jean_pierre_verbeke

Thanks for your comments...

 

Silverfast is a very powerfull scanner software from Lasersoft. You can find it all at: http://www.silverfast.com/highlights/en.html

 

Jean-Pierre

"A little bit to dark"... Wel that's the problem when uploading to photo.net. The pictures in my Photoshop are somehow lighter and more detailed in the dark blacks. My prints are perfect but like I already said long time before: this white background creates to much contrast for the eye and darkens the view...

We were sitting on the (very) slow train from Sihanoukville to Phnom

Pehn when the train stood still amids the ricefields for nearly an

hour. I stepped down the train to have a look and then when I turned

my back I saw the man watching me...

but she kept staring at me. All the while I took a dozen of pictures

of her and this my best shot...

Just a small typing error but it is indeed 40 million, well at least, some statistics even go up to 70 million pilgrims so 40 is a save bet...

 

Namaste

Taken in 1996 on my first trip to India, Rajasthan in the Tar

desert. The dunes are well hidden in the desert near the Pakisthani

border in the vincinity of Jaisalmer.

The other picture "Sunset in The Tar Desert" in this folder is what

my wife is seeing...

Like to know what you think about this picture?

 

Thanks.

MESSAGE TO ALL!!!

 

Just uploaded FINAL VERSION. Hope you like even more, or maybe not....

 

Namaste...

My heart goes Boem,Boem,Boem...

 

Well folks, how am I suppose to respond to all those comments? I'm really overwhelmed by all this. I feel like flying since the magic still goes on...

 

I will look at them more closely and try to come back to them since for the moment I don't have much time. In the meanwhile I would like to include here the definitive version I made a couple of weeks ago of that same picture. I also put it in this same folder. Maybe you will like it even more, maybe not....

 

Namaste...

Just another day. Woke up this morning and after some breakfast and strolling around boot up my pc to look for my email. Great was my surprise when I read the mail from photo.net telling me the panorama on the khumbh was quoted pow. My heart went boem boem boem, you know...

I read the comments of all you photo lovers and I guess politeness obliges me to respond. I'm not the kind of great talker, just try to put my experiences and feelings into my pictures.

The Maha Kumbh Mela is something really fabulous and the huge amount of people gathering there in 6 weeks time concentrates the cosmic powers (shakti) into your own being. It doesn't leave you anymore for the rest of your present livetime. The story of getting there is already a small miracle amongst the many that happened there. The main day with the many processions of sadhus, nagas, gurus..., was on 24st jan2001. Millions of people were expected and my wife and I weren't quiet sure what to expect when arriving there. So we stayed in the center of Allahabad 5km away from the Kumbh and went on several explorations of the sites during daytime some days before . There was already a lot of people but we could easily manage to find our way and to fix many landmarks into our minds. We strolled around and made many pictures of ordinary people.

Then the 24st Jan arrived and we had to leave the guesthouse in town very early at 3am to try to get at the Sangam (the confluence you see in the panorama)in time at sunset when the nagas are running into the water. The picture of Lance Lee shows this very well.

But there was a very big problem. All streets were close for traffic even for the rickshaw's and so we had to walk the 5km in nearly absolutely darkness and then we were very sceptical to get at the Sangam that day cause all the pelgrims were moving by thousends with us and at some point we didn't have a clue where we really were. We just let us float by the masses. At some crossroad some policeman stood there and in some illuminated move I asked them if we could move straight instead of turning left with the big crowd. After some discussing, like always in India, the officer let us through and we moved further on but still without knowing where we were in that semi darkness. We walked some kms further and my wife asked me if I was sure what I was doing and told here I really didn't know but at that very same moment I saw a very tiny red light in the sky on my right and was thinking: if this is what I think it is then we will be right on the spot. Some distance further I recongnized the hindu tempel on the shore of the Ganga near the Sangam. And yes we only had to walk a couple of hundred meter further and the magic grew to unexpected hight...

It was still very dark and cold, but neonlights lighted up the huge crowd. We've already been many time in India and are used to expect the unexpected but gosh was this some kind of experience...we couldn't believe our own senses!

But we were still a while away from the place where the procession would pass. So we had to move into the very dense masses. At first I was reluctant to do that. I knew from previous Khumbs that many people died crushed on eachother. So I hold my wife's hand very sturdely and could move near the fence where some policemen and officials stood. Seeing my camera's and lenses they signed me to some platform where other photographers and tourist were. So we climbed on it and there we were looking over the crowd and realizing the vast scene. But the magic didn't end there. Already many clusters of guru's with there disciples passed by and the sound of big drumms resonated in the distance anouncing the first naga's arriving. Some kind of dressed guards waving around a large sword cleared the way and shouting NO PHOTO! NO PHOTO! So I had to be carefull and there they were right before our eyes and not without danger I could grasp some pictures of them. Pure, pure magic!

Then we jumped from the platform and moved at the other side of the path, that's where I made the pictures of the nagas you can see on this same folder. Well to much to tell to whole story...But when the first light of dawn came up the magic growed even greater. Hundreds, thousends of convois went to the Ganga waters to bath. We stood in the middle of all this and looking up to the stars I realized that this was permanent, the whole cosmos was concentrating to one point: the Sangam. And we really could feel it into our beings.

Then te sun came up and that's when the other sides of the Ganga and Yamuna came into sight. As far as we could see with our eyes (and binoculars) the horizon was black lined from the crowds and we stood there. We didn't want to move away, just looking around amaized by the sight and the sound and the smell. A hard wind was blowing very could but cleared the sky. I took many many pictures but couldn't grasp the huge overwhelming feeling I had on that spot. Then I had some idea, why not make several different pictures spread over 180° and then see at home if I could stitch them somehow together in Photoshop. I had no tripod with me, only two bodies with a 70-210mm and 20-35mm and working on slides Fuji Sensia 100iso. I mesured the light with my incident lightmeter for the picture to the right of the panorama and made the other ones with the same aperture and time, carefully trying to get the horizon aligned, with the help of the grid in my viewer, and allowing some large overlap on the left and right of each picture. Back home I followed carefully some tutorial about stitching in PS and after some time I managed to get the result above. The magic went on...

Obviously you liked it very much and I'm very pleased that magic came through to you. After making a printed enlargment on my Epson1290 it's even more impressive.

I could tell you many more about that day but I will leave it here since this is not a travel forum.

 

 

To reply to Derek D. mail concerning the shadow. Your remark is right somehow. You have to imagine the right of the picture is 90° on the midlle since it is shot that way.

And I don't quiet understand Mason Israel stating this is a poor subject...could you explain this somehow?

 

Many thanks to all, you really made my day!!!

 

Namaste (the Spirit in me greets the Spirit in you)

 

from Belgium...

 

 

Well that is something I noticed. On my calibrated monitor the pictures look clear enough but putting them on the photo.net always darkens them because of the big white surrounding background. Maybe the folks of the website could make some more middle grey neutral background as then to not disturb the apparent viewing condition....

Like everything in India is...

 

BTW as you say you liked the picture a lot why not rate it? Just asking...

I went 5 times now to India and Bangladesh, and I love the country so much. Maybe some day I will have the luck to live there.

All other SE-Asian countries I've been to (Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos and recently Cambodia have a very great attraction to me but most of all India has still the genuin and authentic entity and I just can't help it: I fell in love with it...

To all the people here who responded so generously to my pictures of the great Maha Kumbh Mela I express my gratitude and many more of my thousends of pictures of all my travels will follow now I really mastered the scanner technique.

 

thanks

 

Jean-Pierre Verbeke

 

I really didn't expect to get such positive comments on this picture, and I totally agree with the fact I had to crop some more to the left to get rid of the dressed man. It surely works better as the red dressed monk is better balanced.

 

But whaw, what a reaction. And like Maria suggested I stood there the whole day with my wife with our mouths open amidst that crowd and couldn't believe our own eyes. Every scene changed at the glance of an eye. When I saw a picture I was nearly to late to grasp it on my film. I had to act quickly and at the same time be very carefull not to get in trouble with them. You know this is not some garden party. Some restrain and mostly respect for what is going on there is important.

 

But it is nearly impossible to tell other people about the real atmosphere, you really had to be there to fully feel the magic powers that hang around like feeling the water of the icy Ganga streaming around your feet...

 

I'm really pleased that somehow in this picture some of that magic has come through.

Feel free to have a look at the Panorama photo I took at the river, in this same folder.

 

UM, Shanti, Shanti

"An Ocean of People at an Ocean odf Water"

 

Nearly 40 milj people gathered at the confluence of the Ganga and the

Yamuna in India for ritual bathing every 12 years.

Thios panorama has been assembled in Photoshop with 5 slides taken

consicutively.