The last Coppersmith
One of the last descedants of the nepalian royal coppersmith masters in Chilling, Western-Tibet
One of the last descedants of the nepalian royal coppersmith masters in Chilling, Western-Tibet
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Apr, 2016Views
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Top Shot Award 21
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Contest Finalist in Social Exposure Photo Contest Vol 3
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October 04, 2017
Well done! I had the privilege to meet this coppersmith before embarking on the Markha Valley trek a few weeks ago.
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Behind The Lens
Location
The photo was taken in a very small village in the Himalayas, called Chilling, about 3500-4000 meter, which is in Ladakh, Northern-India. Because Ladakh is next to the Tibetian border, and many Tibetian refugees lives there, people mostly call it Western-Tibet.Time
It was in morning time, about 7-8 am. I have arrived to the village yesterday evening, with a small group on foot, because there were no road to Chilling. In the morning some of us woke up early to see the people how they live and take some photos. The village had no electricity, running water, only what they got from a small brook and the Zanskar river.Lighting
I've got lighting only from natural sources, which came through the opened door.Equipment
This was shot on a Canon 70D, with a 12-24mm f/4.0 lens. No other equipment involved.Inspiration
I have heard from my group leader there are three old coppersmith lives in the village, who are the last descedants of the nepalian royal coppersmith masters. Because the society in this region is not based on material goods, they barely have any furniture in their houses. The only thing, that could show their wealth is how many vases or copper cans they have. I picked the most talented of them and visited his home. So there was this aged man who devoted his entire life to live in a small place in a really small house and master the techniques and the skills to be a professional coppersmith. I thought If I could take a good shot, I could tell his story.Editing
I have used Lightroom to do some post-processing, did some usual corrections like contrast, saturation, etc, and lightened a little bit the canns on the right side of the picture to reveal more details. No further post-processing were taken.In my camera bag
I usually have 3 lens (or nowadays 4) with circular polarizer filters for them and my camera, a Canon 70D with me. I use wide-angle lens (12-24mm or 10-22mm, depends on), a 18-135mm zoom lens for the farther objects and nowadays two fixed-focus lens (35mm and 50mm), because of their small aperture, so I could take good quality photos in barely lighted areas. Now I'm planing to buy the famous Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS II USM, to improve my images.Feedback
First of all you have to understand their lives and culture I think, to know exactly what you would like to shot and what you would like to tell with that shot. And then you have to communicate (or at least try) with the people on your images, so they recognize you as same human being, not just as a camera which tries to invade their private life. In my case it was a little bit difficult, because the coppersmith didn't speak any other language but his own. So I usually just pointed on things or just showed my items from my own country which was with me and after then I pointed to my camera and he agreed to take some photos.
