The other day, I was nominated by Arianwen of Beyondblighty to participate in TravelSupermarket.com’s Capture the Color contest. It seemed like a good opportunity to look through a few hundred gigabytes of old photos (and for other bloggers with nicer photos, an opportunity to win £2000), so I spent some time browsing and narrowed it down to the following five:
Green
A tree on one of the 4000 Islands in the Mekong in southern Laos
This tree occupied the end of an island in the Mekong, directly across from my guest house on Don Det (Det Island). I spent many hours swinging lazily in a hammock and enjoying this exact view, so I figured I should take a picture. After a few days, we actually managed to drag ourselves out of the hammocks and swim across to the tree, braving the strong currents. I liked it better from this side, though.
Blue
The Singapore skyline from across the bay
I took this picture from the promenade across the bay from downtown Singapore. The area is easily recognizable by the thousands of cameras flashes that light up the sky around dusk every evening. I didn’t have a tripod at the time, so I had to rest the camera on a railing. It didn’t work well, but after a few hundred shots, I got one that wasn’t blurry.
Red
A Yak grazing near Manang on the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal
I found this yak just before stopping for the night in Ngawal, a small town on the hillside above Manang valley a few hours walk from Manang itself. The sun had already gone down, which resulted in the strange washed out colors. Only the red earrings appeared brightly for some reason.
Yellow
A sunflower in front of a Tibetan home in Zhonglu village near Danba in Sichuan, China
When I was in Chengdu in Sichuan Province in China, I was looking to head further west into some Tibetan areas, but most of them were closed to foreigners at the time. The area around Danba was one of the few that was currently open, so I ended up going there. The scenery was amazing and apparently the Tibetans that occupy the region are some of the wealthiest Tibetans in China. We spent a night in one of their homes and coincidentally, a documentary crew from one of the Chinese TV networks was there at the same time. They got served a huge feast, while we got a few scraps. They were very delicious scraps though. You can read about this and my other experiences in Danba here.
White
Rushing water in Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan province in China
Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan province has to be one of the most beautiful areas on earth. Unfortunately it is also one of the most popular tourist attractions in China and is priced accordingly. I took this picture with a small tripod which took a long time, since the mass of Chinese tourists squeezed onto the narrow walkways kept bumping into me causing my camera to shake. Eventually, I got a clear shot.
I know at this point I’m supposed to nominate five more travel bloggers to take part in this competition, but it seems I was the last one who hadn’t already done so. If I’m wrong and one of the four people who read this is a blogger who’d like to take part, you can send me an email or leave a comment for a nomination. Or you could just go directly to the contest page that I linked to in the first paragraph–you don’t actually need to be nominated to participate.
Really nice pictures. I like the white one the best. I’ll be going to Iguazu falls in a few months and need to know how to capture water movement in photos. Any tips?!
Thanks. To capture the water movement, I used a slow shutter speed, which requires a tripod. If you want to freeze the water, you’ll need to use a really fast shutter speed. And from what I’ve heard of Iguazu Falls, you might need to waterproof your camera somehow.
The trees on that island on the Mekong are amazing. I love trees and these are exceptional. The red earrings on that yak are interesting. Why do people add them, to make the yak easier to locate?
I couldn’t figure out the earrings either. We just figured they were decorations or maybe a way of identifying your herd.