Jaspal Jandu Photography

Jaspal Jandu Photography Exhibition

We are pleased to announce a commercial exhibition of Jaspal Jandu Photography.   A collection of fine art, limited edition prints will be on display at the Shepherd Hotel, Amman, Jordan from the 11th – 25th November 2006.

The exhibition will concentrate on both the large- and small-scale views of our collective world. Local sponsors Shepherd Hotels, Cube Lounge and Play Radio will host the set of stunning Prints.

Jaspal is excited about the forth-coming exhibition and notes:

"Be it on the smallest or grandest of scales, the Natural World operates on a sublime level of beauty and symmetry. We sincerely hope that we can share some of this wonder with you during the exhibition.”

Local information and sales enquiries can be placed with Shereen Shalhoub (Fine Art Dealer), Jordan.

Kind regards
Jaspal Jandu Photography

A New Fuji Velvia?

Completely unsubstantiated reports of a new Fuji Velvia RVP50 in the works? It would certainly come as a relief to many of the photographers still committed to the ethereal quality of film.

If you have any updates, please get in touch…

The Wave

I’ve just come back from a day at The Wave. Although words can hardly do justice to its beautiful twisted symmetry, I can say that it ranks up there as one of the most mind-bending formations I have photographed.

Getting to the Wave – both literally and metaphorically – is not easy as the BLM limits access to the site to only 20 people per day maximum.  If you’ve not been lucky enough to secure one of the 10 guaranteed tickets well in advance, then be prepared enter the walk-in lottery for the remaining 10 places…

During the summer months, the lottery takes place at the Paria BLM station at 9.00am prompt. Tickets are issued for the day prior to the 6-mile round-trip hike. During our morning there was a palpable sense of tension in the room; partly due to the fact that this really is a zero-sum game – if you go then I don’t.  If your name doesn’t get drawn the first day then it gets entered twice the following day and so on.  Since we were aware of this and we also had time on our side, we weren’t too concerned with the whole palaver.

Just as well, I guess, because we were lucky enough to win the last two places for following the day.

There are excellent guides to The Wave on the Internet and I won’t repeat them here. Suffice it to say that armed with the excellent map provided by the Paria Station, a GPS and some common sense, it is fairly straightforward to locate the Wave.

Once there I would allow at least 2-4 hours of photographic time due to the changing angle of the sun and the almost-infinite compositional possibilities.  Remember to bring lots of film/storage media and a polariser if you can.  The Wave itself is only completely illuminated by the mid-day sun but I wouldn’t let this limit your shooting time.  Light is constantly being reflected (and warmed) by the walls of the Wave itself and there are some sublime recesses to look out for.

Most of my film is now exposed and I will await the results as it gets processed. I hope I managed to sneak out with a few winning shots because I wouldn’t want to chance my arm in that lottery a second time around…

Expectation vs. Reality

I finally arrived at Monument Valley.  It may have taken a few years and a lot of trouble to get here but here I am for sure.

However, in some deep recess of my brain, not all is quite right.

After spending some time enjoying the splendour of the land, I (dare I say it) am experiencing a slight mismatch between expectation and reality.  Let me briefly explain each:

• Expectation - Monument valley must rank up there as one of the defining landscapes of the American Southwest.  Be it a favourite Spaghetti Western or the reckless yearning for freedom, it is a landscape - above all others - which is carefully etched onto the psyche of the world. However, it is precisely because of this cultural saturation that one arrives here with such a fever-pitched mindset.
• Reality – Monument Valley is a Navajo State Park and not a National Park in the sense of the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Zion etc.  It is, therefore, a delicate balancing act which the Navajo must perform between keeping a sense of ‘normality’ in an area of dwelling vs. the needs of modern eco-tourism. Whilst I applaud the efforts made so far (such a limiting the number of visitors per site etc), it’s a touch too much to witness jewellery sellers at every viewpoint, sites closed outside of official opening hours and major attractions (such as the Totem Poll area) completely off limits to non-tour paying visitors.

As I say, the problem here is the mis-match between the two components. It also entirely plausible that the first component (Expectation) maybe entirely of my own making.

If Monument Valley is the first destination of your journey then the classic view of the setting sun on the buttes is a journey moment you will not be forgetting in a hurry. However, if you are travelling through the other ‘epic’ landscapes of the Southwest then be prepared for a more grounded experience.

Its sedimentary, my dear Watson

The landscape and geology of the American Southwest has me totally enthralled. Just watching the sun’s rays gently texture the land has been one of joys of our trip and I can now see why a number of photographers have spent a creative lifetime in such a relatively small area.

Most of Southern Utah and Northern Arizona share a fairly unique geological past. An ancient sea once covered the entire area and over time it deposited layers of alternating sedimentary sandstone. As the elements (primarily the Colorado River, wind and rain) subsequently weathered the sandstone they created some of the most striking terrain in the world.

Canyons, gullies, arches, pinnacles, buttes, bluffs and mesas are the common sight throughout the area and visiting the local national parks (Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Zion etc.) in quick succession can easily become an overwhelming experience for the uninitiated.

Unfortunately, recent heavy rainfall has slightly stymied our photographic adventure here.  Many trails are closed (for example, the White Rim trail in Canyonlands) and the various slick-rock surfaces and slot canyons are strict no-go areas following the recent flash flood warnings.

However, adversity also presents opportunity (on-coming thunder storms, for example, can present some incredibly dramatic skies).  There’ll be more to explore over the coming days and I am sure I’ll be spending more time out in this wonderfully sculpted land.

Wall Street Crash

For your information, there has been a pretty significant rock slide at the famous Douglas Fir in the Wall Street area of Bryce Canyon. I went along to photograph it this morning and found the entire Wall Street section of the Navajo trail closed.

The rangers noted that they were restricting all access to the area until they could be assured of the stability of the remaining rocks.  Work to clear the slide (which must measure into the hundreds of tonnes) may begin during the summer of 2007.

More info can be found here and we hope this helps anyone in the area...

The Grand Circle

After renting some sleeping gear in Las Vegas, we have now begun the first part of our trip around the 'Grand Circle' set of National Parks in Northern Arizona/Southern Utah - a pilgrimage which every photographer must take at least once in a lifetime. 

We will (hopefully) try to cover an area stretching roughly from the Zion through to Arches National Park in Utah.  I was reading through a local guidebook the other day and noted that the natural formations of the region (Grand Canyon, Arches, Monument Valley, Antelope Canyon, Bryce etc etc ) are so well ingrained in the consciousness of the world that they should surely qualify as 'Natural Wonders of Humanity' rather than of any one state or country.

Our first stop will be the North Rim of the Grand Canyon (one must get to the area before the I67 closes for winter with the first onset of snow). One major bonus of arriving in early-October is the absence of the fervent rush of summer.  I can already feel the tourist scramble slowly abating and roads slowly returning to some sort of normality.

Although, as ever, our eternal limitation will be time (we have just over a month to cover a fair amount of ground), I am hoping we can come away with some great shots of the region.

Will hopefully post some pictures soon.

Jaspal