I had also made a visit to the Himalayan Zoological Park which is located around 3km from Gangtok. This was setup in 1991 and is a great place to observe Himalayan wildlife. The park is surrounded by forests all around and gives one a sense of wilderness. I had spent almost a full day here with the aim to observe and photograph many of the wildlife residents of the park. From photographing the clouded leopard to observing Red Pandas, I am sharing my photos of what all I photographed. I had used the Canon EOS R6 and the Tamron EF 100-400mm f/4.5-6.3 Di VC USD Lens.
Himalayas
Sightseeing in Gangtok
I had travelled to Gangtok just last month in January. Gangtok is located in the state of Sikkim and it was my first time here. I had travelled from Patna junction to New Jalpaiguri junction and from there got a cab that took me up to Gangtok. The road trip took just over 4 hours. Anyhow I had spent a full week here and I am sharing some of my photos. This would give an idea of which locations to visit if one has very less time.
Landscape Photography in Nainital
Nainital is a beautiful hill station in the state of Uttarakhand. I had come here in the month of March after a gap of 14 years. In my younger years, I had attended Sherwood College which is one of the prestigious boarding schools in North India and my main purpose was to meetup with old friends after like 25 years. After everyone left, I decided to stay back and spend a few days more to photograph landscapes and shoot timelapses. However, in my view, monsoon season would be a great time to shoot landscapes as there would be more dark clouds resulting in moody landscapes.
Mountain Biking in Pokhara Valley
After spending a week at Chitwan I took a cab to Pokhara where I had decided to try out some mountain biking. Here I spent around 2 weeks exploring the various trails on my mountain bike and taking photos of the landscapes and wildlife. I had actually purchased the mountain bike in Kathmandu at a store called Panc Bike. It is a Polygon Premier 5 mountain bike. I could have rented the bike but I decided on purchasing it instead. I had mainly stayed at Nepali Cottage Guesthouse. I would recommend this place for a few reasons. One is that it is for those on a low budget, rooms are clean and the owners are quite friendly and also there is a juice bar that not only serve juice but also make good breakfast.
My Everest Base Camp 3 Peaks 3 Passes Trek
Back in September of 2021, I decided to visit Nepal around December to trek along the 3 Peaks and 3 Passes trek within the Everest region. However my plan did not go in effect until February of this year. Between mid November to like around end of March, the mountains are really cold. I had booked my trip through Makalu Adventure and overall it was a great trip. I had completed the entire trek in 35 days.
Landscape Photography at Jim Corbett National Park
Other than photographing wildlife, one can get nice wide angle landscape shots. The best time is early morning or late evening because this is when you have soft golden light. Sometimes a telephoto lens even at 300mm can also capture amazing landscapes however for most shots during this trip, I had used both the Canon 17-40mm f/4 L lens and also the Canon 70-300mm f/4-5.6 L lens. Here is a selection of landscape shots taken during the trip.
Monsoon Photography
Now that the monsoons are over, here are some scenes of monsoonscapes taken during the morning in Dubra village near Dehradun. I got here with some friends by car. On arriving at the place, it seems very different in contrast to Dehradun. No traffic, no pollution, no noise and just the sound of nature and the other great thing is that it is only a small distance away from the main town of Dehradun.
Winter Landscapes in Ladakh
Here I am sharing a small collection of landscape images taken by me during February of this year. I had photographed various locations in ladakh. Places visited were Leh, Shey, Korzok, Ulley and also a trek to Stok Kangri which you could read about by clicking here.
Stok Kangri Winter Expedition
I had booked to do a winter expedition of Stok Kangri in February of this year. Stok Kangri is a 6000m non technical climbing peak which is mostly attempted in the summer months but in winter due to the level of snow and harsh weather, it becomes a different challenge altogether. I had booked via White Magic Adventure. This is professional company and the guides and support staff are very professional in their approach. In this 8 day expedition, there were 10 of us who signed up for such a venture. However 3 people decided to descend down after 5 days and the remaining 7 decided to ascend the peak.
Trek and Mountain Monthly Competition
I have a good collection of images from the Himalayas so based on this I had decided to contribute one of my mountain images to the readers’ photos section of “Trek and Mountain” magazine. Each month, the magazine runs a monthly competition where the best images are published in the magazine and the winning image getting a small prize. For this I had entered the night shot of the Kang Yatse Peaks in Ladakh with milky way in the background.