Bobcock at Angkor

[Bobcock]

Started to look at my pics from Angkor tonight.

First time I shot only RAW.

2000 photos, so lots to work through will take a while.

These are from the first temple we visited which was Ta Phrom, arriving there at 05:30. By the end of the trip, this was still possibly the most interesting of the lot. Wish I'd made a second visit.











I was setting up the pic of the buddah and the corridor when this young fella appeared. Possibly became more interesting with him there.

[Bobcock]

The second temple war Preah Khan.

Also very interesting, you justw alk through a long long corridor down the middle.

By this time the sun was up and the incredible contrast makes it very difficult to take decent pics. What was very noticable was the guy I was travelling with who thinks purely of sales of pictures hardly even takes his camera out between 9am and 4pm. I'm not that serious, they are still holiday snaps to me, so I gave it a go.

I liked the way this bicycle was bathed in light where it was parked.















As we left the temple a huge storm blew in so we were forced to shelter in a gate house. This little girl with the bike came in and was very amusing. Later some other kids came along. Really very amusing, good English skills.

[Nawty]

some nice pics....no people in them....or tourists I should say rather than people.

Put up one of ya mates....lets see the difference.

[Bobcock]

Que.?

[Nawty]

You obviously made that girl laugh...what was it...fly undone again ?

Whats a Que.?

[alphagirl]

very nice

[Bobcock]

Towards the end of the first day, we headed off to the main attraction, Angkor Wat. Good job we did as the weather wasn't the best during the visit and the glorious low light really didn't emerge on other days.

First I tried a slow exposure on the causeway over the moat to capture all the people heading in and out in blurred motion. Should've used the puddles better and maybe a slightly slower exposure.



Next to the pool in front of the temple itself. For 10 minutes the light was perfect.





Then another attempt to get people moving around the temple from closer in.



Right at the end I tried to get this shot which was rather difficult. 30 second exposure with my friend inside discharging the flash onto the figure. People kept walking through the shot, which produced a nice effect, but once we thought we had it right, the guards threw us out and we never got to take what would have been the best version I believe.



Lastly, a nice cold beer in Bar Street.

[Bobcock]

The second day we started at The Bayon in Angkor Thom.

The problem with early morning starts (driver collection 05:30) is you miss that good old fashioned early morning dump.

I set up my tripod to catch the first rays hit athe face of the temple and bang......I needed a dump, so i missed the best shots, shot one was as good as it got.



Had some great light falling onto the left side of this buddah statue, added some to the right by discharging the flash manually from that side.





One thing i found about Angkor was the need to get any additional colour into a shot, so even a dull flower becomes a find.




Views of the 216 faces carved onto the towers of the Bayon







The tour guide stood there for ages yapping, eventually I decided to make him part of the shot.



This little lad seemed to be somewhere close to us every time we looked around.

[Bobcock]

Right should be able to get this thread up in popularity with the first couple of posts....It's totty time





OK, we've got that stuff out of the way.....

I bought a lens baby before a i went. It's a lens on a bellows that you can bend around and depending on the angles you pull it, you can get only a small section in focus and the rest doing all sorts of stuff. On screen thi shot looked amazing, but sadly when I got it home I found I just hadn't got the mask as sharp. They are very hard to use, anyway, thought I'd post it anyway..












A new head on old shoulders, not sure about the make up though......

[Nawty]

The guy in the window is one of your better shots yet Knob....keep up the good work.


Oh and would you like a suggestion for that bendy lens thingy ???

[Bobcock]

Sure.

You wanna come with me to photograph the funeral at 7am tomorrow morning?...gonna be some great shots

[Marmite the Dog]

The guy in the window is one of your better shots

Agreed. Your people shots are better than the landscape ones, which look a bit flat to me.

[Bobcock]

Truthfully, i'm really not that interested in landscape shots.

People, markets that's where I'm happiest. As great as Angkor is, I find the buildings reasonably dull to photograph. I guess that shows.

[Bobcock]

The next batch



Oh for some colour..................





Once you get past 8am, hordes of buses come through.



I liked the woman in the Khmer Rouge scarf, everyone else milled around, she was there for ages.







You buy from me One Dollar.....then she did the capital city trick, where you from, I tell you capital city, you buy from me. Fiji, says my mate from Fiji. Blank look. I don't think she'd been beated for some time.

[Bobcock]

After the Bayon we headed to Thommanon, quite a minor temple with an old lady sitting in there who seemed most anxious that you see the lintel of Vishnu above her head.

[Bobcock]

Next stop was Ta Keo, an unfinished 'mountain temple'.

Not much to write home about, there were 3 Cambodian monks there, having their pictures taken amongst themselves. I have some good shots of them, but other than the one I'm keeping them for either a photo competition of some other purpose.

After climbing the ridiculously steep steps you get to this at the top.









Next stop was Pre Rup, by which time one temple was becoming the same as another, nothing amazingly spectacular. Ended up looking for other stuff and found this young lad with his buffalos out the back.



After a break we returned to Angkor Wat, where we found a monkey.



and some more monks.......

[Nawty]

Much nicer group of shots Knob....see practice makes perfect....nearly.

Got any funeral shots ??

[sunsetter]

bobcock they are stunning, fatty in the box leave it out

[Bobcock]

Don't worry about fatty in the box, I mean he's so good he had to ask me to come and photograph the house he was selling. He's so good himself he has already bought 4 of my prints to adorn his office. He's a bit of a fan and it embarrasses him.

[Bobcock]

At the start of the third day we decided to photgraph a troop of monkeys for an hour, the guy I was with specialises in natural History so he really wanted to do this.



We then visited the Terrace of the Leper King. The original Leper king Statue I believe is in the National Museuem in Phnom Pehn.




Inside of the main terrace are a set of hidden reliefs. Thought to have had the outer wall contructed around it and filled in because of structural instability. As a result they have been well preserved.

[jemor9]

Amazing photos of the temples. I think the photos had a good balance of shade and sunlight , myself. the photos are really good , did you use a digial camara ?

Good Work

[Nawty]

Did he take any shots of you during natural history hour ??

Yes, I did ask Knobs to take some pics of my house...and a rather fine job he did also.

And yes I did buy 4 or 5 pics from him....shhh 1 was not his but....for a beer, retirement not far away now huh.

[Bobcock]

Yes, he did, took a couple of good monkey shots that he left with me.

You can see them when I have my laptop with me and we meet.

I only counted the number of shots I took. The pic of his you wanted he said was 10 beers, payable to me. You now owe me 14.

I didn't bother with the funeral, too many people and no proper schedule to know what was when.

[Bobcock]

jemor9

Yes, digital, Canon 30D.

During the daytime the high contrast was very difficult to overcome, sometimes using 2 graduated neutral density filters, and plenty of fill in flash.

[klongmaster]

BC: up to your usual standard which is great...
I'm always a little bored with the standard pics of Wat Angkor but you have a good eye for colour and people...actually they are probably just weeds but they add character to the shot...thanks for posting them...