Sunset at Ashulia, and the fishermen go home under a beautiful salmon sky.

We were pretty bored today …so we decided to go out for a late after-lunch «picnic» to Ashulia. There was so much traffic, every one seemed to be heading out there. On the way back, the sky turned a lovely salmon pink and we stopped to watch. We had a big crowd of onlookers especially with Mannat perched on the boot eating peanut shells – I am not kidding – she would open the peanut shells, hand over the peanuts to me and crunch away on the shells! So it was a short stop.
And a few nice photos from just off the bridge near the brick kilns at Ashulia.... There were cars, lorries, buses, motorbikes whizzing by and it was becoming very difficult to find a gap between the traffic to get a clear shot. One bus driver saw me trying to take a photograph and actually screeched to a standstill - right in front of me blocking the view. I had to let off some of the choicest Bangla I know to get him to move! Anyway, the 3 men were going to be out of the frame soon and I took 3 quick ones in succession - unfortunately unable to get a steady shot with the 200mm lens despite having the VR switched-on.

On the way back to Dhaka, we stopped off at Little Italy for a crispy pizza and a generous helping of pasta [it  had to be their special Penne all'arrabbiata, of course!]. A perfect Friday afternoon!

Was invited today to join a couple of friends [Ujwala and Kuhu] on a photo trip down the road from Dhaka to Ashulia, and beyond... what a great experience this turned out to be. Ujwala is using some of these photos as reference for her lovely portrait work - Paan Khaye, Watermelon Vendor, the Lady from Ashulia, and Ashulia Man 2.

Some photos were taken from a moving car, but most from on the ground and close up to my subjects. I had considered using a long lens and shooting «candid» but that would have meant that there would be no engagement with the subject. We decided to have Kuhu and Ujwala engage people in a conversation, explain that we were shooting images as photo-reference and photograph only those people who agreed. It turned out great! I was sometimes just a few feet from my subject, shooting wide.
Click on a thumbnail to see the full page photo...

First image, a lone tree on the banks of the Turag.

    
2nd image: Rickshaw puller. 3rd: Man selling Ginger. 4th: Women in colorful clothes on rickshaw, she saw me aiming the camera from our car and quickly pulled a veil over the young womans face! 5th: Another rikshaw puller, carrying heavy sack of grain. 6th: Drawing water from a deep-tubewell with a hand-pump.
 
7th: The customary Cow! 8th: Man who wanted his picture taken.
      
     
9th: Fire-wood merchant. 10th: Wood-merchant's wood-cutter. 11th: Woman with child, she spent a while chatting to us happily. Wanted to know where we were from, what we did, what we woud do with the photographs... 12th/13th: People who stopped to have photo taken. 13/14/15th: Local women at a market. 15th: People riding in/on a bus with a large advert-hoarding in background. 16th: Coy Woman. 17th/18th: Bus Conductors! 19th: Woman getting angry, man taunting her.

    
16th: Girl riding atop the bus saw us photographing, clambered down and demanded to be photographed «properly»! 17th: Watermelon vendor at a bus-stop. 18th: Brick kilns, pollution. 19th: Toll-collector. 20th: Rickshaw on the road back from Ashulia to Dhaka.

Tech info for the pixel-peepers:
All images taken with Nikon D2Hs [images shot in NEF format], Nikkor 18-200mm VR lens, handheld, natural light only.

	Driving back from Ashulia today, spotted this lone Banyan tree [probably Ficus benghalensis] at the side of the Turag. Seems that there might have been some sort of a temple or idol placed inside the lower trunk… did not get closer to look. Will investigate when we take another drive to have pizza at «Little Italy» again. A detail of the tree trunk and people is here.
Further toward Ashulia, amid lush green paddy fields, the brick factory smoke stacks were polluting the atmosphere …  yetch!

Click a thumbnail, as usual, to see the full photo.

Another tree on the Ashulia road, is here