Photography & Digital Art,TravelMAY 2, 2022

I Explored An Undiscovered Canyon In Kyrgyzstan, And Here Are 23 Pics Of It

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I explored a part of Kyrgyzstan that was very much undiscovered. For 6 days I explored the south shore of Issyk Kul lake (one of the biggest lakes in the world).

As you may have seen on my previous post about Kyrgyzstan, the country has a wide variety of landscapes ranging from glaciers, lakes, high mountains and canyons. You can find it all in just this one country. For this trip, however, we focused mainly on canyons, most of which were totally unexplored, even by the local population.

Kyrgyzstan has so much to offer and I am already looking forward to going back. For now, please enjoy this unique canyon series that consists for the most part of drone imaginary, abstracts, and night photography.

#1 Endless Veins

The Endless Veins of the Canyon of Forgotten Rivers after sunset showing beautiful contrast with the red shapes and snowy mountains in the back.

42points

Exploring places that are non-existent on the Internet is very challenging. I scouted most places with google earth. During this small trip, we came upon many interesting structures and canyons. We mainly scouted during the day and shot in the good light and during the night.

#2 Fairytale Nights

Seeing the milky way rise in the Fairytale canyon at 4 AM was a magical experience.

42points

#3 The Night Explorer

We found this rock during a daytime scouting session in an area that we later called Mars Canyon. This canyon has a great variety of interestingly shaped rocks. This rock being one of them. We named it ‘The Iceberg.’ I discovered that the Milk Way would line up in this shot in the early morning so we later went back at around 4 AM to shoot it again.

41points

It’s amazing to capture places that have never been shot (or even seen) before. Lots of these places do not even have official names. We had great fun making up names for the different structures and canyons that we discovered along the way. The thought of giving places names and hoping that people will utilize them years from now is exciting. ‘The Iceberg, ‘Mars Canyon’ and the’ Canyon of Forgotten Rivers’ are just some of them.

#4 Swirl

Sunset at the shore of Issyk Kul lake with endless shapes and canyons reaching as far as the eye can see. It was a very clear that day. You can see the huge mountain backdrop in the distance. An impressive sight.

31points

#5 Red Planet

A canyon we explored near the end of our trip. It cannot be seen from any road and is located deep into some mountains on the northwest of Issyk Kul lake. It’s size is impressive. This is just a very small part of the canyon. Look on the bottom right where you can see our SUV parked, to have a bit of sense of scale. This canyon has a wide variety of colors. It looks amazing from the sky.

28points

For the night shots, we scouted interesting shapes and structures of canyons during the day, planned the shots with apple-like PhotoPills and came back during the night and early morning to get the milky way shots. During this season the milky way core only rises above the horizon at about 4 in the morning, so to get these we had to get up very early and spent some hours in the cold. It was great to walk around in pure darkness at around -10 degrees Celsius. There was not much wind so it was not too cold. It was like walking on another planet between all these interesting red rocks with my flashlight.

#6 Night Trolls

These canyons come to life during the night. By playing with light and shadows all these structures start to look like creatures.

28points

#7 Textures

A black and white abstract of the textures of the canyons.

27points

#8 Dragon’s Back

We found a lot of interesting shapes and textures that looked particularly interesting from the sky. This one reminded me of a dragon.

27points

#9 The Canyon Of Forgotten Rivers

This huge canyon reaches as far as the eye can see with an amazing backdrop of 5000+ meter peaks as a backdrop. It’s really impressive. Walking on ground level will easily get you lost. We named this canyon the Canyon of Forgotten Rivers because these canyons were probably shaped from all kinds of little streams that once came from the glaciers into Issyk Kul Lake which you can see on the top left.

25points

#10 Star Wanderer

This was again a rock we scouted during the day. The structure looks like fingers pointing up in the sky, so we named this rock ‘The Fingers’. This is a star trail image taken over a period of 30 minutes.

24points

#11 Galactic Explorer

The same location as picture 'The Night Explorer', taken during a different time of the night. We went back here because I saw that the Milky Way lined up with this composition around 4 AM in the morning.

24points

#12 Mirrored

It was the end of winter during my visit and there was still snow in some areas. The melting of the snow in these areas takes long as it’s still around -10C degrees during the night, but above zero Celsius during the day. I saw this interesting snow pattern that mirrored the rock shape in front. Taken at 12mm and getting very close to the foreground I shot this mirrored composition with the sun just peaking through.

22points

#13 Red Maze

An aerial view of Mars Canyon that offers a wide variety of canyon scenery. In this part there was still quite some snow creating an interesting contrast between the red shapes.

18points

#14 End Of Day

The last light hitting the ridges of the endless canyons.

17points

#15 Pillars

Details of the shapes of Mars Canyon.

17points

#16 Contrast

Red and black canyons forming a nice contrast with a swirling river/road in the middle of nowhere. We used dried up rivers as roads to reach some of these canyons.

16points

#17 Spider

Top-down view of the Canyon of Forgotten Rivers.

16points

#18 White Out

Flying the drone in extreme conditions. It suddenly started to snow while we were exploring deep into a canyon. Flying the drone and shooting some photos and videos with these ‘unique’ conditions was great to see. Luckily the drone survived!

15points

#19 Alien Footstep

When I flew my drone over canyons, I found lots of interesting shapes (some of them I scouted via Google Earth). This one reminded me of a footstep.

14points

#20 Details

A close-up shot of another canyon rich in details and colors.

14points

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