Part 1: My 5 favourite images from Nepal and the stories behind them

So I am unexpectedly back home in the UK. Unfortunately my fairly new Latop has died on me whilst in Phuket. I don't know if it had been bounced around one too many times in my backpack, or the humidity played havoc with it's insides or I was just plain unlucky. Fortunately, being fairly new it is still in warranty, so i've a made a detour back home to get it fixed and hopefully can carry on with my adventures again after Christmas. I thought about carrying on without it, but photography was the principle reason behind my trip, and this blog itself is something that I am really proud off. Not having the chance to write as well as edit, review, and store images would drive me crazy, And that is not thinking about the cost to get the laptop repaired out of warranty!

Coming home however has given me the chance to reflect on the two months I have spent away, and look back through the images I have taken.

Looking back through the images, my first reaction is of pride. My work at home had started to become stifled, and I wasn't quite sure what i was taking pictures of anymore. Travelling gave me a playground to take photos in and an opportunity to utilise all the skills and knowledge I had gained over the last couple of years and just get stuck in to it. It was really liberating and I feel that my work has gone up a level, and I have made some of the best images I have made to date.

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Nepal was the perfect place to get stuck into and photograph away. As a photographer certain places will just set off your photography senses, Kathmandu was a place that was screaming viscerally at me. It is a ramshackle city with no set rules. Anything goes. The image above is typical of scenes alongside Nepalese road sides. There are always people working, hammering away at something, the clank clank clank of metal being beaten out and reshaped, or the rapid pitter and patter of a sewing machine laying a line of thread through an old dress, The square frame of this car wash instantly drew my eye, it was a natural framing device. There seems to be some order here, but for no reason those bumpers are just littered on top of the corrugated iron roof, the trees are starting to encroach on the facility, their leaves, as well as the car in the centre of the shot coated in a thick layer of dust. It is a typical scene in Kathmandu. It is a city that is alive with activity but there is always and odd sensation hanging in the air, something like suspension. I think it is the dust, places that are lived in and a hive of activity look abandoned and derelict, the thick dust temporarily ageing all that it settles on.

My principle aim taking time out to photograph was to broaden my portfolio. My work had become rather one dimensional. A series of deadpan images, solely looking at the space an object or building existed in. I wanted to start viewing spaces on a bigger scale, how places themselves existed in the landscape. My work was also devoid of any humanity - directly at least. I never, outside of education and workshops, taken a portrait before. It is something I never really been interested in, but I realised it could be an important tool in help telling stories. I think the main reason why many people don't take portraits is that they are simply scared too. It is as simple as that. So i set myself a challenge. Take some portraits! If you want to take portraits of people, or overcome the fear of asking people for a portrait come to Nepal. The people here are so warm and friendly and will approach you, chat to you. That is all the opportunity you need to ask for a portrait. You have built a rapport, it may be brief, but it is enough to give you an insight, enough for you to capture something. If they say no, you still part on friendly terms. It also helped me come to terms with social anxiety. Using a 23mm lens, I really had to close in on the person I was photographing to the point I started to invade their personal space. This was the second portrait I took, an Indian yoga teacher who was looking at buying rabbits. We talked for 10 minutes, he curious where I was from but my photography too as his brother is a photographer. Myself curious, simply, because of the conversation but I was also relaxed as he was the first person I had spoken to in a while who was not trying to either sell me something or drive me somewhere on inflated taxi prices. We hit it off. The guy had a warm and enthusiastic personality, like he had all in the wind in world in his sails, his chest buoyant with pure positivity. I feel that I have captured that in his portrait. I think I still have his yoga card in my wallet somewhere, so yeah I guess he was trying to sell something in the end! But it was an afterthought, a token as we parted ways.

Pokhara, West of Kathmandu offered something completely different from the organised chaos of that city. It was far more peaceful. It was clean, greener and the air was fresher. Thick green hillsides rolled down into the valleys, sitting before the towering monuments that was the Annupurna mountain range. Like with any craft , in photography you are always learning, constantly re-assesing and growing, constantly improving. As you grow as a photographer you look for little things to give your photograph an extra edge, and this one I almost missed. I had taken a two hour walk on a long winding dusty road alongside Lake Phewa, a road that surprisingly was rich in photographic opportunities. Some days I can walk around a city and not be inspired to take one photo, here I was overwhelmed. On the way back I noticed the bush and the textile fence mimicked the hillside in the background. For a long time I had been trying to take an image like this, but in my aimlessly ambling I hadn't managed to see something like this. Being a photographer, your ways of seeing changes and develops. It is a part of being a photographer. As soon as I took the photo I knew I had taken, what we call in photography circles, a winner. The pit of my stomach swelled and bubbled with excitement. I had taken an image that was subtle and worked beyond just a photograph of its subject matter.

This is another image that had something extra to it, it is typical of the sort of images I had been shooting. Deadpan, focusing on how the shed sits amongst the other buildings, how it exists in its space. But a cool wind was blowing through this street and lifted the curtain, again it is a subtle effect, perhaps a cheap trick but it gives the coldness and detachment an element of life.

Writing a blog, I was always conscious of what I wanted to see and post, and what family and friends maybe wanted to see. So with each post, I always tried to include at least one image that shows of a country a bit more..elegantly? I really felt this image captured all the best i had seen and felt in Nepal. The colour, vibrancy, the simplicity. It is all their. This was taken at the World Peace pagoda in Pokhara, it sits atop a hill that overlooks the city. To reach it, you have to climb a steep passage that carves it way upwards through the forest, its steepness making your heart beat so fast it feels like it will burst through your chest, the change in altitude making your ears ring and your lungs gasp for breath. It is 45 minutes of hard work. But you are rewarded with serenity, peacefulness and beauty. Only for what feels like 5 minutes though as you remember the boatman has given you just two hours to climb, see the pagoda and descend back down to him to take you back across the lake. The marigolds in and around Pokhara are spectacular, they visibly change the ambience of the landscape, the way they absorb and reflect back light fills the valley with an intense but diffused light thats covers the thick rice fields, the lake and back up towards the mountains where cool blues and greys start to take hold.