Kushal Paudyal – The Official Website

Deepak Bajracharya is one of the greatest singers from Nepal who has spent more than two decades of his life in musical career alone. His songs are fabulous. He has more than 250 recorded songs in many albums.  This April was a great honor for us to meet him in person and to listen to his songs during a local concert that too in our own our current home town in West Des Moines.

If you are one of his fans, do not miss the photos from the concert and photo shoot of Deepak Bajracharya (singles) [Mirror Link Here].

I have taken hundreds of pictures recently of whatever I could get, from tea cups to Christmas cap, from winter trees to chair legs. But have had a chance to edit only a few. These pictures are published in my photography blog at Sanjaal Studio.

This year’s Memorial weekend, I had been to Keystone, South Dakota, a place 800 miles away from the current city that I live in (Moline, IL) – which took us around 14 hours of drive one way. Me and my wife had a bunch of our friends accompanying us from Des Moines, IA for the travel and let me tell you right away, it was the most charming road trip I ever had in the United States. The lovely weather, the greenery of the summer time, and amazing 75mph straight roads with hardly any annoying 18 wheelers, lots of road signs and attraction, amazing animals and spectacular views made our travel worth remembering for years.

I have captured a lot of pictures form my trip and I would like to share some of them here. The following are the links to the ones I selected.

• South Dakota 2010 – Bison @ Custer State Park
  http://sanjaal.com/studio/2010/06/02/american-bison-custer-state-park-south-dakota/

• South Dakota 2010 Fog @ Custer State Park
  http://sanjaal.com/studio/2010/06/02/fog-custer-state-park-in-south-dakota/

• South Dakota 2010 – Badlands National Park
  Will post the link Soon

• South Dakota 2010 – Burros @ Custer State Park
  http://sanjaal.com/studio/2010/06/03/burro-custer-sate-park-in-south-dakota/

• South Dakota 2010 – Mitchell Corn Palace (Outside View)
  http://sanjaal.com/studio/2010/06/04/mitchell-corn-palace-in-south-dakota-outside-view/

• South Dakota 2010 – Mitchell Corn Palace (Inside View)
  http://sanjaal.com/studio/2010/06/05/mitchell-corn-palace-in-south-dakota-inside-view/

• South Dakota 2010 – Mount Rushmore
  http://sanjaal.com/studio/2010/06/10/mt-rusmore-presidential-sculpture-by-gutzon-borglum/

• South Dakota 2010 – Needle Road and Tunnels
  Will post the link Soon

• South Dakota 2010 – Road Signs and Other Boards
  http://sanjaal.com/studio/2010/06/06/random-road-signs-and-boards-from-south-dakota-trip/

• South Dakota 2010 – Crazy Horse
  http://sanjaal.com/studio/2010/06/11/crazy-horse-my-lands-are-where-my-dead-lie-buried/

• South Dakota 2010 – Deer @ Custer State Park

  http://sanjaal.com/studio/2010/06/17/herd-of-deer-custer-state-park-south-dakota-2010/

Like every year I visited Des Moines in Iowa this year for Asian Heritage Festival. One of the interesting part of this festival is the cultural fashion show, where the amateurs models display their country’s cultural outfits. It’s a nice experience to understand the multiple cultures – the traditional dresses they wear, the songs they sing, the food they eat, the sports they play.

This year I wanted to capture a complete coverage of the cultural fashion show and I must admit it without bragging that I was successful. Although post processing of hundreds of pictures that I have taken is a tedious job (photography is just my hobby – I got other things to do besides my professional job), I have promised to myself that I will do it slowly one country at a time. Visit the following links to see some of my semi-professional fashion photography work categorized by the country.

• Cultural Fashion – Nepal
• Cultural Fashion – Japan
• Cultural Fashion – Thailand
• Cultural Fashion – China
• Cultural Fashion – Taidam
• Cultural Fashion – Vietnam
• Cultural Fashion – Burma (Myanmar)
• Cultural Fashion – India
• Cultural Fashion – Phillipines

(If a link is not available above for any specific country, possibly I have not complete doing the post processing – I hope to finish them as soon as possible)

I used to think volleyball is something you play with your hands until recently when I saw a Kick Volleyball (also known as Sepak Takraw) tournament during Asian Heritage Festival 2010 in Des Moines Iowa.

This volleyball you could play with anything but your hands. You can use your legs, neck, chest, head but you cannot use your hands. It seems the game is popular among the South East Asian countries, although it is believed to have been originated in Malaysia.

They use a special netted ball to play this game.

I captured some action shots of this play on my camera. Few selected pictures are available in Sanjaal Studio.

Project 365 in photography refers to taking 1 photo each day for 365 days a year and seeing your life in whole new way after a year. This project aims at capturing little day to day life activities and capturing them in photos to have a wonderful memory after a year, which would otherwise have been forgotten. This also greatly helps to improve your photography skills because you constantly play with your camera every day.
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My Triptych taken by my wife Pooja while I was busy taking photographs in Chicago Downtown.

trip·tych /’trIptIk/
noun
1.     Fine Arts. a set of three panels or compartments side by side, bearing pictures, carvings, or the like.
2.     a hinged, three-leaved tablet, written on, in ancient times, with a stylus.

Origin:
1725-35; < Gk tríptychos of three plates, equiv. to tri- tri- + ptych- (s. of ptýx) plate + -os adj. suffix

The following winter snow fall pictures were taken in Moline IL. Visit my photography page for rest of my pictures on various categories. These pictures were taken around December 2009 from my old camera – Sony DSC-T50.

Now I own a professional DSLR (Canon EOS 5D Mark II). I will upload pictures from that camera on some more photography themse later.