Strolling around Patan Darbar square in evening with DSLR is a great experience. You reveal hidden delights of an authentic medieval town and creativity which makes you feel proud. That’s how I experienced yesterday evening while trying out one of my Friend’s Nikon D40.
Been bugged by Photography for quite a while and here are some pictures which I’ve managed to captured yesterday evening. Took all these pictures in sRGB at size: 1496×2256 pixels and later changed size and image mood into Grayscale using Photoshop.
Truly
the City of Artists: Patan Durbar Square, situated in the heart of the city, is the main tourist attraction. The square is full of ancient palaces, temples, and shrines noted for their exquisite carving. Especially evening is the time when durbar square comes animated when old native people comes the spot for an evening chit chat. Patan still retains most of its original urban structure and people that has been lost in most big cities. It is famous for its narrow streets and alleys, lined by traditional buildings and vernacular architecture, Hindu and Buddhist monuments like bahals, bahis, temples, chaityas, stupas, patis, aganchhen etc.
Perfect Perspective of Patan Darbar Square: Every single tourist who visits Patan doesn’t miss to click pictures from this perspective you are seeing above. The main attraction of the Patan Durbar Square is the ancient Royal Palace itself. It consists of three main chowks, or courtyards; the central Mul Chok, Sundari Chowk and Main Keshab Narayan Chowk.
Patan under my Perspective: Several historical records including many other legends indicate that Patan is the oldest of all the cities of Kathmandu Valley and it is interesting to note that one of the most used and typical Newar name of Patan is Yala. It is said that King Yalamber named this city after himself and ever since this ancient city has been known as Yala.
Innocent Mahouts: Local children enjoying elephant ride while their mothers are busy selling local made crafts to tourists around the Darbar square.
Tara’s Quite Corner: More you scrutinize more you reveal craftsmanship of wood carving around temples and its pillars. Patan Darbar Square is so rich for its architectural heritage. The most famous Newar artists and master craftsmen, like Arniko, Abhay Raj and Siddhi Raj, were all born in Lalitpur. Patan Durbar Square, enlisted in the UNESCO World Heritage List as one of seven Monument Zones that make up the Kathmandu Valley World Heritage Site.
Costume and Craft still Alive: An old man in ‘Daura Suruwal’ traditional costume basking under warmth of setting Sun. Patan is famous for its diverse cultural heritage. It is considered as one of the living cities, where all ethnic communities belonging to both Hinduism and Buddhism have embraced each other in harmony.
Underexposed Patan yet to be exposed: The ancient city of Patan is situated on the southern bank of the river Bagmati and is about five kilometers southeast of Kathmandu. The city is full of Hindu temples and Buddhist monuments with bronze gateways, guardian deities and wonderful carvings.
Camera: Nikon D40
Lens: Af-S Nikkor 18-55 mm/f3.5-5.6
ISO: 200
Information Credit: Nepal Traveller Sept-Oct 2006
Hei its truely nice. 😆
good work Rina, the B/W shots gave an impression of the medieval times, but i would have liked few color shots as well.
keep it up.
Photo are very good
Wonderful effort to bring our cultural heritage to limelight. Appreciable work Rina. Keep it up.
Could you please mail me those pictures at pshrestha@d2hawkeye.com?
TIA
Bhaskar N Bhattarai dai, I agree color can make big difference in pictures. Thank you for your admiration for my work. I took ‘Tara’s quite corner’ in widest lens and used smaller f-stop, which helped me to bring focus attention on Tara.
Yes it’s a brass plate at the entrance of Patan Museum and is in golden shade. Lucky me that day it was well shined and reflection was perfect.
Shutterbug it is so nice have your comment and compliment. Your encouraging comments have been a great help to many armature photographer like me here in Everest Uncensored. I look forward to have your critics and learn more from a professional photojournalist like you. Thank you.
Prakash and Siddhi dai! It’s pleasure to have your comment. Please keep commenting. Thank you.
Pawan,
My flickr is Everest Uncensored. Let me know your email id: so that I can send you those particular pictures in colors which you are so desperate to look. By the way, why ‘desperate’??
Rina,
Do you have flickr account or any web space where we can view the color version of these pictures – i am desperately looking forward for the second and the last pictures ( “Perfect Perspective of Patan Darbar Square” and “Underexposed Patan yet to be exposed”) in color.
Thanks
For me, charm of this post is photos in grayscale. Not only the photos are in grayscale, but they are simply the best because of creativeness found in angle and composition of subject matter. Hope to see more like this.
You seem to be hideen talent of D2 😀 . The snaps are really great and it really makes us feel like we have gone to prehistoric period along with few modern amenities in the background.
Keep up your good work. I hope to see few more snaps.
Great job Rina. I see a promising Photographer budding in these monochrome pictures which are well clicked and well featured. This undoubtedly is nice photo blog published here in EU. Keep up the good work.
My both THUMBS UP 🙂
Good stuff Rina. Its interesting how much of a difference colors make.
Really liked Tara’s quiet corner (how two sides of her are out of focus and in opposite contrasts), Self-portrait (I like silver and your rendering brings this out so nice – from what is golden in color I think if I’m not mistaken).
I think it would be really interesting if you took some really old B&W snaps of Patan and re-took those in the same angle and post-process, to see how much of a difference time and technology makes.
hehe…may be i should post few color pics i shot to compliment this post of yours. 🙂
I am inspired to have all these encouraging comments. Thank you so much.
Why ‘Grayscale’?? Actually, these B/W picture makes us feel more to the true texture of Patan which most people overlooked because our eyes tend to get overwhelmed by the colors. Colors often numb our emotions; this is why I have opted Grayscale. I agree with DreamSky: My choice in opting for post processing has done a great job in cleaning up the modern mesh and created the medieval feel of Patan in those pictures.
Well Abishesh dai! I don’t have this idea to work on this photo blog when I went Patan to click these pictures; it’s only after I juggle with those pictures in my PC back home. I am happy that my simple approach evoked many to see this side of Patan despite I missed deepawali at Krishna Mandir.
By the way, I want this post to be in Grayscale not in color and I have already sited the reason behind. Pawan Shrestha !! May be in my next post will try to post colors pictures.
Once again thank you all for the comment and encouragement.
Nice!
Could you please post the color pictures too?
Glad to know that you have become a good photographer. Nice shots Rina ! Keep it up !!!
aahhh..so this is what it was all about… nice work… it was good to see you roaming around with your camera yesterday… the day was a bit gloomy but it would’ve been much nicer if you had posted few color pictures.
btw…there was a deepawali at Krishna Mandir in the evening… you could’ve gotten few shots of that had you stayed a little longer…
nice picture, but why its all in gray scale mode ?
Simply Awesome!!!
Wonderful captures! and writeups as well!
Your choice of postprocessing has done a great job in cleaning up the modern mesh and creating the medieval feel here.
Keep up the good work!
really nice photograph and it touch my feelings
I like those pics; they were very nice and revealing Nepal……
Hope to see more pictures like these in future……
-R@keZ
hey nice fotography!!! good work , keep it up!!!!