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Yesterday, we went to Baktipur. Nepal in it’s wisdom has attempted to keep it much like its past. Any new building are to be built in the same fashion as the ancient ones. They charge a pricey admittance for tourist, thus keeping the hippies at bay. I really enjoyed this city, I could have stayed all day, except I have the virus that is being passed around by the workshop participants. So I moved slow and felt pretty terrible for most of the day. In fact I made a short day of shooting. As a result of feeling so bad, I fell back to my favorite subject; faces. I hope you enjoy.

Today is a crazy day for me. I have so much going on today that I have not even able to go to the last part of Thaipusam. I still hold out hope that I’ll be able to make it later. But other things are demanding my attention. In fact, I won’t even be able to blog today, outside of this quick note. So I thought I’d just leave you with a nice portrait. This young lady was a peacock dancer in the streets. In a comment about yesterdays images, Ray Ketcham, a photographer and reader wrote that the images yesterday seemed like, “…trying to bottle chaos with colors and motion.” That was exactly what it was like. But there were a few calm moments when color and beauty stood motionless together.

Sadhu Portrait #2. Kumbh Mela, Hardiwar, India.

This was shot with my favorite 85mm f1.2. I was talking the other day with someone about the 85mm f1.2 and the 50mm f1.2 (that I recently bought). We were joking why they even have a focal length over f2.8 on those lenses? If you buy a super fast lens chances are you’ll never use it at a speed higher than that. At least I don’t.