Photo: Prayer Flags around a Temple. Paro, Bhutan
Click of the image to see a larger version.
During our travel photography tour to Bhutan, one of the participants came to me and said, ‘I am not able to figure out how to make good photographs of prayer flags.’ I immediately understood what his problem was. All along our tour, we kept seeing prayer flags – bunch of vertical poles with long fluttering flags or smaller flags tied together with a thread. They were beautiful, colourful and were often located in strategic locations like bridges, templs and high passes. They looked charming, but photographs often did not reflect the beauty in the flags. It required a slightly different approach to photograph them, and trying to frame the flags themselves was not a great idea. I responded, saying that the best photos will not be of the prayer flags themselves, but something else photographed through an array of prayer flags. I showed the above photograph from my camera as an example.