The following photos are taken by Sangay Nima, class 6 student at the Kagtong Community Primary School in Kagtong where I have been working with the students on the topic of life in the village and their local culture. Sangay took interesting photos of all kind of things that she came across and she took it with a great sensibility for composition and detail. Of the 440 photos she took you can see a few here..  

For another week I am working at the Kagtong Community Primary School in remote Lower Kheng. I feel privilegued and blessed that I can be here in such a wonderful place. Mountains all covered with forest full of richest wildlife, a community with plenty of children eager to learn whatever they are taught; I teach them photography and we continue to explore and learn about the rich treasure of traditional local knowledge. I brought back the photos that the students have taken last year. Now they are printed in A4 size and protected with a transparent lamination and can be used in all the classes. The students teach me about their way of life and culture by explaining each and every detail in the photographs that were taken in their village and its surrounding; they know all the plants by their Khengpa names Canada Phone base Number , they know what they are used for, they know all the Khengpa names of the dozen or so different types of handmade baskets, they know each and every person and place here... I am thankful that they are very patient and indulgent to me repeating again and again till I am able to pronounce the words in their native language. The people in the remote areas of Lower Kheng are having a huge knowledge about living from and with nature. Their houses and most of the things that they use in daily life are all produced by their own hands from natural materials found in their environment. In special workshops parents share their skills how to produce handcrafted items made of bamboo with the students and the teachers at Kagtong Community Primary School. Another man is teaching traditional songs and dances. I am happy to be among all these interesting people and their lively children. So far they have no role models from TV or film and for this they are still really unique personalities, each of them beautiful and adorable in her or his own way. On Nov. 11th, the fourth King's birthday, we will have an exhibition on local culture on the school ground, showcasing and celebrating the rich and vast knowledge of the people in Lower Kheng about their natural environment...bringing together the experts from the villages (the villagers), the students, the teachers and interested guests.. (more…)

  Found this most beautiful graffiti on a Thimphu city wall today..

Sunday afternoon walk around Sunday Market area...

  Some impressions from the Thimphu Tshechu 2012. I was happy to notice that much more of the local Bhutanese people now also are taking photos of the colorful scenery and of each other; in earlier years it was the privilege of the tourists -and only a very few Bhutanese- to capture all the photogenic beautiful pictures...

During Thimphu Tshechu time there are holidays in the capital. I used the given time to go for a 3-days-trip to beautiful Phobjika Valley. In Gangtey, the biggest village in Phobjikha there were also busy preparations for their Tshechu; the monks were performing Drubchen. I encountered many little wonders along the way and took some home with me in my iPhone.. so that I can show them to you :-)  

Since 2005 when I came to Bhutan for the first time I have visited  the Vegetable Market in Thimphu very often and have spent many hours roaming around, observing the various activities, talking to people or just smiling at each other, buying momos from walking around vendors and taking many pictures. Although all this is still possible to do, the market has changed quite a bit since then: then it was not one big twostoried complex as it is now but more an open ground with space for the people to display what they had to sell. The vendors had not clearly segmented easily cleanable boxes but it was more like a big stage where people would display and arrange the goods they had to offer. Since there were no compartments people would easier mingle and you could see children play beside grandmothers taking a nap and nearby men standing or sitting together discussing over an important topic; when it rained there were improvised plastic shelters put up for the ones who were not in a covered spot. It was a wonderful and colorful lively scenery with many different corners and views to explore where you could find hundreds of photogenic subjects within a relatively small but condensed square. With the new construction things have changed a bit. I suppose that for hygienic and organising reasons the new construction must have many advantages compared to the old market. But as a photographer  -beside the lively and lovely chaos- I miss the various photogenic light situations that were given before . "Photo-graphy" means "drawing/writing with light" and the neon tubes that are installed now all over the big hall give a rather dark and flat light with a colder atmosphere and a smaller range of different light conditions than natural light would do. Despite these facts you still can find a lot of interesting things and people to see and to meet at the vegetable market. Yesterday I came across a group of children who were apparently enjoying themselves by playing games of skill using a hand full of small stones, by hiding and seeking or by sliding down a small slope again and again. I was watching them for a while and began to take photos with my mobile phone. I wanted to test the Instagram app that I installed recently. I took many pictures for quite a long time: the smaller children were amused by viewing their photos that I took but the bigger girls were so much concentrated and busily engaged in their game that my photography was not of much interest to them. They apparently still know how to find happiness and fascination in a beautiful simple game played together with friends.  

A photo can tell a story. And photos can evoke stories in a viewer’s mind. Depending on the kind of person who is looking at the photo the story will be different. And for me -being the photographer- the story that is related to a certain photo again will be a different one. In the category “The Story Behind A Photo” I would like to tell such stories as they happened to me. Following the story related to the photo "Two boys on a fast and joyful downhill ride on a self constructed vehicle, Ura, Bumthang": It was end of November, 2007. I was in Bumthang, Central Bhutan to document different projects of Helvetas Bhutann and came by the pictoresque village of Ura that lies on an altitude of 3100 meter above sea level. When I was walking up towards the village Lhakhang (village temple) I noticed a group of boys climbing up the hill beside the temple with self constructed wooden vehicles. The hill was all covered with prayer flags, but in between the poles of the flags there was enough space for them to have a good downhill track. I watched them for a while, then took my camera out and put on the tele lens. It was quite tricky to give the impression of movement and at the same time keeping the boys in focus. You have to move the camera with the movement of the subject and find out the right camera settings -a rather slow shutter speed- by trial and error.  And -very important as well- I wanted to capture the expression of their joy and excitement in their faces! So I had to try many times.. When I asked them repeatedly if they could climb up and drive down again they boys were very helpful and cooperative and happily answered with a friendly "Yes Sir!". At the end I was not only impressed by their lasting joy but also by the talent they have to construct and drive these great vehicles; but even more I was struck by the statement of one of the boys: he told me that they would play this game only in winter time; during the other seasons there would be too many insects crawling on the track and the boys don't want to kill them with their game! KHADINCHÉ / THANK YOU BOYS!! :-)        

Sometimes I walk the streets and -even more- the backstreets of Thimphu. There is a lot to see and to discover especially if you  are not searching for anything in particular. The lively atmosphere given by every-day-life,  improvisation talent of the people, rather chaotic but most often very interesting ways of arranging and handling things, the many accidental encounters with unique, interesting people of all ages and with different background and also with different outfit -some in a more traditional rural style, some more urban fashion type- who most often still have time, words and smiles to share and the combination of all the above mentioned points make Thimphu very attractive to anyone who is curious and has an open mind, open eyes and an open heart, ready to discover little treasures or remarkable situations behind every corner..   "To take photographs is putting one's head, one's eye and one's heart on the same axis." Henri Cartier-Bresson

For the June 2012 issue of Yeewong Magazine, Bhutan's first and only women's magazine, a photo of two class PP students that I took in 2011 at the Kagtong Community Primary School was chosen for the cover :-)... and some more photos that I took in different schools in Bhutan were placed within the magazine.