Travel and Photography | Low Light Photography in Kathmandu

© 2014 Wazari Wazir | Devotees Light a Candles in Boudhanath Stupa | Kathmandu

“Not a day goes by without a few hours of power cuts. Load shedding has now become a perennial problem and it is here to stay.”

– Prasiddha Upadhaya, Hydropower Developer –

Despite Nepal’s huge hydropower potential and more than half a century of experience starting with the Pharping hydro plant in 1911, to date, less than 1% of Nepal’s hydro-power resources have been tapped.  Furthermore, no significant effort has been exerted in tapping other energy sources. Crippled with power shortage, Himalayan country Nepal imposes extra hour of mandatory power cut. The situation is going to further darken its existing big trouble pertaining to trade balance with India, Nepal’s largest trade partner.

Anyway, I’m not here to write about power shortage in Nepal, but you have been warned, so if you plan to travel to Nepal and take a lot of photographs, make sure you have a lot of extra camera battery with you. Almost everyday, there will be a power cuts, and unfortunately it happens when you most wanted it, and let’s not forget also to bring few power bank, to charge your smartphone if you use it a lot.

The photograph above is not about power cuts, I took the photograph at Boudhanath Stupa in Kathmandu, after the sun sets, things get dark here, so I’m wandering around looking for something to photograph and I met this devotees who light a candles and I think it will make a good looking photographs.

I’ve to raise the ISO to 2000 in order to captured this scene, I know that by raising the ISO, I will get more noise, but then, I like the moment here, I like the warm candles lighting, so to those of you guys who plan to travel to Nepal be not afraid of wandering around in the darkness, I mean not in complete darkness, but if possible walk around with a friends, and definitely you will find something worthy of photographs and don’t be afraid to raise your camera ISO. Try experiment with it. Low light photography can lead to surprising results. Give it a try.

* This is my second visit to Nepal and this trip were organised by friend of mine, Shukur Jahar, if you wanted more information about our next trips, you can contact him personally or visit his Blog Shukur Jahar

Email: shukurjahar@gmail.com