Enlightened

This is the Buddha Dordenma statue that sits above Thimphu, Bhutan. It is not your ordinary Buddha, as it stands nearly 170 feet (51.5 meters) tall, making it one of the largest Buddhas in the world. It is made of bronze, but completely gilded in gold and can be seen from miles away as you enter the capital of Bhutan. Our guide, Ugay, brought us here one afternoon after touring the city. We had already visited several amazing temples the previous three days, so seeing a Buddha statue was nothing new, but the size of this one was impressive.

It was in many respects, the wrong time to take a photo…the sun was high and light was harsh, there was hardly any color in the sky, no clouds, no texture. But still, I wanted to try to capture this amazing statue…and that is when inspiration hit me to shoot for the end result, not what the camera can capture. 

Knowing that I could do some magic in Photoshop, I set up my tripod directly in front of the buddha. Even though the light was harsh, I loved the way it was glowing off the face and side of the Buddha. I also could see that my lens was picking up lens flares, so I took a series of images with the flares and another series with my hand blocking the sun, so that the camera could focus sharply on the statue.

In Photoshop, I blended the images together and added color to the sky using the the gold in the statue as a source. The sun flares added an interesting element and I added some texture using a sun burst pattern in the background. 

I often take photographs imagining what I want the final result to look like. That said, I rarely take the liberty of heavy handed post processing to make the image work. This ended up being much more of an interpretation of what I saw as opposed to a realistic image, but it was fun to create and I like the end result.

Hopefully the Buddha also approves…

The Neue Wache Pietà

On this Memorial Day in the U.S., I thought I would share this photo of a war memorial in Berlin. After German reunification, the Neue Wache (New Guardhouse) became the "Central Memorial of the Federal Republic of Germany for the Victims of War and Tyranny." 

In the center of the memorial is this large sculpture "Mother with her Dead Son" by Käthe Kollwitz. Placed directly under an oculus in the ceiling, the statue is exposed to the rain, snow and cold of the Berlin climate…symbolizing the suffering of civilians during World War II. 

It had rained earlier in the day and the statue and surrounding tiles were still wet when I arrived at the memorial. The sun was breaking though the clouds and light was finding its way in through the oculus above. This provided a great natural vignette, focusing your attention directly on the statue. 

While I do not normally photograph this type of subject matter, I was moved by the sculpture and the surroundings…and thought it was a poignant scene that should be saved.

Divers Down

This image was captured inside one of the largest shopping malls in the world…the Dubai Mall in the United Arab Emirates. I am not an avid shopper…in fact, I had no interest in visiting any of its 1,200 shops, but I did want to wander through the numerous atriums and art displays that make this a fascinating indoor space.

This is from the human waterfall found inside “The Grove”. It is an immense, curved waterfall, cascading down four stories (the entire height of the building). Human sculptures (representing pearl divers) with their hands spreading sideward are positioned across the falls. Although the sculptures are stationary, the cascading water behind them gives them a sense of motion that is captivating…and is what I was hoping to capture in this image. 

To give you some perspective, each of the statues are about 5 feet tall from head to toe…so this shot spans more than 25 feet in each direction. I found the symmetry I wanted by going up to the second floor. At this height, was even with some of the statues and there was minimal distortion from looking up or down. I experimented with a few different shutter speeds, settling on this one where there is some movement in the water while still providing some great texture in the image.