Plateau Photo Tours

January 06, 2010

Plateau Photo Tours

After several month of planning and researching, I am excited to announce my new business, Plateau Photo Tours. Plateau Photo Tours is not like the travel agency I owned before. I, along with my business partner, will be arranging photography workshops across the remote nomadic regions of Tibet. These photo workshops will be lead by highly qualified photographers who travel to the remote corners of the world to capture images and tell the stories they have seen through the pictures they take. Our focus for these photography workshops is providing participants with a rich cross-cultural experience and insights into eastern life and culture that simply can’t be gained on a traditional photo tour. I have had this business in mind for several months, but just recently made it official.

Like my previous projects and jobs in Tibet, my goals for Plateau Photo Tours are to help better the lives of the Tibetan people. In the past, I have raised funds for new winter clothes for nomad children, volunteered at orphanages, worked for an NGO for nearly 4 years, taught English and owned a successful travel agency based in Amdo. At my previous travel agency, I gave jobs to several of my previous Tibetan students (and they continue to work there today). These former students now work as office managers, drivers, guides and secretaries. My goal was always to have a successful business, but more importantly, to provide jobs, job training and skills to help Tibetans. With Plateau Photo Tours, these goals remain the same. Our office staff and guides are all Tibetans, mostly from the Kham region. Our goals with our staff are to first off, give them a good job in a good environment. Secondly, we plan on developing the skills our staff already have as well as introduce new skills such as photography, marketing and business management. We will strive to preserve a unique culture that is undergoing major modernization.

For 2010, Plateau Photo Tours will be arranging two photo workshops. The first will take place from June 18th to June 29th and will go to Jyekundo, Yilhun Lha Lake, Sershul and Dege. It will be led by Matt Brandon, who has been living in Asia for most of the past 15 years. Matt, the author of Kashmir, Mystery, has been a photographer for nearly 40 years and brings a lot of workshop experience to the tour. For more information about this tour, read through this posted on our partner company, Frontier Treks and Tours.

The second workshop will take place from July 20th to July 30th and will go to Drakar Tredzong Monastery, the nomad grasslands of Kham and finally, to the annual Jyekundo Horse Festival. This workshop will be led by humanitarian photographer and best selling author David duChemin. David duChemin has traveled the globe with his camera and has some of the most compelling images of the forgotten and poor of Africa and Asia. For more information about this tour, read through this posted on our partner company, Frontier Treks and Tours.