It has been almost one year since we started Darter, travelling around the country with photography enthusiasts. It is almost time to celebrate and also a time to look back and reflect. One of the important steps that we have been wanting to take all this while when we have been busy running tours with Darter, is to start a blog, share stories and connect more frequently with all the photography enthusiasts who have been travelling with us or aspire to travel with us.
Sunrise Hour in Hampi
Here, we will write about our new discoveries – new destinations, new photography opportunities and new ideas in photography. We will share photography tips, some how-tos and perhaps even answer photography related questions that may be of use to many people. This will also be a space where we write about interesting stories and experiences from our photography tours and recce trips to unknown places. The space is open to you as well. If you would like to write something here, about photography, about new opportunities or experiences of your journeys with us, do feel free to contact us.
In the year that has passed, we have been enriched greatly by our experiences in leading photography tours. We travelled with small groups all over the country, to faraway places like Ladakh and more easily accessible destinations such as Hampi. There was plenty of excitement in every trip. In Hampi, we would wake up at 4.30am to drive 20 minutes and climb up a hill for another 20 minutes to make sure that we are on time to catch the most magnificent sunrise that anyone can ever see. In Spiti, we braved nights in unusually bitter cold summer snowfalls in anticipation of seeing amazing landscapes. We braved sickness and nausea to spend time capturing the magnificent Ladakh Ranges from a height above 18,000 feet. We were not disappointed in any of those occasions. But then, these are exceptions than norms – most of tours happen in relatively good comfort. But we all tend to talk more about things that are not usual, not normal than the everyday affairs!
What amazes me in all occasions is the great team spirit displayed by the team that travelled with us. On those early morning rendezvous in Hampi, no one thought twice about waking up so early and starting off in the winter cold. There was not even one occasion where we missed the sunrise because someone was late and kept us waiting. In Spiti, when unseasonal snowfall turned the weather bitterly cold and messed up the roads, our group of photography enthusiasts only cheered at seeing all that snow and cherished it as an experience to remember forever. When folks fell sick in Khardungla (Ladakh), they sprang back on their feet quickly and continued the journey with the group soon after. If we have survived a full year and been managing to go on to announce new tours to new destinations today, it is this spirit of our travellers that has kept us going.
It is not just in time of adversity that we have seen great harmony with people who have been travelling with us. In Rajasthan, when we were ruing about our inability to photograph Kalbelia Dancers who were performing in our location on an evening (because of low light), the team came with an idea that helped us create some magnificent memories of Rajasthan. The next morning, we hired the services of the same dancers and took them to the middle of the desert. As the dancer Nirmal performed against the sun rising above the golden sands, us happy photography enthusiasts clicked away in a joy that still reverberates in my head as I write this.
Photographing Kalbelia Dancers during sunrise, in the deserts of Jaisalmer
Such high spirits and our own willingness to do all things necessary to make a tour work, is perhaps one of the key things that has brought back photography enthusiasts on our tours again and again.We keep our itineraries fluid, which allows us to take that small detour to get some great pictures. On the tour to Kutch on which my colleague Shreeram is taking a small group, he did not think twice about making small changes in plan when he heard about a place at some distance where more than a lakh flamingoes had congregated. It is perhaps this willingness, that has allowed enthusiastic travellers who come with us to always go back with great images.
I am in fact, often amazed by the creativity displayed by the team on field. I have very frequently seen great compositions from our travellers, lot of which are learning for me as well. I am currently showcasing a series of images taken by our tour participants to Hampi on our facebook page. You would be surprised to see the creativity and variety in those images, coming from just one small destination. And I am confidant, purely going by the spirit of people who travel with us and the effort we produce in planning the perfect itineraries, that our travellers will continue to create those amazing images wherever we go.
The feedback we have received all along, in all our tours and workshops, is something that truly touches our heart. I will soon be sharing the feedback we have collected during our workshops, and also on some of our tours. But before we get into the details of those feedback, one sentence that most of our participants say at the end, tells everything about a tour. At the end of every tour, people almost always ask – ‘when is the next tour?’, ‘where are you going next?’, ‘please keep me informed on all the events’. And this reaction makes the whole task of organizing and leading the tour very fulfilling. And this reaction has been followed with further action too. I can remember how one of our travellers joined a tour with us in Feb 2011, without knowing the smallest thing about us, but subsequently joined every other tour for the next six months period whenever she had relatively free time at work. Another lady, who too came on a workshop with us in July has been with us on nearly every tour that happened ever since. In fact, some of our tours these days get filled up quickly, mostly by those who have been with us before. We can’t be more pleased.
I began this post as a short introduction and announcement that we are kicking off this blog, but perhaps got carried away and ranted a great deal. Hopefully most of you who are reading this now are making holiday plans for the New Year’s Eve or already on a holiday. We wish you a great time, a very happy new year ahead with lot of good times, lot of travels and plenty of good photos. Let’s travel together and explore the country in 2012.
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