is already colorful on a normal day…

India 2008

Finally — I’m off to the land of explosive colors, smells and sounds! The sunrise is at 6:25 and the sunset at 18:33, so wish me good light and good luck…

Leaving on a Longer Trip?

So how do you prepare for a longer photographic trip? I’ll be leaving on such a trip in a few days, so I’ve been thinking about what to take along:

• Since I’ll be going “into the wild,” I thought long and hard about which pieces I really need and which are just nice to have. Since I’ll be doing “situational photography,” I will be taking a very universal kit: a dSLR, an extreme wide-angle zoom, a wide-angle zoom, a fast normal prime, a tele-zoom and an external flash.
• A tripod might be the key to sharp pictures, but I want to be very mobile, so I’m leaving it at home. But I’ll be taking a small bean-bag, just in case.
• Since the trip is very important to me, I’ve borrowed a backup body — in case my primary one breaks, falls down, gets wet, lost or stolen.
• Which camera bag should I take? I have two, and for the first time I’m taking the larger one.
• Where will I store my images and will I make backups? A laptop is too much hassle, but I want to make backups. So I’ve decided to take enough memory cards (12 GB) for all good images from the entire trip (95 RAW images per day). And I have an external drive for making backups.
• How about batteries? I’ll have four batteries for my primary body, one battery set for the flash and one for the replacement body.
• How about charging the batteries? I’m heading for India where they have five (!!!) different types of power sockets, and electricity is still not all that reliable (I know that thanks to this page). At least their power is 230 V/50 Hz , so a simple mechanical power adapter should be enough.

And now, just a few days before departing, I’m taking care of the following:

• Write down all serial numbers of all equipment. Actually I’ve done this a long time ago, but I’ve just checked that all newer items are also on my list.
• Charge all batteries.
• Clean the lenses and viewfinders.
• Clean the camera sensors. I guess I’m a cheapskate as I simply brush my sensors with a clean cotton pad (Q-Tipp, for those in Germany). I brush the sensor in a snake-like line, then take a sample image at f/22. If the images shows bad dust spots, I brush again and take another shot. I only worry about the bad spots because the other ones will not be visible at f/8 or f/11.

One thing I’ve not done yet, but will try to do before my next important trip — buy travel camera insurance.

Abandoned Factory in Hannover

How photographically fascinating can a place appear if the weather is cold, the wind is blazing, and the light is flat? Well, not very much. Especially if the place is an abandoned old factory with broken windows where the wind is howling from all directions. If I’d not made plans to go together with a friend of mine, I probably would have glanced through the window and quickly gone back to bed. But I had, so I didn’t. So lesson number one is: always go with someone. This way you have additional motivation in case you start feeling a bit lazy.

Entering the old factory is forbidden, but we found a whole in the fence and got in. It was 7:20 am, and yesterday we would have had beautiful morning light. But today everything was middle gray and it was raining lightly. And yet the old factory was fascinating — large hangars, lots of twisted old metal, broken up doors, broken windows, glass lying around everywhere.

And there were tons of really cool graffiti sprayed all over the walls. We only had about 90 minutes for walking around, but we’ll definitely be going back — on a warmer day, with sunshine and with more free time.

Sunset Looking East

Sunsets are usually only pretty if you are facing west, but I guess I was looking the other way…