Following on from my post a few weeks ago featuring people who survived the Tsunami in Banda Aceh, Indonesia here are a few shots from Kashmir, Pakistan featuring people who survived the 2005 earthquake. All shots were taken in a village 8,000 ft high up in the Kashmir mountains.

C&C always welcome

You can see the previous thread here: http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/694672/0

Greetings Liam.

Glad to see some more of your travel/project pics.

Those are some interesting character portraits of the elders.

Safe Journey!

Thanks Steady, there were character portraits in every direction you looked! On our last day filming the village elders came to thank us for telling their story, naturally I took a shot;

Hmmmm...

I like the group shot too.

Nice mix of depth and width (not all in a line).

Good use of scene...shows some village. Nice light.

I haven't had much time to go through the shots I took in Kashmir last week, but I liked this one of a young school girl.

Hi Liam,

I like the last pic too (girl) because of its simplicity.

But think it could use a levels (or contrast) adjustment.

Also...consider it for BW look too.

Hmmmm...I am surprised these photos did not receive more comments from the FM forum members.

It is not every day we get to see these parts of the world.

I enjoyed seeing them and hope Liam will post more as he gets to editing/processing more.

Steady Hand wrote:
Hi Liam,

I like the last pic too (girl) because of its simplicity.

But think it could use a levels (or contrast) adjustment.

Also...consider it for BW look too.

Is it horribly flat? I can't tell on my laptop - everything looks flat at the best of times I wont be doing any major PP until I get home and can use my calibrated monitor but I think quite a few of these will end up in B&W.

Cheers,

Liam.

Yep...it looks very "flat" in tone range.

Try an "autolevels" just for fun.

It looks much better (for a quick fix) and has more "pop."

Hi Steady,

Continuing our private viewing... ...anyone else can join in too

I think I spotted the problem, wrong color space. Does this one look any better, still no levels change, just color space?

And just for fun, this time with a levels adjustment and quick desat, again, I have no idea on this screen what the colors/tones really look like:

The color space change did not make a big difference. Skin tone (lips/cheeks) look a bit warmer, but hard to tell without seeing side by side. This done by visual memory as scrolling down images.

When you adjusted levels, did you "eyeball it" or use AutoLevels?

I tried it (quickly) with AutoLevels (on original posted image) and it made it look much better (for a quick look).

NIce character studies...

As for correction on your laptop, if the photo has white highlight areas just run "Auto Contrast" or "Auto Color" to get your bearings on where the contrast should be, or alternately open in levels, hold down the alt/opt key and move the highlight slider until you start to see clipping in the highlights, then back off a bit.

Chuck

Hi Liam,
Not ignoring your work, just missed your byline!
A great series, especially the portraits of the elder men. You caught their pride and dignity perfectly.
It is my dream to travel to that part of the world, ever since my grandfather read me Kipling's Kim when I was about 6.
well done and thankyou for bringing these to us
Tim

A PSwhat storage medium were you using?
I am under the impression that Hard drives do not work above 4000 Ft or is that metres?
Tim

Some close ups of the old guys in #4 & #5 would be great. Their features, especially their eyes, would tell their stories.

Quick levels and curves...

Tim Ashton wrote:
It is my dream to travel to that part of the world, ever since my grandfather read me Kipling's Kim when I was about 6.

Thanks for stopping by Tim. I hope you get to Kashmir one day, it's a truly magical place; take a strong stomach and warm clothes - it's a bit medieval at times - and be prepared to shake lots of hands

As for storage... I was using my laptop and had a Lacie Rugged drive as back-up. All worked fine at 10,000 ft until my laptop took a hit and the internal drive failed (I've only just got it replaced, though minus my usual photo editing software!).

Cheers,

Liam.

twnotter wrote:
Some close ups of the old guys in #4 & #5 would be great. Their features, especially their eyes, would tell their stories.

I've got a close of the guy in #4 and can always crop a little on #5. What was interesting about their eyes was many of them seemed to be light-sensitive, especially the kids. If you shined a reflector on them it would often bring tears to their eyes - looked good on camera...

Great series Liamh - have a safe trip

The last shot is cooking now. I'd crop slightly to lose the green and blue at the bottom and left side as they distract from the simplicty and innocence of the shot.

interesting comment on the reflectors, sometimes flash is a little easier to take as it's for such a short time. But then, to do this type of travel and photography and to be using reflectors deserves a big thumbs up! :-)


Merv.

Great serie... My favorite by far are 4 and 5... I think the first two lack some more filling, and 6th one and the last one (the girl) are a bit blury... You are so lucky to have the opportunity to travel so far away from the west.....

Thanks Michael, Merv and Andre.

Andre, it's been a privilege to go to some of the places I have lately and meet so many great people, but as I said on another thread, you've got to have a stomach as strong as an Ox

Okay, so I got a few minutes on a computer with a half decent monitor so decided to process this one a bit more.

How's it looking?

http://www.liamhall.net/Okay, so I got a few minutes on a computer with a half decent monitor, so I decided to process this one a bit more.

How's it looking?

Hey liamh

great set! I think you should consider getting one of those tough books. I hear you can drop them from 20 ft and they are fine

Rian