Some Balinese People Shots

Robin entertaining the local kids in Trunyan, in Batur crater, central Bali

Cool portrait of a local man by Tina Brauer

Great service from our trusty Balinese guide, Kadek

Great shot of this little girl carrying here incense sticks on here head, Besakih temple, Agung, Bali by Tina Brauer

Remains of someone's relative sitting in a heap of loose change in the graveyard at Trunyan, Mt Batur. Pic by Dianne Clements.

Beautiful portrait of a local Balinese woman, pic by Steve Mullarkey

Locals at Tirta Empul temple, Central Bali by Steve Mullarkey

Ikat weaver, Tengenan village by Ann Keniry

Young worshipper, Tirta Empul, pic by Carolyn Pettigrew

Family on a motorbike by Wendy Travers

Worshippers at Tirta Empul, pic by Wendy Travers

"Here I go again" Fire dancer at Batu Bulan, pic by Geoff Driscoll

Bali Photo Tour: The Dancers

Our last slide night/critique evening happened on Monday afternoon, as everyone waited for their departing planes. The images submitted were simply amazing. Professional, and completely Bali-centric, with great colour, contrast and terrific timing, especially with shots of fast-paced dancers. Everyone learned how to master their on-camera flash or speedlights to get some great results in what amounted to very tricky lighting conditions. Because there are so many great shots, I thought it best to subdivide these into categories. Here are some of the best dancer shots.

Balinese dancer at a Batu Bulan Barong dance session.
Pic by Mike Clements.

The monkey, friend of the Barong tiger creature, shot in the pouring rain at Batu Bulan, pic by Robin Nichols

Fire dance at Batu Bulan, Bali by Tina Brauer

Mythical Garuda character featuring in the Barong dance, pic by Tina Brauer

Monkey man dancing in the flames, pic by Kerrie Dixon

Balinese Barong dancer, pic by Kerrie Dixon

Beautiful Legong dancer, pic by Geoff Driscoll

Fire dancer in an explosion of sparks and smoke, Batu Bulan, pic by Geoff Driscoll

Intense pain or concentration? Fire dancer at Batu Bulan, Bali by Mike Clements

Exquisite Legong dancer in the rain, Batu Bulan, Bali by Mike Clements

Utter concentration shown by one of the performers in the Kecak dance, pic by Steve Mullarkey

Hanoman the monkey God in the kecak dance, Ulu Watu. Pic by Carolyn Pettigrew

Superb colours in the final stages of the fire dance, Batu Bulan. Pic by Anne Keniry

'Psyching up' for the fire dance, pic by Anne Keniry

Ancient Culture to Grubby Isolation

Immaculately kept stone age street of Tenganan

Yesterday we had a very pleasant couple of hours in the traditional village of Tenganan over in the Eastern part of the island. The govornment has cleaned the village up to the extent that the locals are not allowed to spread their shops around the main street. Businesses are limited to inside family houses so the main street, that runs for a kilometre up the hillside, looks to all extent original. Running down the centre are various wooden meeting halls and storage sheds. All raised off the ground, looking like they are constructed using rain forest timbers. It's a magical place. Clean, atmospheric and very photogenic (apart from the odd bright red or yellow (dyed) cockerels that wander around the yards.

Keyside at Trunyan in Batur volcano. Note the distinct smell of pig poo?

Today was a little different. We travelled up the main volcano to Kintamani, then dropped over the lip of the massive Batur caldera, into the crater itself to catch a ferry boat across the massive lake that occupies about one third of the caldera floor to the Bali Aga village of Trunyan.

 

 

Trunyon, 20 mins boat ride across the lake, like Tenganan, is also a Bali Aga settlement, an original village that, until about five years ago, was cut off from the world. Now a road meanders down the steep volcano side into the village. It was too steep for our bus (thank goodness) so we took the more pleasurable boat option. However, the resemblance to Tenganan stops at the front gate. Our guide described Trunyan as being 'primitive'. I think what he meant, in so many words, was that it was a very poor community. And that meant it was messy, smelly and perhaps not that interesting.
The people, although friendly enough, looked as though they had very little pride in the cleanliness of their village. Very different to Tenganan. And in fact different to the rest of the island, where people seem top be constantly cleaning up, sweeping dirt and burning rubbish. Trunyan desperately needs a "Clean up Trunyon" day.

The real reason for going there was also to visit the cemetery, another ten minutes away in a boat. Deceased bodies are left in the open, covered in palm fronds till their flesh decays and drops away. The skulls and various bones are then removed and placed on display in the graveyard for a few months. Then people seem to lose interest. The place itself was littered with bits of rubbish and human bones. Quite creepy. 

But interesting for a few HDR shots...

More great images from Bali

Tourists posing at Git Git waterfall, Northern Bali by Geoff Driscoll - an awesome slow shutter, telephoto shot...

Too hot to walk? Wendy and Bev heading off to Besakih on the back of a local's motobike

Geoff Driscoll burning rubber in the car park...

On a hideously hot day, our CCE group sings the praises of a family that makes/scrapes a living from salt manufacture, Candidasa, Eastern Bali

Testing the veracity of a Canon sensor. Our knowledgeable tour guide, Kadek, admiring a fighting cockerel in Tenganan. And Yes, that is the correct colour. Amazing what you can do with a small bottle of food dye!

Bali Photo Trip

Not quite half way through the CCE trip to Bali and yet our participants are producing some really amazing work. We had two separate sessions with dance models and saw some particularly good results from our drive over the island from Lovina, in the North, to Ubud via the rice terraces around Pupuan.

Gusman the Balinese dancer by Tina Brauer

Gusman the Balinese dancer by Geoff Driscoll

HDR picture by Kerrie Dixon

Pic by Steve Mullarkey

Pic by Ann Keniry

Pic by Carolyn Pettigrew

Pic by Wendy Travers

GitGit waterfall by Dianne Clements

GitGit waterfall by Mike Clements

Rice Terrace Resurrection

As a sunset event, our Tegallallang rice terrace evening visit was a distinct flop. The light was dead and the clouds somewhat indifferent. What to do? I usually go for the HDR option when all else technical fails to prodiuce an exciting visual result. At least this gives you the best chance of extracting tones and detail from a scene that might otherwise have remained invisible. So I shot three frames of everything and thought I'd post some examples of what Photomatix Pro, the HDR software, can do. I was slightly less depressed once I saw with the HDR software produced - although it was still far from an 'arresting' image. Part of the problem in this shot is that the foreground 'interest', the frangapani tree, was merging into the background. I had focussed on the tree so the slightly softer background helped keep it from disappearing entirely. Nevertheless it needed separating more! I used Photoshop's Dodge brush, set to Midtones, to run repeatedly up and down the leaves and stems in the tree. This worked like a charm. I then repeated it using the Highlight setting, being careful not to blow out the lighter tones. Now I was getting somewhere. It took an hour to get the finished image you see at the bottom of this post. But I'm still not convinced that it's going on my wall.
But at least it's an improvement on the flat, uninteresting original...