Kushal Paudyal – The Official Website

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.

I have published a few selected photos from my visit to Pella Tulip Festival this year. I took around 1100 pictures, selected some 150 good shots and have finished doing post processing on only 20% of those. I have uploaded the edited pictures to Sanjaal’s Studio.

The tulips (don’t expect to see the perfect bunches, because this year I focused on shooting dry, weathering and broken tulips) pictures are located here.

Th parade pictures are located here.

It’s tulip time again and I will be in Pella today to enjoy a rich Dutch culture. I will be posting the pictures and videos when I am back to my place which would be sometimes late Sunday. The weather is kind of  non-cooperative today, but since I am already here in Des Moines, we will make it to the festival at any cost.

This is a 75th Pella Tulip Time and I hope to have more fun than I did last year.