42C in the shade....

i am getting some renovations done to my house and the guest workers have been doing a terrific
job. while it is early days of summer, the temp is already in the 40s...C.

One of the construction guys, taking a break!

M8,cron 35

fahim mohammed said:

i am getting some renovations done to my house and the guest workers have been doing a terrific
job. while it is early days of summer, the temp is already in the 40s...C.

One of the construction guys, taking a break!

M8,cron 35

Click to expand...

Hi Fahim,

It is an impressive picture if you ask me. I know how harsh the light there can be. Even then, you have managed to capture a nice tonality without losing too much details to hard contrasts/shadows. The only pity is that his eyes are a bit dark but it can be easily fixed in the post processing. Was this a RAW capture or a JPG? Also did you crop?

All in all, I like this picture very much and I am glad you've shown it to us Thx.

Thanks a lot Cem. i did realise the shadow under his eyes and almost brought out my nikon for fill
light..but was too lazy. It was a JPG image and yes I cropped it in CS3.

btw, this guy too is fromnorthern Pakistan on the Afghan border.
Once again, thanks for looking.

Cem_Usakligil said:

Hi Fahim,

It is an impressive picture if you ask me. I know how harsh the light there can be. Even then, you have managed to capture a nice tonality without losing too much details to hard contrasts/shadows. The only pity is that his eyes are a bit dark but it can be easily fixed in the post processing. Was this a RAW capture or a JPG? Also did you crop?

All in all, I like this picture very much and I am glad you've shown it to us Thx.

Click to expand...

Hello and welcome Fahim!

I start breaking a sweat just by looking at his face!

I was always fascinated by faces that are engraved with ancient tribal culture such as in this picture.

At the same time, and way of the beaten track, I could not avoid to think about the conflicts in this world, and I was pondering about how the media managed to paint a picture of fear and hatred on everything that comes from this area of the world. Islamophobia is a term that comes to mind. I was fortunate enough to visit a variety of cultures, and if I learned one thing, then that in every single one of them Peace is a much valued concept.... At the end of the day, regardless what skin color, ethic background or beliefsystem, we are all five fingered humans, eventually mothers and fathers, have brothers and sisters we care for.

I sense a certain shyness to look into your lense, and it triggers his smile to give you a friendly look, his face resembles the desert and the harsh landscape where people scrape a living out of no where, but not without trying to enjoy life as best as possible. Their hospitality is supposed to be unsurpassed, they serve the best food they have, even in difficult times, without hesitation they share the very best they have with a stranger who visits, it is also deeply engraved in their culture and a most beautiful tradition we would do well to cultivate more in our so called western civilised world I often come to think.

The people from the areas you shared photos here are being hammered with war since decades. The Russians, then the Americans, and regardless, they are unbroken in their spirit and their ways. Often nomadic people by tradition, a way of life on the brink of extinction, in the permanent crossfire of foreign political interests, drugs, war, I feel nothing but respect for them and hope that peace will prevail some day and enable them to live a life in dignity and governing their own world without too much influence from states who have a different agenda than the well being of the people living there.

Thanks for sharing Fahim!

Hi Georg,

Thanks for the welcome and truly appreciate you taking the time to comment. So true, sir, what you say.

I joined the gentlemen and his collegues yesterday for lunch. We got talking about the heat, the
renovations and so on. I asked this gentleman ( zahid khan ) about his family and the life back home.
he has some family members across the border in afghanistan. we rambled on, but collectively they
were asking of themselves and eachother..why? why them? what had zahid khan done wrong?

But, Georg, they might be materially poor, but i could sense the pride, the tradition of facing all
difficulties and a spirit of a people which we know from history has never been subjugated.

Simple, honorable people who seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Unbreakable spirit
and unshakable faith in their Creator and with a code of honor which seems so out of place in the
21st century.

Thanks for your time.

Georg Baumann said:

Hello and welcome Fahim!

I start breaking a sweat just by looking at his face!

I was always fascinated by faces that are engraved with ancient tribal culture such as in this picture.

... snip..

The people from the areas you shared photos here are being hammered with war since decades. The Russians, then the Americans, and regardless, they are unbroken in their spirit and their ways. Often nomadic people by tradition, a way of life on the brink of extinction, in the permanent crossfire of foreign political interests, drugs, war, I feel nothing but respect for them and hope that peace will prevail some day and enable them to live a life in dignity and governing their own world without too much influence from states who have a different agenda than the well being of the people living there.

Thanks for sharing Fahim!

Click to expand...

fahim mohammed said:

... but collectively they
were asking of themselves and eachother..why? why them? what had zahid khan done wrong?

But, Georg, they might be materially poor, but i could sense the pride, the tradition of facing all
difficulties and a spirit of a people which we know from history has never been subjugated.

Simple, honorable people who seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Unbreakable spirit
and unshakable faith in their Creator and with a code of honor which seems so out of place in the
21st century.

Click to expand...

Why? Because foreign powers decided to do so and destroy their livelyhoods, kill their brothers and fathers, rape their women and children, and leave them in a state of trauma and shock, where healing will take a great many generations, if ever.

While a completly different part of this world, they do remind very mch so to some native american tribes and what they had to endure for suffering and injustice, genocide.

Zahid Kahn is a man I would be honored to sit together at a fire at night, drink tea, smoke, and listen to his stories that no doubt will be heart wrenching to anyone with an open mind.

I never cared about ones material riches, none of those riches does makes a man! It is honor and respect that makes a man, and not the material riches he surrounds himself with, one can not buy honor or respect. I had not many friends in my life, most of them are dead by now, but the few I had came from tribes, most of them, and yes, their code of ethics appears to be from a long forgotten time. They do not give their word easy, but if they give their word, it is written in stone, you can count on it!

Walk in beauty
~^..^~
Bear