Sand painter in Bagan

One artform that you will find mainly in the Bagan area is sand painting. Not having  traditional canvas available, artists spread an acrylic glue on cloth and sprinkle fine sand on it. Once it is dry it is ready to be painted.  Even so some artist are starting to paint their own designs, a lot of paintings are copies of murals found throughout the temples, most notably the Gubyaukgyi temple dating from the 12th century. This particular temple has some of the most well preserved murals in Bagan. In a preservation effort the Department of Archaeology has banned photography and especially making carbon copies of these murals, but local artists took advantage of the chaos after the earthquake in 1975 to gain access to the temple and copy some of the murals.

A sand painter at work

The detail in the paintings is incredible

A young monk watching an artist at work

Sand paintings for sale

More images from Myanmar can be found on my website.

The ancient city of Bagan

Bagan was the capital of several ancient burmese kingdoms and spreads out over an area of 16 square miles. Most of the buildings were constructed during the 11th – 13th century, during which Bagan was the capital of the First Burmese Empire. The earthquake in 1975 destroyed about half of the 5000 pagodas and temples, most of which are in various stages of decay.  Some of them have been reconstructed since.

Watching the sunrise or sunset from the top of one of the pagodas is an incredible experience.

The interior of some of the pagodas are covered with beautiful murals. This is inside the Sulamani pagoda.

The Shinbinthalyaung temple is a rather unassuming vaulted brick structure from the 11th century that houses an 18m long reclining Buddha statue.

You can find more images of Bagan on my website by clicking here.

Young monks in Yangon

Every Myanmar male is expected to take up monastic residence twice in his life – once between age 10 and 20 and then again after age 20.  Monasteries are also a place for poor families to send their children to receive a free education.

We walked into this monastery in Yangon as the young monks were studying. The room was only lit up by some sunlight shining through the cracks of the door and partially closed windows. What wonderful light. It required a fairly long exposure, but fortunately these young monks were supposed to be studying and sat fairly quiet (but I think we provided a welcomed distraction ).

(click on any image to see a larger version)

For more images from my trip to Myanmar, please check out my website.

A visit to the Shwedagon Pagoda – Yangon

What better place to start my series of posts about my trip to Myanmar than my visit to the Shwedagon pagoda in Yangon. Or rather visits – we visited twice, once at the beginning of the trip and once more at the end. The Shwedagon pagoda can only be described as aw-inspiring gorgeous.  It is quite overwhelming and you can spend a lot of time just absorbing these stunning surroundings, never mind photographing them. The original site has existed for over 2500 years, but has undergone many modifications during this period. It was built to house 8 strands of hair of the Gautama Buddha and is therefore the most sacred buddhist site in Myanmar. But I will not go into detail about the history and all the architectural features, you can read up on that (and other useful information) here.

Our second visit coincided with the evening of the full moon. Worshipers light candles all around the pagoda. An incredible sight.  One of my traveling companions and I were sitting on the floor absorbing the atmosphere, when we heard chanting. A group of young nuns had sat down next to us. Their voices were just beautiful. Goosebumps!

If you should ever go – plan on spending a lot of time there! It is a rather large complex and you definitely want some time to just sit down and watch as people walk by, pray, present their offerings. Despite the amount of people there, the atmosphere is quite calming. Everything is kept immaculately clean by groups of sweepers that seem to almost constantly walk around the pagoda, which is good since you have to be barefoot (like in any other temple in Myanmar).

Click on any thumbnail for a larger version of the image.

You can find more images from my trip on my website at Beate Dalbec Photography

Just a little side note for other travellers: On our first visit I ended up getting quite sick – I guess something I ate for lunch did not  agree with me (this was the ONLY time and the food everywhere was delicious!!!). Fortunately I had some Pepto-Bismol in my camera bag which I took right away. I felt absolutely miserable for about half an hour but then was well enough to continue.  I am only mentioning this, because several people commented afterward that they never would have thought about having it along in the camera bag.   It won’t do you much good in the hotel room. If I would not have had it with me I would have spent the evening in a much less attractive place than the pagoda

Lantau island and Po Lin monastery

When I travelled to Hong Kong 17 years ago, the only way to reach the Po Lin monastery on Hong Kong’s largest island – Lantau – was via a 1 hour boat ride,  followed by 1 hour on a bus. With the construction of the new airport just of Lantau in 1998 you can now simply take the MTR from downtown to Lantau in 20 minutes. A short walk from the MTR station is the Ngong Ping cable car. The 5.7 km cable car ride will take you in 25 min across the island to the Nong Ping plateau and Po Lin monastery. The ride is quite an experience and on a clear day the view is amazing! If you don’t have a problem with heights you can take the crystal cabin (it has a glass floor) – I opted for the standard version .  The Po Lin monastery is quite touristy but very much worth a visit. It features the Tian Tan Buddha, at 112 feet the largest outdoor seated bronze Buddha statue.  The statue houses a sacred bone relic of the Gautama Buddha and is therefore a well known pilgrimage site. If you would like to escape the crowds you can do so by following the signs to the wisdom path. A 15 min walk will lead you to this outdoor monument of 38 tall timber columns, engraved with the heart sutra. The columns are arranged in a figure 8 symbolizing infinity. Several hiking paths start there also and the scenery is beautiful. You can easily forget that this is part of Hong Kong.

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Chi Lin Nunnery – Hong Kong

When thinking about Hong Kong the first words that come to our minds are usually shopping, skyscrapers and crowds. The last words you would probably think of are calm, peace and serenity. Yet these are the best words to describe Chi Lin Nunnery and Nan Lian garden, situated right in the middle of Hong Kong. It is an oasis of calm in this crowded and hectic city. A walk in one of the beautiful courtyards of the temple, listening to the buddhist chant, must be one of the most peaceful and calming experiences.

Build in Tang dynasty style, no nails were used in the construction of any of the buildings. Nan Lian is an incredibly beautiful traditional Chinese park,  complete with Bonsais, stunning rock formations, waterfalls and lotus ponds. Strangely enough it is not overrun by tourists. In case you get hungry there is also a small restaurant that serves a delicious vegetarian lunch (I ate way too much!).

Surrounded by highrise appartment buildings this place feels like stepping into a different world.

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Dogfest 2011

Last weekend dog lovers of all ages gathered for Dogfest 2011, an event to benefit the Vest-a dog foundation. Vest-a-dog provides funds to purchase bullet proof vests for police dogs and this has been an annual fund raiser event for several years now. The Jack Russell races provided great entertainment for everyone, the State Police K-9 unit demonstrated the incredible skills of the police dogs, there was a “down – stay” contest and everyone could give the various obstacles of the agility course a try. Here are some of my favorite images from that afternoon.

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For more images from this fun event you can check out this link to the Dogfest gallery on my website.

Trying something different – a trip to MIT

Monday afternoon a friend of mine and I headed into Cambridge in the hope of photographing the full moon rising over the Boston skyline. We arrived early to spend some time walking around the MIT campus and taking a closer look at the Frank Gehry building. This was quite a departure from my regular nature photography, but I think it is always good to try something new and different. This building lends itself for abstracts. Here are some of the images from that location. (click on any picture to see a larger version)

Oh, and what about the full moon? After it finally rose through all the haze in the sky I still ended up with a nice shot with sail boats in the foreground on this warm October evening.

 

 

Dog assisted photography (or I thought I had a controlled environment)

I have posted this picture before, but I thought I would let you know how I actually made this image. If you have ever tried to photograph a dandelion (or any other flower) outside, you know that as soon as you have set up your camera on a perfectly calm day, Murphy’s law for photographers will take effect and a breeze will start up. So what to do? I decided to bring the dandelion inside to photograph it in my living room where some nice soft afternoon light was coming through the door.  So I carefully picked the flower trying not to disturb the perfect white fluff. I placed it in a vase, put some black cardboard behind it for background. Then I proceeded to set up my camera. I was looking forward to having some fun photographing it in a nice controlled environment, or so I thought. I had completely forgotten about my dog, who was quietly snoozing  in the next room. All the commotion woke her up and she decided to check out why her owner was contorting herself on the living room floor. Before I knew it, she decided to sniff the flower, which immediately started to fall apart. Oh NO! I chased her away and then I took a second look at the dandelion. It actually looked more interesting now than before! She ended up improving my shot! I guess I have a four-legged photography assistant .

All creatures great and small

Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons are not just known for their incredible landscape, but also for their variety of wildlife. Here is a collection of some of my wildlife encounters during my trip in June.

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Feel free to check out the rest of the images from my trip on my website www.beatedalbecphotography.com.