[busydrive]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

As I mentioned, our taxi went all the way to the gondola station and that is where we were dropped.

Thank you for the detailed response. Much appreciated.

[Highh5]

What a beautiful thread Dr.AD. I used to look forward to your yearly monsoon drive threads or Chikmagalur/coffee estate drive threads but believe me this one surpassed all of them. What beautiful shots and I think you got those long exposure shots in bright daylight through ND filters only. All the photos are a treat to the eyes and the narration was to the point.
This made me go to Kashmir. Thank you for penning it down.

[silverado]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Thanks! Wow, Kashmir in 2004 must have been a great experience

You bet it was great, it was Jan and there was plenty of snow in Gulmarg. No one was chasing us as people mentioned here. The first question that all of us would like to ask you here is how SAFE did it feel?

I felt tense when we entered Srinagar back in 2004 as security was very dense, but we were at ease after 2-3 days.

[14000rpm]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Photologue from Kashmir: Prologue

Some really astonishing pix there many of them can be easily confused with European destinations.

Great thread !

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by Highh5

What a beautiful thread Dr.AD.
I think you got those long exposure shots in bright daylight through ND filters only. All the photos are a treat to the eyes and the narration was to the point.

Thank you very much! Yes, I used ND filer for the long exposure photos. However, one or two photos there (e.g. photo of Shali Ganga river at Doodhpathri) are taken without ND filter (as the filter was tucked away in my camera bag and I was too lazy to open the bag and get the filter out), and at very narrow aperture (f/22) to compensate for it. But the image quality suffered, and later I started being less lazy and actually used ND filter for such shots (e.g. the shots of the stream near Thajiwas Glacier was shot with a proper ND filter).

Unfortunately I did not have a tripod, and these long exposure shots (with or without ND filter) are all handheld shots. I had to try hard to keep my hands absolutely steady for the exposure time. But some blur and loss of sharpness is inevitable in such handheld shots. It is too cumbersome to carry a tripod in these travels, so I prefer to just rely on handheld photos.

Originally Posted by silverado

The first question that all of us would like to ask you here is how SAFE did it feel?

I felt tense when we entered Srinagar back in 2004 as security was very dense, but we were at ease after 2-3 days.

I was not going to mention this topic, but now that you asked, let me mention this :-)

We were there in the middle of the elections, and we saw the very heavy security there. In fact, first day we were shocked too, and did feel a bit nervous seeing armed army personnel and armored army vehicles every 100m on the road.

There was a VVIP event there one of the days and the entire area surrounding our hotel was completely barricaded and zero vehicular movements were allowed. There was extremely high amount of security outside. Thankfully, they allowed people to walk. So instead of spending the day stuck inside our hotel, we decided to walk out. We walked 2km under that extremely heavy (and what we felt tense) security cover and after crossing a few security checks, we got out of the barricaded area and then took an auto to go further away, where we got our taxi. It was definitely a totally new and unusual experience for us. But glad we stepped out and experienced the life outside in those conditions, instead of sitting in our hotel room.

Overall, I must say it was still 100% safe! We quickly got used to the heavy security presence everywhere, and then it all felt normal and fine. Everything was truly safe and we never had even a remote reason to worry once we got used to the heavy security.

The security team and the army personnel were very polite and professional. At a couple of places they asked us questions and checked my camera bag too (which was the only bag we were carrying while moving around), and in those interactions, they were very polite, professional, and courteous! They were doing a great job and we in fact felt proud of them instead of feeling troubled! It was a great experience seeing all that!

Originally Posted by 14000rpm

Some really astonishing pix there many of them can be easily confused with European destinations. Great thread !

Thank you very much, 14000rpm! I love your European travelogues and reports too! Glad you liked this thread.

[14000rpm]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

I love your European travelogues and reports too! .

Glad to hear.

Here's something funny. My wife is from J&K (and I am not) and has lived most of her growing up life in Jammu city. She has never seen Kashmir beyond a day out in Srinagar some 35 yrs ago and much before the Militancy issue.

Suffice to say, she saw her own neighborhood, technically speaking, through your thread. Max I've managed to go with her when I had my obligatory in-law visit was to Sonmarg. It is quite a beautiful place and I can only imagine how much more prettier rest of Kashmir must've been.