Images from 2018
In the year of 2018, I travelled more than I had initially planned for, and enjoyed every bit of it. Some of the highlights of my journeys included a very well spent week of winter in Ladakh, an action packed week in Kyrgyzstan and many happy days in Iceland.
The year started with our annual photography tour to shoot winter landscapes in Ladakh. I was returning here after a gap of two years, and immensely enjoyed being here. Here is an image that I loved making during this week.
Most of my travel this year was leading photography tours for Darter Photography. My next tour was a photography tour to Bhutan. This is a country I always look forward to visiting. No matter how often I go there, I still desire to keep going back. I immensely enjoyed the moments of being there.
In June, I was in Zanskar Valley, home to the finest summer landscapes I have seen anywhere in India. Would you know of a place more photogenic in India that can be accessed without days of walking? I would be interested!
This was a year I spent a lot of time in the Himalayas. I was back again in the mountains in July, this time to Spiti Valley. I have always enjoyed being here, and was visiting again after a gap of two years. The weather-gods were nice to us for much of the journey, and I immensely enjoyed making more images of the morning at Chandratal, a place I have been coming to for years.
A month later, I was again in the mountains, but this time further north in Tian-Shan mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan’s landscapes are incredible. I also love the country for its endless grasslands in the mountains where the sheep and horses graze happily through the summer months. For a travel & landscape photography enthusiast like me, this is a piece of heaven! This was my second visit to the country, this time leading a photography tour to Kyrgyzstan. I would have liked to post one image from this trip, but I couldn’t pick from more than half-a-dozen images that I loved making during this visit!
In October I was back in the mountains, another exciting journey in Ladakh – Zankar region, where we discovered some new, interesting locations that are astoundingly photogenic.
Later in the month I took off to Europe for a ten-day journey across the island nation, leading a photography tour to Iceland. In the ten days, we saw considerable variation in weather, which kept getting better with progress in days. There were many many memorable moments through the tour, like getting into the highlands just after a snowfalls had white-washed the landscapes and seeing the magical northern light. Some sunrises and sunsets were just out of this world.
Subsequently, in November, I was in Varanasi during Dev Diwali Festival – a celebration when the 3km long river-front of Varanasi is lit with lamps creating an amazing spectacle.
And finally, my last journey in December was to Assam, and the Hornbill Festival in Nagaland. It’s a photography tour in North-East India where we interact closely with people from the region and spend a lot of time photographing people and cultures.
I would be interested in knowing about your journeys and photographs from 2018. If you have a compilation of stories or images, please leave a link in the comments.