Ancient City of Peshawar, a photo from North-West Frontier, West

Photographer's Note

I took pictures of Pakistan 20 years ago until recently a TE friend of mine (Thanh Nguyen) encourages me to scan them and bring them back to life. I did and felt like I have revisited Pakistan again.

This is the bazaar in the ancient city of Peshawar and is a closest large city closer to Afghanistan. It does not appear to have much of Western influence but historically it is. This city used to belong to Afghanistan until the British gave a large piece of land to the Pakistanis (It was not called Pakistan at the time) in order to get helps to invade Afghanistan. When I was there, Pakistan is the host of several hundred thousands of Afghan refugees during the conflict with the USSR. This city was also the gate of the US arm supply during the same period of time. Quite a few of afghan Jewry makers ended living here. They are found in the Bazaars of Peshawar. The Bazaars was very colorful. People were friendly and love to have their pictures taken.

macondo, sebinho342, celinaconroy, ngythanh heeft deze opmerking als nuttig gemarkeerd

Critiques | Translate

kozerog (1288) 2006-04-21 10:40

Interesting shot and moment. People look very happy. They enjoy thier life. I gess.

macondo (20449) 2006-04-21 10:50

A photograph full of life, with light and shadow on the people. There is just enough of the horse visible to know what the man is doing. The look on the face of the bearded one is a wonderful mystery. Almost as if he knows his friend is being photographed and he is wanting to see his reaction. The slightly hazy laneway behind makes the figures stand out and adds atmosphere. Very good scan, Kiet.
Andrew

AndyGr1er (281) 2006-04-21 11:11

Great shot ... has a nice antiquated feel to it, like that of a bygone era. the filtered sunlight looks great and you've done an excellent job of not losing alot of detail with the high contrast in the scene. it looks a little washed out, could be from the scanning? I'd bring up the saturation levels a few notches in PS.

sebinho342 (19329) 2006-04-21 11:46

Great historical shot here Kiet ! Of course you were right to follow thanh Nguyen, he is such an artist :)
I'm really happy to discover this "old" city of peshawar that we are use to hear in news nowodays, and great note.
I can feel the atmosphere 20years ago there thanks to your picture.
Good job :)

celinaconroy (717) 2006-04-21 17:22

Hi Kiet,

What an interesting Perspective and focal point - as is the subject matter. I'm a little intrigued by how you took this photo - you are almost eye level with the cart-driver - are your very tall perhaps?

Celina

ngythanh (8458) 2006-04-22 7:07

Dear Kiet:
Thank you for opening your hidden albums!

I have 2 things for you: a workshop, and a response to Sebastien, as below.

Cheers!

Thanh

----------
Good morning Sebastien:

Thank you for your kind words, but you made me ashamed!
Accepting Kiet's invitation, I came and spent a night at his residence where I had the very rare and honor to view his photo albums of hard-copy photographs he took along his treks prior to marriage. I found out that he was a real artist and true traveler (not tourist). The only missing part was that he didn't treat photography properly some 2 decades ago.
I told his wife had he been in the right time and right place, he had been a successful journalist due to his love of moving and his courage of exploring the dangerous & remote places.
What I did during my stay was blaming him for hidding his photographic treasure to his own family. Comparing his photos against current "masters of photography" may be unfair since his shots are now parts of history that could not be changed nor manipulated.
The only little "credit" that I am happy to accept is my success in convincing him to scan and post into TE, to share with all of us. In short, I missed the chances to join his former explorations but now I am trying to "ketchup" the taste that he enjoyed.

Thank again for both of you, the critiquer and the photographer.

Regards,

[workshop] [compare] +

fotobram (386) 2006-04-22 7:12

Vey nice. Interesting light and scene. I like that workshopped version even better. Good work for the two of you :-)

BdM

AbdullahCharsee (179) 2006-05-15 7:28 [Comment]

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qadirsh (85) 2006-11-15 22:48

A nice composition to get both the parties together and seems that they are one group. There is a little lack of compensation in my view yet it is still good. Thanks for sharing.