My Christmas gift: A 16 MP, 17 MB image from the Hpo Win Daung Caves in Monywa, Myanmar. For ultimate viewing experience on the iMac 5K Retina. Click to enlarge, then zoom to full size.
Buying christmas gifts for photographers can be a tricky business, in particular, if you are not technically inclined and discard kitschy nonsense like lens-shaped coffee mugs. So here are some proposals for equipment that will not end up on the bottom of the gear closet.
It’s not the equipment that takes good images, it’s the photographer. I know.
I am on the road (trek) for more than four weeks around the Annapurnas in Nepal. If it was only for the mountains, I could stay in the Alps and actually climb some of them. In the Himalayas the peaks are higher and their faces larger, which is, however, difficult to convey in a photograph. There is simply a lack of scale.
What keeps dragging me into the Himalayas are ethnical diversity, architecture, culture, and high-altitude wilderness. Moreover, there is this fascinating, rapid change in the way people live in the remote mountain areas. From no access to electricity, phone and television, to wireless Internet and smart-phones in less than a decade. On this trip it will also be interesting to study the change brought about by the recent construction of the road in the Annapurna region. Indeed, there are a lot of very different subjects for a photographer.
So what do I bring, and why?