Monochromes from Tashkent

Sep26

27 September 2018, Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

All images are from my previous (colour) post on Tashkent, where you may find more information and context.

Click on any image to see it larger.

Cupola ceiling, Khast-Imam complex.

Muyi Muborak Madrasah on the right and Abdulla Murodxo’jayev Mosque behind.

A dome of Barakh-khan Madrasah.

Minaret beside Abdulla Murodxo’jayev Mosque.

Chor-Su Bazaar.

Tashkent’s metro.

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Leaving Tashkent’s metro.

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Museum of Applied Arts.

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Monochrome has a long tradition in photography. Since you are working with tonal relationships rather than colour, there is a different range of possibilities and many images work better in mono than colour. In the days of film, when shooting black and white, you put colour filters over the lens for different renditions though you only saw the effect when the film was processed. These days with Digital, if you are using a mirrorless camera you can see a monochrome image as you shoot, including the effect of filters. But assuming you are shooting RAW, you still end up with a colour image that you need to convert. This is an advantage though, as you have far more possibilities and control than in the days of film.

Just as you can have a fully automated phone or camera and just press a button for a JPEG image, some may associate monochrome conversion with just selecting a software option for black and white. This may work sometimes and what matters is the result, not how you got there, but for me chasing a quality image requires much more. Once I used various Photoshop methods for mono conversion, then I came to use Nik Silver Efex Pro. I’ve never been much enamoured of Lightroom for this though it has probably improved with the new colour grading options and I do use it for quick proofs to identify suitable images. These days I use Capture One, which to my mind offers much more control over the colours to convert, regional tonality and the various kinds of sharpening.

The end point for photography and especially monochrome images has always been the print. There’s a whole different level of quality that is not available in a digital image , especially a web image. Still, this is what we have and most of these images will never be printed.

This is the first of probably seven posts on mono conversions of Uzbek images. However, I’m currently in COVID lockdown and have been going out each day and taking photographs of the local fauna and of macro landscapes. So I’m expecting to make two posts a week for at least two or three weeks, with midweek posts of local images.

The next mono Uzbek post is here, two posts on.

State Museum of Arts,Tashkent

Sep19

Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 6 October 2018.

(Click on any image to see it in a larger size.)

On our last day in Tashkent we had some spare time before catching the plane and chose to visit the State Museum of Arts.

Reconstructed face of Neanderthal boy, Teshiktash Cave, Surkhandaraya region.

There was also a Neanderthal skull, 100,000 years old, from the same location.

Flint tools from 4th Millennium BC, Bukhara region.

Rock carvings, 3rd Millennium BC.

Jar handle in the form of a goat, 5th to 4th millennium BC.

This image and the next two are images of objects from the Amudarya Treasure. The originals are gold but these are replicas. In 1880, Captain F.C. Burton happened upon some Afghan merchants being attacked by bandits in the roads of what is now Northern Pakistan, and drove off the bandits. One of the merchants later showed Burton some items he had and Burton was most intrigued so purchased one. Burton later showed it to Major General Sir Alexander Cunningham, Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India, whose jaw hit the floor. Cunningham correctly identified it as a a fine example of Achæmenid Persian metalwork, from a period when the Achæmenid Emprire stretched from Egypt to the Indus Valley. Together with Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks, a curator of the British Museum, Cunningham scoured the markets of Pakistan and Northern India for several months and succeeded in purchasing 170 items from the hoard. They are now in the British Museum. The treasure had been found on the northern bank of the Amyu Darya River (the Oxus in Classical times), in what is now Tajikistan.

Priest, 5th to 4th millennium BC.

Bracelet with Griffins, , 5th to 4th millennium BC.

Ancient individual with Central Asian headgear (didn’t record the label for this one).

Coins of Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, 3rd to 2nd centuries BC.

Solar Deity, 1st to 2nd centuries AD, Fayaztepa, Old Termez, Southern Uzbekistan.

Buddha with monks, 1st to 3rd century AD.

Cover from reliquary vessel, 3rd to 4th centuries AD, Kara-Tepa, Old Termez, Southern Uzbekistan.

Hunting scene, mural painting, 7th century AD, Varakhsha, Ancient Sogdian city near Bukhara.

This is a copy of one of the world’s oldest Korans. We saw the original at the start of the trip in Barakh-khan Madrasah (in Tashkent). Photography is not permitted of the original one. In either case, it is huge. The original supposedly dates back to the 630s but testing indicates an early 8th to early 9th century date.

Glazed ceramic, Samarkand, 10th century.

Glazed ceramic, Samarkand, 11th century.

Ceramic dish, 10th to 12th Centuries.

Glazed ceramic, Samarkand, 12th century.

Armour of one of Timur’s soldiers, 14th to 15th centuries.

Glazed ceramic, Samarkand, 15th to 16th centuries.

Chain mail armour, shield and sword, Bukhara, 18th to 19th centuries.

Embassy from Khiva, in Tashkent, early 19th century.

Nineteenth century door from Khiva.

Nineteenth century door from Bukhara.

Nineteenth century door from Tashkent.

Military uniform, Bukhara, 1861-1865.

Siege of Samarkand, 1868.

Russia occupied Samarkand in 1868, which had been held by Bukhara. The Russian army then left to pursue the Bukharan army, leaving a small force behind to hold Samarkand. A combined Bukharan/ Kokand force then laid siege to Samarkand. This is what is shown here. The besiegers withdrew when the main Russian force returned.

“Bazaar in Samakand”, 1897.

“Bibikhonum Square”, Samarkand.

(See here for my post on its restored appearance).

“The street of a Central Asian city”, 1896.

Decorative embroidery, late nineteenth century, Tashkent.

Saddle, Namangan, Ferghana Valley, late 19th century.

Emir’s horse-blanket, 1911-1912.

Jewellery, early 20th century.

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Gidjak and Rubab (traditional instruments), 1978.

That was the last post on Uzbekistan, apart from monochrome conversion posts to follow. Particular thanks to Advantour who organised a wonderful custom tour for us at a reasonable price. There have been 22 posts with 600 images and 15,000 words. I have updated the index of posts in the Trip Itinerary.

Samarkand to Tashkent

Sep12

Samarkand to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 5 October 2018.

(Click on any image to see it in a larger size.)

We are en route from Samarkand back to Tashkent, where we catch a plane to Istanbul. These images are all taken from a moving car. Some are less than technically perfect, but still included for a feel of the journey.

There were a few military vehicles on the road. I wouldn’t have taken a photo like this in Ladakh, not that far from the Chinese border, but felt safe to do so here.

Fruit for sale on the side of the road.

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The truck looks overloaded but perhaps the load is not all that heavy.

A variety of products for sale on the way.

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I’m not able to translate the signs.

Stork nests on a telegraph pole.

Roadside cattle.

It seems the products are delivered by trucks – or, maybe, a donkey and cart.

Many people must still be pursuing largely traditional lives because some of the vehicles on the road are less than high tech.

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He’s carrying a pole; it’s not to beat the donkey.

This car wasn’t moving very fast either.

Tashkent to Urgench

Mar21

28 September 2018.
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We flew from Tashkent to Urgench, a Soviet-era city near the ancient city of Khiva, our destination for the day.

So the first images are the outskirts of Tashkent, then we fly over desert, then we approach Urgench.

The river you see in some of the later images is the Amu Darya. Urgench is built around the remains of a river, so that must be a previous course of the Amu Darya, and I presume that hundreds of years earlier, the Amu Darya flowed past Khiva.

The technical quality is not that good in many of these images so there’s not much fine detail to be seen. The shutter speeds were OK so I suspect the problem was smeared windows. Not much you can do about that as a passenger on a plane. (It may still be worthwhile clicking on some of the images for a larger size).

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In the foreground is probably Adya Lake in Uzbekistan but it may be Shardara Reservoir in Kazakhstan.
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Smoke in the desert at top right?.
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It turns out to be from twin chimneys. Probably a mining processing plant..
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Tashkent

Mar13

27 September 2018.
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This is the first of my final posts on my trip to Uzbekistan, Istanbul, Athens, Thira, Crete, Andalusia, Barcelona, Washington and Oregon in 2018. I made a few temporary posts at the time with some images and no commentary. I will update the list of posts in the Itinerary Post as I make new posts.

I have been slow in posting this due to moving office within my home and disk storage issues for backup. My posts may be slow for a while.

This is a map of our itinerary in Uzbekistan. We were on a custom tour with Adventour, who we found to be an excellent tour company. The first post is for Tashkent, where we flew in from Australia, via Kuala Lumpur.

Tashkent is 2,000 years old it was sacked several times and not as much has survived as in some of the other cities of Uzbekistan. However, we are in the Khast-Imam complex in the Old City part of Tashkent. The complex is named after Khasrati Imam, one of the first imams of Taskent, born in 909. Above is the ceramic decoration atop a huge doorway, but I’m not sure exactly which building in the complex.

Based on the date-time on the images, this is the ancient ceiling of a cupola beyond that doorway.

This is a wooden ceiling close by.

Out again, a nearby dome though I can’t tell which building.

Muyi Muborak Madrasah on the right and Abdulla Murodxo’jayev Mosque behind.

The paintings show the derelict state of some of the mosques and madrassas in the nineteenth century, no doubt based on historic photographs. These are not necessarily Tashkent, though.

This is one of the domes of Barakh-khan Madrasah. This houses one of the oldest Korans in the world, created for Caliph Osman. He was assassinated in 656 in Medina and the Koran is said to be stained with his blood as he was reading it at the time. We saw this Koran but photographs are not permitted. It is very large, with calligraphic Arabic script.

Muyi Muborak Madrasah.

Abdulla Murodxo’jayev Mosque.

This must be at the side of the Abdulla Murodxo’jayev Mosque.

We are now at the nearby Chor-Su Bazaar. The apricots look inviting.

It is quite massive, as you can see, and the poster at the far left is for horse meat.

This is one of the stations of Tashkent’s metro, a heritage from the Soviet era.

Our guide is waiting for use as we walk out of the destination metro station.

The crane is the emblem of Uzbekistan.

We are now in the Museum of Applied Arts, originally the home of Imperial Russian diplomat Alexander Polovtsev.

I think we are out of the museum now, in just a kind of shopping arcade.

Tashkent

Oct10

Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 28th September 2018.
Temporary Post. No image descriptions and commentary.

It has been difficult to post during this trip. Not much time, need to first reinstall software and abyssmal internet speeds. Also, due to a software problem I can’t fix while travelling, I can’t do my semi-automated image resizing so posting is time consuming. Consequently, the rate of posting is likely to continue to be very slow.
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