Top 10 Photography Spots You’ll Visit on a Guided Spiti Tour

Spiti, the Middle Land, is famous for providing ample spots for photography. Each is a quaint getaway and one can try different image compositions for the same spot. While all spots will provide you good opportunities at image-making, some locations will steal your heart, so remember taking your cameras out to capture the moment and landscape.

Here is a list of spots we feel you will / should cover on any guided photography trip to Spiti:

1. Langza Buddha Statue

This is a must-visit spot on any Spiti valley photography tour. An image here with the giant Buddha statue and his aura together with the surrounding landscape will reflect on Him looking over the valley.

2. Komic Village

Do visit Komic, a village set at approximately 15,000 ft. above sea level. The village provides a vantage view of the valley, and the roads loop you up in the beauty of the valley.

3. Losar

A quaint village set in the Middle Land, Losar deserves a special place in a Spiti Valley Photography Tour. The textured mountains together with the light and shadow work on the mountains creates unrealistically beautiful images.

4. Dhankar

Unique mountains with vertical rock formations define Dhankar, which along with river paths and flags, give you a different perspective on landscape photography.

5. Pin Valley

A vast village set close to Dhankar, the mountains of Pin Valley are gigantic and sometimes don’t fit into a regular 3*2 or 2*3 image. It’s magnificent beauty coupled with the fact that there is hardly any population inhabiting the village, provide for picturesque moments and images.

6. Kye Monastery

Make place in your itinerary for Kye Monastery. The view from the monastery is breath-taking, for you will see the Spiti river bed before the gigantic mountains. Plus, the fluttering flags add character to any image framed in Spiti. You can also try making an image from outside the Monastery, and add it as an extra element in your image from a vantage point.

7. Any Spot with Wildlife

Apart from the famous spots mentioned above, if at any spot you see Blue Sheep, Ibex, Red Fox etc., please take a moment to capture them, whether for portraits or with the surrounding landscape.

8. Landscapes on the way to Spiti

Landscape in Spiti is beautiful, but don’t forget to capture landscape on the way to Spiti. For example, the landscape takes a 180 degree shift when you start from Kalpa and move to Nako before entering Kaza. Make sure your cameras are at work, capturing the shift in landscape. You can also try capturing landscapes in Lahaul, which are greener than Spiti but are equally gigantic.

9. Kaza

The headquarter of Spiti, Kaza itself has majestic beauty. Such beauty is reflected in the expansive width and height of the mountains, and with the river bed shining through sunlight, one can uniquely compose landscape images here.

10. Kunzum La Pass

This pass is often snow-capped and provides for an immense landscape view of Lahaul on one side, and Spiti on the other. Look around yourself here – you are already standing at a vantage point.

Visiting these spots is essential for any photography trip to Spiti, but keep in mind that your best image may come from a fleeting moment somewhere in the middle of nowhere! Grab that moment and make an image of a lifetime.

What to expect on a Guided Spiti Photography Tour with Light Bud?

Photography tours have often been used as a platform for learning key concepts. But what stands pivotal in any guided photography tour is our ability to test our theoretical knowledge in daily life situations.

Light Bud’s photography tours offer theoretical guidance along with a chance to test them across different lighting conditions and deal with the challenges that are faced in applying them.

One such guided photography tour of Light Bud, being the Spiti valley photography tour, takes students to the Middle Land to explore its untouched beauty and helps students in not only testing their theoretical knowledge but also build on strong network with people across the spectrum. Further, our guided Spiti photography tour takes a limited number of students per workshop, such that those students receive our undivided attention to all possible challenges. Our photography tour to Spiti provides students with the following advantages:

1. Open to All:

One need not come with a specific experience in photography. We have conducted workshops with not only experienced photographers but also beginners and mobile-phone users, and have extended knowledge to people with a passion for photography.

2. Exposure to Different Lighting Conditions

Our guided Spiti photography tour provides students with exposure to different lighting conditions – morning light (including blue hour), evening light (with golden hour), and how to frame images even in harsh lighting conditions.

3. Access to Remote Areas of Spiti

Light Bud endeavours to cover untouched remote areas of Spiti which make for unique image compositions. For example, instead of focussing on Chandratal (a famous lake and a popular tourist spot), we explore places like Losar, where varied possibilities of composition can arise.

4. Frequent Review Sessions

Our workshops are filled with frequent review sessions. These sessions provide students a feedback on the images clicked so far, and also become a discussion forum for the challenges students face while shooting. Some of these discussions bring to light different compositions one can try out of a single landscape scene.

5. Limited Intake of Students

Our Spiti photography tours enrol only 8 students. Each student comes with his or her own perspective and learning curve. A limited number of students allows us to focus on strengths and weaknesses of each, and allows us to provide our undivided attention to them.

6. Ample Stops for Shooting

We believe there are countless places where an image can be made. We may find a spot right behind us. Our photography tours are not restricted to the spots mentioned in the itinerary. If and when we come across a spot where we feel numerous compositions can be tried, we take a halt and ensure that our students take advantage of the situation.

Guided photography tours are helpful for all photographers – beginners can learn anew and experienced photographers can find new perspectives. Joining a guided photography tour can provide new creative possibilities to all students and has always been considered a value addition. Join us today by enrolling for our upcoming photography tour to Spiti!

Photography Tour to Spiti: A Visual Journey through the Cold Desert

India is known for offering a variety of landscapes. Whether it is mountains, beaches, valleys, rural scapes, urban skylines – you name it, we have a place for it. Each landscape, to a photographer, offers many opportunities and situations to capture, but one such landscape that is often undervalued but truly aesthetic is a desert valley.

Spiti Valley – The Majestic Middle Land

The Middle Land – Spiti Valley, is one such landscape situated over 12,500ft above sea level where summers are short and cool with temperatures averaging 10-20 degrees Celsius and winters are long and freezing, with average temperatures below freezing and can drop to -30 degrees Celsius. Set between the rest of India and Tibet, the mountains of Spiti are rocky, gigantic, and majestic, all at the same time. It is a true delight for anyone to marvel at this valley's beauty, but only a photographer's mind can do justice to this place.

A Note to Budding Photographers – Don’t Imitate, Create

In today’s social media era, I have noticed some young photographers surf different platforms to find images shot at a particular location where they are planning to travel. Sadly, some even try the same composition or try to add elements that the x photographer has added. As a photographer, I have some advice for such individuals: never try to recreate an image; we all are different individuals with a creative journey of our own. That x photographer clicked that image because it was his calling. He/she felt connected to that moment and probably the conditions like weather, time, light etc. were conducive to express what he/she experienced at that time. One should be a storyteller and listen to the creative voice inside them as the viewer would want to know their story behind it.

Let Nature Collaborate with You

Sometimes it so happens that as you stand there, looking through the viewfinder, something’s missing and a shifting of the clouds or a ray of light appearing out of nowhere feels like Mother Nature collaborating with you, quietly stepping in to help fill the blank spaces in your frame. It is a wonderful feeling to those who bear witness to this Phenomena. Always remember, patience is the key. While photographing nature, take a moment to slow down and trust the process.

When the Best Shots Happen Off the Itinerary

Though it has its downsides, while planning the itinerary, you tell yourself that you will spend a certain amount of time at a particular location before moving on to the next location. However, before you realise, hours have passed, the itinerary has gone out the window and that’s when the best images happen.

Must-Visit Photography Spots in Spiti Valley

On any photography tour to Spiti, one must visit Komic village, set at approximately 15,000 ft. above sea level. The village gives a breathtaking view of the mountain ranges from a vantage point and manages to loop everyone in its beauty. Photographers can and should take advantage of its height and include humans in the frames, for that will add to the scale of the mountains being shown.

A few kilometres away is the fossil village, Langza. One can make use of his/ her camera and capture the scale of the Buddha statue and the mountains covering this village.

Further, a hidden gem of the Middle Land is Losar village. The mountain ranges of this area are well-textured. Photographers on a Spiti Valley Photography Tour can highlight these textured mountain ranges in their images, and on a cloudy day, the light and shadow game on these textured ranges make way for a powerful composition.

Dramatic Landscapes – Dhankar and Pin Valley

For more dramatic images, photographers can also visit Dhankar and Pin Valley. The large vertical rock formations of Dhankar provide a certain uniqueness to the landscape frames of this village. Pin Valley also plays a great role in image-making, as it brings out green as well as brown patches of mountains, all within the same frame.

Details That Add Depth – Flags and Wildlife

There are some hidden facets about the valley which don’t come to the forefront easily but these little things do make for great image components. For example, the flags that adorn the mountain ranges, monasteries, temples, and other buildings add character to an image. Additionally, the wildlife of this valley (blue sheep, red fox) can be an exotic holding point of an image. Do explore this wildlife in Kibber or wherever you stumble upon them, and take the opportunity to include them in your images.

Start Clicking Early – From Nako Itself

The areas leading up to Spiti valley also make way for great images. The change in landscape (from the lush green mountains to rocky textures) starts from Nako and one should start image composition there itself.

Astro-Photography Under Spiti’s Night Sky

Lastly, don’t forget to try your hand at astro-photography under these clear skies. We don’t get to witness such serene star-studded skies in the city – make use of them while you are soaking in the beauty of the valley!

Practical Tips – Travel Light, Stay Energetic

To visit Spiti Valley, one needs a minimum of 8-10 days to cover most of the valley. Photographing in Spiti can be challenging and rewarding at the same time. High altitude means thinner air, and hiking with a backpack full of equipment can get exhausting, so travel light and conserve your energy. Only one camera body with one or two lenses, an extra set of batteries, and SD cards with a tripod should be sufficient.

Spiti – A Meditative Journey Through the Lens

Spiti offers an opportunity to find yourself in a meditative state of calmness and silence away from the hustle and bustle of the metropolis. It’s a place where time slows down, you get to find your own story within you, and tell it through the images you click.