197. God of Rain-Rato Machhindranath Jatra
Photo By: Abishesh Joshi
Posted Date: May12 2008
Description:
Rato Machhindranath; Rato means red and Machhindranath consists of two words “Machhindra” or “Matsyendra” which means fish (matsya is fish) and “nath “ being the god. Machhindranath is also called god of rain and is held responsible for bringing rain. Hence, the festival is held just before the monsoon is to arrive in Nepal.
The procession of chariots gets under way on the fourth day of the bright fortnight of Baishakh (April-May). It is accompanied by a large enthusiastic crowd, which includes Newari musicians playing traditional instruments. The photo was shot at Mangal Bazar during initial procession on 11th May 2008.
If you want to see your work featured here in Life In Nepal photography series, please send us your work at lin@everestuncensored.org
-Editor
Life In Nepal
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nice photo, with short and sweet brif about Rato Machhindranath…
Great
🙂 🙂
Amazing….. पहिला भन्दा त रातो मचिन्द्रनाथ कस्तो सिदा छ ……
Great picturesque bro!
Yes occasionally we get to see stitched panorama and multi exposed pictures in tabloid and news base (quarterly, weekly, monthly) magazines as well. Dailies don’t do that. And it is rule to be stated clearly the technique used, how the finial picture was made. International tend is to mark picture with text ‘M’ in a circle if pictures are manipulated. (Check panorama view of Gahana Pokhari of ‘Republic Plunge’) Photo publishing trend here in Nepal is bit different and magazines and weeklies go bit extend in publishing manipulated pictures without mentioning such. Some cases pretty controversial and still are issues of great debate.
And there are two ways to create multi exposure pictures, using photo editing software like Photoshop’s layer option and merging layers, other way is using creative camera technique. DSLR like Nikon D200, Manual film base camera like Nikon FM2 allows photographer to take multi exposure pictures. Second option of multi exposure is generally accepted in photojournalism.
Excuse me if this Shutterbug is going much ‘core’ of photojournalism. 😉 Happy to share my expertise here.
I agree with your ““Photojournalist take” on this, Shutterbug. 🙂
But I have seen stitched panoramic pictures and multi-exposure ‘last sunset of the year’ kinda things in national dailies.
Btw, if one manipulates the curves, the selective modification of levels over the tonal-plane, technically speaking, that is exactly what the tone maping is. HDR tools like Photomatix and DPHDR just automate the process for global and local contrast manipulations.
Anyways, let’s stick to the ‘bottom line’, shall we 😆
Photoshop is ‘Digital Darkroom’ for today’s photographers and photojournalists. Technique of “dodging” and “burning” what photographers used in the pre-digital days of darkrooms is what today’s Photojournalists do to their image using Photoshop. There is a basic premise in the world of photojournalism that what is allowed and acceptable.
Photoshop is highly sophisticated image manipulation software and we (Photojournalists) use only a tiny part of its potential capability to format our images, crop and size them and balance the tone and colour. For Photojournalist it is a presentational tool.
The rules are – no additions or deletions, no misleading the viewer by manipulation of the tonal and colour balance to disguise elements of an image or to change the context. Cropping and simple color tone balancing in Photoshop is ethically accepted. But strictly no cloning tool, no stitching images, no cut and paste.
Digital revolution has challenged ethic of photojournalism and personally I feel we “Photojournalist” must stick to ethical aspect of journalism rather than joining the rat race.
And yes I do few things to my original digital images before sending them to publish in dailies. The tools I use in Photoshop are levels, curves and saturation for changing contrasts; color balance to bring the image back to the way the natural eye would see the color. But not all the time, not all my pictures. And almost all Photojournalist routinely process their images using Photoshop to embed IPTC data for their copyright safety issue.
My bottom line is: Let’s do our best to preserve “reality” and this should be our noble goal. Whether you are a hobbyist photographer or a dedicated Photojournalist.
To name it: I use Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop bridge CS3. And every single digital camera that exists in on Earth (except when RAW file format is selected in DSLR camera) does process image data before burning it to memory card. It’s not manipulation but some fundamental of digital images.
ehe? is it true Shutterbug?
Personally I feel the HDR photography falls within the digital photography genre. If zooming and taking exposure programmed shots are photography works then post processings like cropping, stitching and exposure corrections should be included within digital photography; until one does not doctor the ACTUAL CONTENTS of the photograph. I think HDR (High dynamic range) tone mapped photographs present the true view of the high contrast scenes by mimicking dynamic aperture effect of the iris of our eyes. Photography is all about presenting the reality – if not always, most of the time it is.
I guess Photoshop is like ‘tripod’ for todays digital photographers. Even almost all Shutterbug’s photographs, posted in EU are post processed in ‘Adobe Photoshop CS2’. Am I right, Shutterbug?
In this photograph, as photographer says he has worked in camera’s native raw format (may be for rapid fire bracketed shots), post software processing is most. In fact, every (digital) shot goes thrugh a certain level of digital manipulation inside the camera itself … remember the white balance or the IS correction or the redeye removal?
In this digital world, photographers have already come out of the old school ‘dark room’. They certainly have larger space to explore. My humble request – let them explore!
No matter what, I am in awe of this pik every time I look at it.
hey guys sotp this who cares who is thutey or thute what ever the spelling is
the comment above is posted by ‘pink floyd ko fan’, it was not me….. and mr. pink floyd ko fan, next time, spell my name right….
hey u guys or girls stop this nonsense. Dont post anything on my name. I am the only thutey in town
damn u guys.
lets not post HRD pics in this blog. I agree with euzilla its artwork.
I think for next time EU team should be careful.
HRD is a artwork not photography
if you are thinking of Artwork of the month if is fine there is no any problem in selecting HRD images other then that………………..???????
baba whats this if u havent used any of photo editing tools then its great hai thumbs up man whoever u are.
Dear ‘Me, Myself and I’,
We respect your concerns. This photograph was chosen from the internal voting of LIN team (7 members). The ‘interestingness’ of the photograph (viewcount/comments/Post rate-ratio) along with the ‘impact’ of caption and the description were also taken in account. We are aware that ‘interestingness’ is not the only scale that can measure the creativeness of a photograph.
Well, this is our first attempt and we heartily welcome any creative comments or criticisms that we believe will guide EU in the future. Please feel free to leave your suggestion/comment here
Thank you,
-LIN Editor
Dear ‘Me, Myself and I’
Let me share some of my views to satisfy your concern. It is indeed a ‘surprise’ feature for viewers and photo contributors of ‘Life in Nepal’ to see ‘EU Photo of the Month’ announcement without a slightest clue. Even the winner was surprised, to have his photo selected as ‘EU Photo of the Month’. So, let’s take this as a neat ‘surprise’ which EU Admin has initiated to honor work of Photographers and their creativity.
There is always a thin line that separate right and wrong and it is obvious response, no matter how good things are there will always be voices heard saying, should have done this way or that way. And you are so right, we are all unprofessional and we make mistakes while doing things in a right way, but we also learn lesson from those mistakes. Hoina ra?
Please don’t take ‘EU Photo of the Month’ is as an ‘Award’, it is more as a ”Virtual Token of Respect’ for Photographer and their creative self. And creativity lies not only in setting aperture, shutter-speed to the camera while we compose pictures but also how we present it. I guess LIN Editor has mentioned their surprise plan and things they have undertaken before announcing this ‘EU Photo of the Month’. So, let us not be unfair blaming the Team for selecting one good looking photo of D2H employee. I strongly believe it’s not that way round.
And yes we can surf ‘Life in Nepal’ section to see all the pictures which were posted within June 2008.
We eagerly wait to see your pure creativity here in ‘Life in Nepal’.
Me, Myself and I, why are you whining??? because your picture did not get selected? Have you posted any of your un-editied pictures yet???
LIN Editor – Even if you come up with surprise features, you should first prepare yourself. You can’t just go and pick one good looking photo from one of the employees of D2 and put it in the ‘Photo of the Month’ section. This is very unprofessional.
If manipulated pictures started getting awards in the competitions, every camera would look like same, without any functionality, such as aperture, shutter speed, bracketing etc. Photographers use various settings to take beautiful pictures and show their creativity. Try to respect the creativity, not the picture which was passed from photo editing tools. This way you will encourage people with real interest in the photography, not the one who are interested in manipulating pictures.
Finally, if you could show other pictures considered for such competition would be a good idea. Everybody can then see and understand why the selected picture (or the winner) is the best among other.
Dear photographers,
We appreciate your concerns regarding the rules and guidelines for “EU Photo of the Month”. It will be published soon.
Actually, along with suggestions of Shutterbug, EU LIN Team had been working behind in the background, compiling rules and guidelines for selection of LIN Photographs since few months before.
“LIN Photo Of the Month” has been introduced as a surprise additional feature in EU. We will have “Photo of the Month” every month onwards.
“EU Photo of the Month” is more of an honorary recognition of photographer’s contribution rather than a pure competition. We value all the photographers who have contributed to “Life In Nepal” series.
Thank you,
-LIN Editor
Actually, I agree with “Me, Myself and I” and “Shutterbug” in making viewers/photographers aware of rules and guidelines of the competition beforehand.
This picture was just an artwork and I personally prefer pictures with no digital manipulation myself. You cannot compare digitally manipulated pictures with pictures that came out as-is from the camera. HDR is a different genre and should be compared with other HDR’s. I had never anticipated it to be chosen as the photo of the month. Well, infact, i had no idea there was a photo of the month competition in the first place.
I agree with Shutterbug there must be some “specific rules and guidelines”, if this is to be a competition… As for this selection, I totally agree with the admins for choosing this pic as the photo of the month – it represents Nepal and Life in Nepal, i think that is what this LIN section is about….
Congratulation Abishesh!
We hope to see more of your creative work in days-to-come.
In my opinion, EU Admin Team should have made one small notice herein EU Blog before making this announcement ‘EU Photo of the Month’. May be EU Admin (LIN Team) has good reasons to do so, but many viewers (except D2H staffs) are not hoping to see this announcement abruptly. And every ‘Photo Competition’ or let me say ‘selection process’ do have some specific rules and guidelines to judge and select the winner. So let me make no comment on this announcement of winning photo of the month by EU Admin, without knowing its preference publicly.
Generally to promote pure photography genre every recognized competition in the world restricted photographers to alter their original images. And I agree with ‘Me, Myself and I’ for his concern of not letting photographer to manipulate their original image because such pictures can create wrong impression and lose its integrity. People started to consider digital photo manipulation as a new form of art and I think this is something EU Admin has to decide.
Hey Abishesh
Congratulations! Two thumbs up for your enthusiasm and solid understanding of photography practices.
We expect more of your compositions in the days to come.
Hey bro congrats… and keep it up..
Congrats Abishesh bro!!
Congratulations!!
Abishesh Grate artwork.
There is no doubt that this is a great capture, if we talk about the subject. However, this is an HDR image and as Shutterbug said ‘post productions is must’. Which states that the picture is not in the original state. My point here is to suggest EU admin to take such thing into consideration while selecting a picture of the month. Give preferences to original shots, which has not gone through any post productions or not tailored by any means. Be fair. Don’t judge a picture just by looking it. Consider other aspects as well.
Shuttebug – Please share your view on this.
Congratulations!! for being selected as the EU Photo of The Month. 🙂 You deserved it!
Yes Abishesh! I agree ‘beginner to HDR photography doesn’t mean a beginner to photography’. My assumption could be wrong.
@shutterbug – beginner to HDR photography doesn not mean a beginner to photography… 😆
Well Abishesh! Sharing some of my photographic experience and views with people like you who are beginners in photography and learning, don’t mean I am the perfect one. So feel free to correct me anytime if my views are incorrect. I’ll be much happy. Like I said earlier HDR is not my cup of tea and I may not have tried my hands on this technique keenly like you do, yet I feel HDR photography is not an easy task unless you are very good at Photoshop or Photomatix. My suggestion was to build sound experience in jpeg format before touching RAW format for HDR. Definitely scene like this one above is no doubt a wrong choice if one who is having a thought to try HDR technique where every subjects are in motion… the Chariot of Machhindranath, people, bird in the sky and so on.
And yes only ‘miracle’ can let any photographer to take seven shots of same composition perfectly aligned without a tripod. I don’t defy such miracle. 😀
@Shutterbug:
The sample images were too gud!!!
thanks.
Well, shutterbug, i wonder if you can shoot 7 continuous perfectly aligned bracketed shots without using a tripod. And sometimes you don’t have the luxury of using tripod. And for a great photographic knowledge you posses, you ought to know HDR’s work best wit RAW formats. What can i say, I’m just a beginner… 😆
Nice shot, I think i should learn HDR too, i am just a new to photography world. I thought u used polarizer filter. Can you guys visit to my blog and give some comments too. http://www.sangesh.com.np/blog
nice one.. loved it completely
Abishesh! If you are a beginner ‘raw format’ is bad choice. Raw images itself are much complicated to handle and it takes some sound experience to treat them correctly. I think it would be a good start if you take pictures in highest jpg format and flirt with them in Photoshop. By the way, first attempt seems not bad. As my photography inclination is towards photojournalism, I stay out of this territory.
I know many viewers who are reading these comments don’t have an idea HDR Photography. Let me shed some information about it and take liberty to share some links here in EU to enlighten people bugged by photography like me 😉
HDR: HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE PHOTOGRAPHY is a set of techniques of blending several digital images (taken at different exposure value) cleverly in Photoshop to create one final image. Post-production is must. The intention of HDR photography is to accurately represent the wide range of light’s intensity found in actual scene. Like sunlight and shadow. This technique is more popular among landscape and interior photographers.
Here is the link if anybody would like to read more on HDR Photography or try their hands on HDR Photography:
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/high-dynamic-range.htm
Check these beautiful HDR images samples for some inspiration:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Dupont-HDR.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Colour_Explosion.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d5/Trencin_hdr_001.jpg
superb beginning !
Awesome, Awesome, Awesome!!!
Thanks shutterbug…well this is one of my first tires at HDR photography. I blended 7 instances of same raw image at exposures -3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2 and +3 and genereated a HDR using photomatix. Well, I’m just beginning HDR photography…
Well Composed Abishesh though exposure correction in Photoshop is pretty visible. Happy to read such an informative photo description. Thank you for sharing.
awesome!!!
Look at the SKY man!!!
wata fabulous shot!
Hope no post-processing has been done in this picture. 🙄