Place of Power, by Sergiy Kadulin

I took this photograph during my trekking in Himalaya in Sikkim, India, in October 2010. The landscape shows view from Dzongri (3050 m) onto sacred ancient stupa with the mountain on the background. A legend says that first King of Sikkim was visiting this place to pray. The highlight of Dzongri place is magnificent view of the Kanchenjunga Range and the close-up view of the Pandim massif. This is place of visit by Roerich, who painted it in his works and it believed by many to be entry to Shambala. The photograph was taken in the morning, after sunrise, when mountains (majority of them are above 7,000 m high) were covered with semi-transparent clouds, showing mystical peaks behind them.

Canon 5D Mark II with 70-200 f/2.8 IS USM | ISO: 100 | Exposure f/8 @ 1/320 sec | Focal length: 200 mm
Place of Power, by Sergiy Kadulin

Award Winner: Photo of the Day | January 27
Award Score: 69 (Value 13, Clarity 13, Composition 18, Style 13, Skill 13)
Photo of the Day Award Category: Landscape Photography
Photograph Location: Dzongri, Kanchenjunga National Park, Sikkim | India

Photographer: Sergiy Kadulin (Kyiv, Ukraine) Registered
Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 1967, Sergiy Kadulin grew up in the family with his sister and mother, as his father died when they were two years old. He graduated from the military aviation academy (avionics engineer), and later on, from MBA school (IBR school, based in Ukraine). While majority of his professional career was with information technology, where he worked for such companies as American Power Conversion, hp, Microsoft, and now working with Apple as director of Apple VAD in Ukraine, but photography is his greatest passion and hobby.

Sergiy’s first experience was with his grandfather’s camera (made in 1936), and while he was studying in school he started mode in-depth learning of photography, including dark room processing, shooting on color films, etc. His first own camera (shared with his sister) was Smena-8M, which was very popular in Soviet Union as basic and very affordable camera for children. In upper class his mother gave him a gift – Zenit-12SD, which was his first real film DSLR and he enjoyed it for many years. Later on, while being on business trip in Canada, he bought Minolta with set of lenses, which was far more advanced one. Large part of his film photo collection was made with it. Sergiy was quite skeptical towards digital photography at the beginning, and switched completely to digital workflow by late 90’s until early 2000. About 7 years ago he graduated from the professional photography course in the Kyiv School of Photography, and later on, continued to study (distance learning course of professional photography) in New York Institute of Photography. He also attended number of training courses in different other schools and on top of it, learn new interesting areas online. He did his first photo exhibition in April, 2011, which was named “Sikkim. Beginning” and was devoted to his trekking in Himalaya, Sikkim, India, in 2010.

Sergiy’s favorite type of photography is travel and landscape; however he likes reportage as well. He does devote significant portion of his time to internal growth and development, which to his strong opinion, is the most important part of any creative human. He is trying to use photography as means to share his deep love to the world, to other people and nature, and pass warmth of his heart to them.

Website: http://www.serge-photo.com
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/skadulin/
Gallery: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/gallery/1414006/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Sergiy.Kadulin
Twitter: https://twitter.com/skadulin