The blue city of Chefchaouen is definitely one of the best attractions of Morocco. Those narrow lanes painted with blue and other contrasting colour of flower tubs make them amazingly beautiful. Some leisure walk through that ancient kasbah early in the morning before the arrival of the tourist buses is just mind blowing.

Chefchaouen was founded back in 1471 as a small kasbah to fight the Portuguese invasions. There are a few theories about it, but the one I found most compelling is that some of the first inhabitants of the town were Jewish. And the Jewish people had this tradition to dye their buildings with natural blue color to remind people of the power of the god.

So the tradition continued over the centuries to this day, when the blue colouring is mostly due to touristic reasons rather than religious ones.

The city was known before as chaouen which means horn. It was about the two peaks that can be seen from here. Later the word chef was added in it. Which means look at. So Chefchaouen is basically look at the peaks.

However currently it is known as the Blue Pearl of Morocco.

We have spend 3 nights there exploring every hidden corners of the city. Contrary to popular belief that it should/can be visited in a day trip from Casablanca. Yes it can be visited in a day trip, but it can only be experienced if you stay there for few night and that is exactly what we did.

Now regarding this image; there is not much technicality to be honest except the use of the TSE lens that helped keeping the vertical lines straight and not falling down behind and merging on the top. This is ma way of capturing a city scape. I don't like buildings falling over and major perspective distortion and that is where the TSE comes handy.

If you have already read till here; you might be interested in watching a short film that we have compiled about our experience at the Blue Pearl of Morocco. Click here to get amazed with the beauty of this special place.

Please have a look at my website www.avisekhphotography.com for all my recent works.

Have a nice weekend.

Hope you will enjoy the picture.

Any suggestions or criticisms are always welcome.

Tags:   chefchaouen blue pearl of morocco morocco africa north africa cityscape kasba ancient architecture history historic historic morocco travel photography www.avisekhphotography.com canon canon r5 tse 24tse tripod rrs really right stuff polarizer polarpro

© All Rights Reserved

Well, if I need to be 100% honest; this place is not exactly at Wadi Rum. It is rather 40 minutes drive from Wadi Rum. Our local Bedouin friend Saleh keep on reminding that to me. Avisekh; please understand it is not in Wadi Rum, it is Jebel Kharaz. Completely different place. 😇

This image is kind of fresh from the oven. I just came back from Jordan last week. Due to the recent conflict between Israel and Iran, the region is now hot and my 4 hours flight turned into a 30 hours fight coming back. But the memories of Jordan is still fantastic. Yes it is becoming a bit more crowded than expected. Yes some people would still like to get some more bucks out of you.

However, it still have amazing places, lovely people, delicious food and historic culture. Overall it was really special experience. As good as how we felt in our 2017 trip.

Tell me in how many places people would invite for a dinner if you ask them for direction while they are having a BBQ. And when you are shy and politely excuse yourselves, few packed BBQ chicken comes in a plate. Amazing gesture. I have never seen this in my all these time of travelling

Now coming back to this picture. Wadi Rum is a popular place in Jordan and now a days due to many camps have been build all around the wadi, there are lots of tourists. But thank god; there are only few travellers. This rock arch gets busy. I mean really busy if you think of its remote location. You would see 20 people crawling around it all day long. Not really an expected situation in such remote location. But social media made this place famous.

However, there are not many who can avoid the temptation of a cozy bed, hot shower and good food. On top, so far the mobile phones don't do that well after the sun goes down. Thank god. So just before sunset, everyone left. So I had this place for me during the best light. Sunset, Night and Sunrise. So I have no complain about this being crowded. Anyway; I wouldn't have taken a single picture of it during the harsh sunlight.

Saleh being a local, he knows all these places from childhood. So he found a lovely location nearby for our camping. It was windy, so we needed a place that is not completely exposed. We had to cook, so we needed to stay a bit away from the exact location to not flood it with light. And he found exactly that. 5 Minutes walking from here and hidden between high rocks. And his wife made delicious fresh local meal. We had a large tent, sleeping mats and thick blankets. Plus we slept on soft sand. So I wouldn't say our experience was any way less luxury that any of those permanent luxury camps.

But we had the experience that Lieutenant T. E. Lawrence had 100 years back and that can't be found in any of those permanent camps.

After dinner Saleh helped me setting up the camp on this rock bridge. As it was super windy we added some large rocks inside near the poles of the tent so that it doesn't move much. I illuminated it with my trusted red torch. And wow, it was beautiful.

I know some of your would like to know the technical details. So here are they. But more than this image; the experience of being there is more important for me. I just had a debate on Facebook where I said that I don't think much of post processing when I am close to nature as being out is like a therapy to me and I don't want to bother my head about what I will do with that picture on a computer. Seems people disagree to that, but I guess everyone approaches things differently. I started photography to document my travel and adventure and not other way around. Unfortunately it seems many people now pick up the camera only because they need fame in social media. What a pity. I am glad that I started all these before the craziness social media.

Anyway; let's come back to the image.

Foreground -
H-Alpha Modified Nikon D850
Sigma 14MM F1.8 Art
F4, ISO 400 230 Seconds
2 images stacked for a bit better signal to noise ratio

Sky (captured just from in front of the arch from the open area carefully keeping the alignment in mind) -
H-Alpha Modified Nikon D850
Nikon 20MM F1.8
F2.8, ISO 800, 2 Minutes
The stars were slightly out of focus intentionally to have a thicker trail and no gap. Kept 1 second delay between two images.
360 Images stacked in photoshop using 100 image set and incremental opacity method.
Later the trail was taken into Affinity Pro 2 to add 3% radial blur.

Later the foreground and trail have been blended with simple selection tool and layer mask in photoshop.

If you have already read till here; you might be interested in watching a short film that we have compiled about our experience at the Kingdom of Time. Click here to get amazed with the beauty of this special place.

Please have a look at my website www.avisekhphotography.com for all my recent works.

Have a nice weekend.

Hope you will enjoy the picture.

Any suggestions or criticisms are always welcome.

Tags:   jordan wadi rum jebel kharaz middle east desert landscape rock arch arabian dream intimate with nature dark sky dark night star trail www.avisekhphotography.com nikon d850 sigma sigma 14mm f1.8 art nikon d850 rrs really right stuff tripod

© All Rights Reserved

Once a hidden waterfall is not so hidden anymore. But it is still worth giving a visit in the right condition. The turquoise blue glacial water and a gorgeous sky makes it even more enjoyable.

When a place gets popular, the biggest problem is the loose of charm. Specially in natural locations one would like to have some tranquillity. But with over tourism that charm may disappear. Iceland is becoming like that. Folks of tourists fly in and the place gets completely overrun.

To avoid such crowd I end up there at around 22:30, but there were still people around. This image is normally taken from a small foot bridge which moves if someone walks. I had to wait for a long time to have some over excited mobile photographers to leave and have the bridge not moving for few minutes before another group of people ran in with there mobile upright. By that time my job was done and I just ran away from there.

These are the times I seriously hope that there was no camera on a mobile phone. 😄

If you have already read till here; you might be interested in watching a short film that I have made about my experience of this land of Fire and Ice. Click here to get amazed with the beauty of this special place.

Please have a look at my website www.avisekhphotography.com for all my recent works.

Have a nice weekend.

Hope you will enjoy the picture.

Any suggestions or criticisms are always welcome.

Tags:   bruarfoss iceland icelandic waterfall amazing iceland glacial waterfall sunset and waterfall Iceland photo trip Iceland photo holiday canon canon eos r5 canon rf 15 35 f2.8 really right stuff rrs polatizer polarpro www.avisekhphotography.com

© All Rights Reserved

In the quiet corners of our stay, a charming amphibian muse graced us with its daily presence. This unassuming frog, a steadfast companion, stationed itself just outside our room, a sentinel of the natural world. Its emerald-green skin, adorned with delicate specks, reflected the dappled sunlight filtering through the lush foliage. With an air of tranquillity, it seemed to have adopted the role of our silent guardian, a testament to the beauty found in the smallest, often overlooked, moments of life. As I sought to immortalize this unspoken connection, I endeavoured to capture its entirety in a full-bodied portrait, ensuring that this seemingly ordinary frog would forever be etched in the tapestry of our memories.

Can I justify this as wildlife photography? With a macro lens? 😄

It was a delightful experience capturing the image of the frog. As is often emphasized in wildlife and flower photography, it's crucial to get down to their level. I followed this advice precisely. I removed the tripod head, which boasts a sufficiently large base to rest stably on the ground. This served as a reliable foundation for composing and capturing an image at a fairly low shutter speed. The frog remained remarkably still before gracefully hopping into the deep grass, affording me ample time to capture both a striking image and a short video clip.

It was a charming moment where I could truly connect with the subject, and the stability provided by the tripod head on the ground allowed me to immortalize the frog's stillness in both a photograph and a moving clip.

It brought immense joy to immerse myself in nature and observe the myriad tiny creatures, from frogs and spiders to delicate water droplets; subjects often overlooked by typical tourists. This kind of appreciation blossoms when armed with a good macro lens. While I won't profess to be a macro fanatic, there's a unique satisfaction in capturing the intricate details of the miniature world around us. This particular day was one of those moments when I reveled in getting up close and personal with the tiny inhabitants of Mother Nature; our often unnoticed, yet fascinating, tiny neighbours.

If you have already read till here; you might be interested in watching a short film that I have made about my experience of this amazing Moroccan city. Click here to get amazed with the beauty of this special place.

Please have a look at my website www.avisekhphotography.com for all my recent works.

Have a nice weekend.

Hope you will enjoy the picture.

Any suggestions or criticisms are always welcome.

Tags:   macro bangaram lakshadweep incredible india indian ocean frog macro asia canon canon r5 canon rf 100 f2.8l macro

© All Rights Reserved

I am not that much into street photography. Basically I never tried it before. But it is definitely an interesting style of photography. We landscape photographers are normally very calculative and spend a long time to think about the light, composition, technique and too many things.

But street photography is different if it has to be naturally done. It has to be all instinct. You can't fiddle with your camera setting. Something that is extremely difficult for a landscape photographer who constantly over analyse the situation.

So it was fun going around the streets of Marrakech Medina and capture the daily life of people. Our guide Omar; who is a seasoned street photographer of those alleys; definitely helped us finding the right location. But I found it quite hard to change my instinct for that perfect shot. Rather I found that those little imperfection actually make a better image when it comes to street.

So here is one of many moments I have captured during that day. A quick burst of shots helped capturing the right moment when the light rays came in and the fire was lit.

Needless to say this was one of many attempts and probably one of 120 odd shots I took of the same composition. And this is the chosen one among them all.

If you have already read till here; you might be interested in watching a short film that I have made about my experience of this amazing Moroccan city. Click here to get amazed with the beauty of this special place.

Please have a look at my website www.avisekhphotography.com for all my recent works.

Have a nice weekend.

Hope you will enjoy the picture.

Any suggestions or criticisms are always welcome.

Tags:   morocco ancient morocco marrakech ancient spa streets of marrakech keep it warm street photography marrakech canon r5 canon rf 15 35 f2.8 www.avisekhphotography.com handheld canon marrakech madina

© All Rights Reserved