Shyok River
Heuristics
What should you eat for breakfast? What clothes should you wear today? What restaurant should you go to?
You make thousands of decisions each day. Do you really have the time to carefully think about every decision you make?
We rely on heuristics, or mental shortcuts to help us. They allow you to make decisions quickly and with minimal mental effort. Without them, we would suffer from analysis paralysis.
But heuristics can also lead you to overlook critical information or act on unjust biases. Therefore, it is important to be aware of the potential drawbacks of heuristics and to use them judiciously.
Pakistan
I recently returned from a nearly two week long photography trip to Pakistan. Everyone’s conventional wisdom, including my wife’s, was that it was a dangerous country. Fortunately, that heuristic bias was totally unfounded.
Pakistanis are welcoming and were eager to talk with our group of ten photographers. Unlike at home, we could knock on a door, walk through a property to reach a better location, visit a store or mosque, and fly our drones without any fear of being shot.
Many Pakistanis spoke English. Boys and girls all go to school, either in government schools or private schools. And other than the police and one elderly hunter with what appeared to be a century old rifle, there were no armed individuals.
I highly recommend visiting the north of Pakistan to see breathtaking 23,000-to-26,000-foot peaks with fall foliage at the lower altitudes. You won’t be disappointed.
A few villagers that were eager to practice their English with our group.
Curious schoolchildren returning home to their remote village.
The Shot
Photographers usually think of light as merely illuminating the subject being photographed. At times, the light itself can be the subject. That was the case on November 3rd.
Crepuscular rays, often called “God beams,” occur when sunlight passes through clouds or fog and the light is scattered. The atmosphere they create adds an element of magic to an image.
God beams beckoned us near the town of Saling along the Shyok River on the Khaplu Road in Baltistan Provence. We quickly found a location where two trees added needed foreground interest and launched our drones.
Situational awareness was critical. Soon there were ten drones in approximately the same tiny airspace! After taking several shots with slightly different framing, this one appealed to me the most.
Stay tuned for more stories and photos of my once-in-a-lifetime trip 11 time zones away.
Thanks for looking,
Chuck Derus