#  >  > Travellers Tales in Thailand and Asia >  >  > Cambodia Forum >  >  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.

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## Bobcock

Que.?

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## Nawty

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

Whats a Que.?

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## alphagirl

very nice

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## 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......

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## 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 ???

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## Bobcock

Sure.

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

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## 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.......

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## Nawty

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

Got any funeral shots ??

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## sunsetter

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

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## 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

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## 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...

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## Bobcock

I agree, Angkor Wat (the actual temple) is actually quite boring to photograph. There are only a small handful of photos in here from there.

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## EmperorTud

> I liked the woman in the Khmer Rouge scarf


It's a traditional Khmer scarf called a Krama.

Although many Khmer Rouge wore them, please don't mistake it with a symbol of that evil regime.

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## Takeovers

Thanks 

Reminds me of Angelina Jolie my favorite all time most sexy fantasy.

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## Bobcock

They do say my hips and lips are similar.

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## Mr Pot

What camera you using for these pics bob?

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## Bobcock

May refer the Right Honourable Gentleman to the answer i gave just a few posts ago.

Now you get a supplementary question.  :Smile:

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## pescator

Excellent photos!! Bobcock. Thanks for sharing. Sure bring back memories.
I was there while there were only analog cameras around and the prints were expensive. Lack of light (rainy season and 100 ISO) also reduced the photo opportunities. Your shots made me realize that it is time for a revisit this time bringing new digital equipment  :Smile:

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## bustak

great photos as always!

I really like these 2:




That lens baby shot looks cool. I want to pick one of those up, but right now the 2nd gen iPod Touch is calling me.  :Smile:

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## Bobcock

Next stop was a drive north of about 20km to the temple of Banteay Srei. Quite a small temple but the carvings are very intricate. It is also built out of red sandstone unlike the others. It translates to Citadel of the Women.









Quite a lot of the small buddah images on the walls had their heads missing, small artefacts for professional looters.







lots of dragon flies in and around the pond outside the temple as well.

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## Bobcock

At the end of the day I climbed up to the top of the hill temple close to Angkor Wat. Not a bad view, but with a 400mm lens and quite a wind, keeping the camera still wasn't easy.



Thought I'd mess with a couple and make them black and white.





The next day we were all templed out, so we asked our driver to drive out into the countryside to the south and just see what we could see.







We watched some kids fishing and this was his catch. Note the frog.




We then came across this temple, which was undergoing a lot of work.

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## sunsetter

> Next stop was a drive north of about 20km to the temple of Banteay Srei. Quite a small temple but the carvings are very intricate. It is also built out of red sandstone unlike the others. It translates to Citadel of the Women.
> 
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> 
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> ...


that carving is mind blowingly exquisite, the detail on pic 4 looks unearthly, nice work bc

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## Bobcock

Lastly I visited a temple in town which is home to one of the memorials to the dead of the Khmer rouge regime. There are about 90 or so such memorials in Cambodia.

I was fascinated by this kitchen indow, i was dying for someone to poke their head out of it, but alas no, so i just took the pic anyway.



This is the memorial. Inside are bones found of the victims.







I took this picture by photographing the glass door of the memorial but focusing on the reflection of the temple with the skulls out of focus behind the glass.



On a lighter note, there was a small childrens band practising in the temple hall so I went and took a few pics of them.







The hall was also used for eating and the monks came in for their lunch whilst I was there.



Lastly inside the main chapel of the temple were these very colourful paintings.








then I got the plane home....THE END

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## Marmite the Dog

Nice people pics. Thanks for sharing.

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## Nawty

'Thanks for sharing'......heard that at the doctors clinic before.

Good on ya Knob.

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## phuketbound

These photos are fantastic. They bring back recent memories of my trip there. 

You mentioned you used a Canon 30D, what was the other lens that you were using? 

Did you use photoshop to touch the colour up at all? I saw the thread in the photography section, and it turns the picture way colorful. Very nice touch!

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## mancon

Impressing as hell those temples and the city, are they not! Great pictures and really good light. Thank you so much for shearing!

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## boatboy

Great pics, Thanks
BB

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## brixtonbwoy

im gonna go in jan cheers for the tour

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## Bower

Great pictures, they have helped me decide to return to Angkor in October.
Thank you.

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## Bobcock

Should have another thread of pics soon as I was there again last month,,,,

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## steevee

Fantastic pics. Thus one caught my attention for awhile. A perfect picture. This one is a prize winner.

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## cdnski12

Very nice photos. Your Photographer Pal is right about Photo Timing ... 9am-4pm is usually a waste of time outside. When I was in Angkor in 2010, I hired a guide for a day & rattled quickly around the main temple. Mr Sam Pho was very knowledgeable. He was a local History teacher and quite a famous guide. With his help, I was able to quickly ID where I needed to go 4 the photos & we listened to the guides very detailed information. The next day I hired Mr Khen & his Tuk Tuk for the day. We quickly zipped around to where I wanted to take photos from 05;30am -9am & from 4 pm to 6:30pm. From 9am - 4 pm we had some snacks & drinks and leisurely toured the temples in the bright sunlight. I definitely intend to go back to Angkor for a week in 2015. I also have found it to be useful to go the the main local museums before one goes to these famous attractions. Usually the museum have an extensive historical record of what happened ... so you get a good perspective of what you will see at the temples.

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## Bobcock

This thread was 7 years ago, it'd look a lot different if I did it now.

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## Phuketrichard

cd, agree about the museum  a great introduction to the Angkor kingdom.

Only dif i have seen since i stated going to Angkor in 2002 is the amount of re-construction and TOURISTS on the ground!!

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## CalEden

> Only dif i have seen since i stated going to Angkor in 2002 is the amount of re-construction and TOURISTS on the ground!!


In 2002 you could walk/climb anywhere. Now there are many un-photographic barriers (I get it). It just ruins the 1860 Henri Mouhot discovery illusion or photo opt.

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## Phuketrichard

yep forgot about all those barriers, 
Glad i got shots before they put them up!!

another thing, back in 2006 got a great shot from the Bakheng at sunset with views of Angkor Wat,  Richard Reitman Photography | Angkor Wat Temples | Sunset at Angkor Wat from Phnom Bakheng

Was up there this past July and now the trees have grown so high you cant even see the temples and hundreds more people

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