Travel Photography | Winter in Pahalgam | Kashmir Paradise on Earth

© 2012 Wazari Wazir | Travel Photography | Winter in Pahalgam | Kashmir Paradise on Earth

“Spring passes and one remembers one’s innocence. Summer passes and one remembers one’s exuberance. Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence. Winter passes and one remembers one’s perseverance.”  

– Yoko Ono –  

For those of you who like Landscape Photography, I highly recommended you to visit Kashmir in Winter, yes it’s cold, it’s uncomfortable at a time but I believe great shot are hard to come by and most of the times we can only get a great shot if we embrace the “Uncomfortable”.

From Dal Lake, Srinagar or from our hotel, which is situated along the Boulevard Road in Srinagar, it took us around two hours to reach Pahalgam, the fees is just RS2000 (Approximately USD36) for a return trip per vehicle and you can split the cost if you travel with your friends because the fees is per vehicle.

Actually Pahalgam is not a Winter Destination, I mean most of the times people visit Pahalgam during Summer and you can see few tourist during winter season and this is great news for landscape photographers because you will get the chance to photograph a great Kashmir scenery by yourself without any people entering your frames.

I’m not a landscape photographer, I mean, I’m not really interested with landscape photography, hence I don’t have proper equipment for landscape photography like tripod, neutral density or graduated filter with me. This photograph were taken handheld without any tripod and without any of those filters, and can you imagine how good the photograph will be if you have all those filters when taking this picture.

During summer time, there is no snow on top of that slippery rock at the stream, so you will never get that contrasty looks, like what you saw here, so you know by now, why I highly recommended to you, to those of you who like landscape photography to visit Kashmir and try out Winter Photography if you have never done it your whole life.

My recommendation is for you to stay at least one night here in Pahalgam, so that you are not rushing to take a picture and went back to Srinagar, most people came here for a day trip, meaning they leave Srinagar in the morning and came back in the afternoon. I didn’t know that Pahalgam is such a beautiful place, yes prior to visiting this place I’ve doing some research about this place, how it’s look like but trust me, what you see at your computer screen and what you will see of you came here in person are totally different, I don’t know how to find the right words to described it.

Anyway, there is no point for me writing along story, if this snapshot is good enough to inspire you to visit Kashmir, don’t waste your time, start planning, saves some money and booked the ticket and start dreaming, knowing that each days will bring you closer to reality.