In the dzong courtyard

[Manfred M]

A dzong is a fortified monastery (yes, those stories of warrior monks are in fact true), and these monks and a few civilians in Bhutan's national dress are hanging around in the Paro dzong's courtyard. Other than the modern shoes and glasses, not much has chanced since the 14th century. One of the monks noticed me taking pictures and watched me, while the others did not seem to notice me.




The dzongs are now where the district administrative offices are located, and as Buddhism is the state religion in Bhutan, the civilian and religious administrations are closely interconnected. Several hundred monks live on the grounds. The town of Paro is where the international airport is located, so most travellers enter Bhutan here. The Dzong can be seen from the airport.

[rpcrowe]

What a neat image. The red robed monks form a triangle pointing towards the little boy who simply has no interest in the gathering of elders...

[Shadowman]

Nice capture.

[IzzieK]

Very nice neat shot and processing...I enjoyed looking at their expressions. Young boys in Tibet are the same, they are presented to the monastery while young to be assessed and trained.

[Manfred M]

Thanks Izzie - there's not much special with the processing here. I set the black point and white point appropriately and applied a vignette. This happens with virtually every image I do. There is some noise reduction and input sharpening as well (the noise reduction is the only step that I usually don't have to do with the D800, but seems to be necessary in many of the shots taken with the Panasonic GX7).

This young boy was visiting the monastery with his father and was not a novice monk; in fact there were a two young boys running around and playing that day. There were plenty of novices running around there too. Being a state supported religion in Bhutan, we saw a lot more monks (and novices) here than we saw in Tibet. If I recall correctly (we were in Tibet 11 years ago), the Chinese government did not allow young boys to become novices, so the ones we saw there were getting into their late teens.

[bnnrcn]

Very nice and clear image Manfred

[NorthernFocus]

Another nice one Manfred.