New Portfolio - India

It takes time to work on such a large collection of images. India was so photogenic and I went a little crazy photographing many people. It was hard not to. So here is my new portfolio, split into several sections.

And then I wasn’t well. Fatigue from the constant hustling, fighting always against the will of the driver who was receiving back handers from carpet shops we didn’t want to go and see, and hotels we hadn’t arranged to stay at. Everyone wanting my attention, and always for the same outcome - to relieve me of money. Illness set in shortly after our driver had left us. It didn’t take much to wander of the ‘safe’ road of good food stops.

But as much as India is a crazy place, I feel I’ve given it a bit of a bad wrap here. It’s incredibly beautiful in ways you can only experience first hand. Just be on your guard. It’s an overwhelming place to visit and you may seek to find some space for a break (there is no sense of space in India).

I was a little worn down by the end of the trip, and I couldn’t face dealing with the mountainous task of working on so many images, so I decided to put them away and let them just sit there.

The portfolio is a ‘representation’ of what I shot. I have too many images to be digested in one sitting on a web site, so I’ve cut them down - I had to.

Anyway, that’s my ‘people’ shots over for a while. I’m back on to Landscapes from this point on, with my workshop to the Scottish island of Eigg coming up in just over a month.

Hope you enjoy the India collection. I’m just glad I’ve finished it.

Last Indian Portrait

I'm almost done with working on my Indian portraits. One of the biggest snags for me is knowing when to stop.

I have around 99 rolls of film, and it's quite an endeavor going through each contact sheet, often revisiting the same contact sheet - just to check that I've not overlooked some golden nugget. Some image that will add strength to the final collection. I'm sure there will be one or two that will get away from me.

A few years down the line I'll stumble upon my films from India and revist them, only to sit in wonder as to why certain images were omitted. It's just the way of things.

Distance allows us time to be more objective about our work.

So here is a quick contact sheet of the images I propose to put into my india portfolio. It could change. It may stay the same. I may find some more images or decided to halt work for a week or so only to come back to it all with fresh eyes and decide there are much more images i want to include.

I took a lot of shots of Prayer objects while in India, and one of the thoughts that I'm having right now is to create a seperate portfolio of these 'strange objects'.

Perhaps I sound unsure of what I'm doing, perhaps you think I'm just playing around. I think it's neither. It's just part of the creative process. I like to visualise my images while I'm out there shooting, but it doesn't stop at that point. It continues when I get home and start to slowly build up the collection of images into an entity that has its own personality or character. I'm never sure just where the creative process is taking me and that's always exciting.

Then there are the images which I feel don't fit into any category. They're memorable to me though, because they remind me of just how strange a place India is compared to my home land of Scotland.

Varanasi

I love it when sometimes I just turn around, and there's a little scene going on which is just begging to be captured. This was shot in the holy city of Varanasi.

Following on from yesterdays posting. This shot has plenty of colour, but I think for me, it's the girl in the purble shawl who has got my full attention. It's the way she's leaning on the other girl and she's intent on her praying.

Photography is a complete revelation for me in the taking and the making of an image. I shot so many images whilst in India that I've simply not been able to remember most of them. So it was with great delight today when I saw this on the contact sheet.

Colour

I think that what India represented for me in photographic terms, was colour. The place was full of it and sometimes colour got the better of me. Perhaps there wasn't a picture to capture, perhaps there was.

I think the garments that many of the people were wearing often prompted me to trip the shutter. In both these images, I'm sure an integral part of the photograph is made up from the clothing. Texture and colour again. But as was discussed yesterday, a photograph can be read on many levels. It's not always just composition, or just colour or a 'moment in time' we're capturing. It's often a combination of these elements and perhaps more, perhaps things we can't define, which make us want to make pictures.

Colours and Textures

A few weeks ago I posted some thoughts on portraiture, and how I feel there are a great deal of similarities to making landscape photographs. I've just started work on my Indian images in haste now, and thought I'd post these two images to discuss the merits of applying some 'landscape' principles to people photography.

This image was shot in Jodpur, the blue city, not a few feet away from the hotel I was staying at.

When I'm shooting landscape images, I think there are two main directives for me : form and colour.

In my mind I feel I build a spacial map of how all the main components of the scene are laid out. With portraiture, it's very much the same for me. I'm drawn to form and colour and also how each of the main objects in the scene are 'balancing out'.

In the scene above, there are for me three or four components: the grey cloak, the face, head scarf and the background. Each of them have different proportions and when I was making this shot, I'm sure that in the back of my mind, I was calculating out the spacial proportions of each of these objects in relation to each other.

Despite the fact that the cloak is taking up quite a considerable proportion of the scene, it's not the main point of focus, yet it is not distracting. Why is that? Because it's form or texture is very non-demanding, as is its colour. If the mans cloak had been a very brilliant, dazzling object in its own right, then I would have probably felt it was distracting too much from the main point of interest, which I feel is his half hidden face. His face is interesting because I know he's smiling, despite his mouth being covered.

Then there are the colour combinations. His head scarf is very colourful but it adds, rather than distracts from his face. And the background of red makes for a colourful image, yet the textures there aren't overly demanding.

So I think we subconsciously read images on many levels at the same time. For me, I'm weighing up the proportions along with working out priorities of what is most interesting coupled with texture and colour.

I love texture and colour and sometimes that's just enough for an image. This old woman had plenty of colour in her clothing, and her face had plenty of texture too. But sometimes shooting someone up close is not as great as perhaps shooting them in context to their surroundings. There's lots of texture in the door in the back, the paving stones and there's plenty of colour there too, but it's fairly muted. I always end up back at the old woman. And then there's the composition. I like how her foot at the lower left of the frame leads me diagonally up towards the top right of the frame and then back down again. And we have an opposite diagonal going on with the edge of the steps that shes sitting on.

I feel I make these decisions in Portraiture as well as landscape photography. They're not really that different after all. But I guess for most of us, we feel they are because dealing with people can be challenging in a way that a landscape is not. I feel I've overcome that hurdle in the past few years and I now embrace shooting people because of the richness of the interractions I've had. But there's still something very satisfying about shooting landscapes too.

Monochromatic Colour

I shot this in Jaipur, at the hotel I was staying at. There's nothing posed about it from my recollection and as far as I remember, the girl was very happy to have her photo taken, but she's got quite a strong stance in the image. There's almost a defiant expression there and it certainly took me back when I saw my contact sheet for this - I took so many pictures of people while I was away, I've found that I seem to have suffered blank out periods where I really can't remember anything about the interaction.

But I guess that is a good thing, because it allows me to take the image for what it is, rather than what I wanted it to be. That's the beauty about a bit of distance between shooting and processing.

Now, the reason why I wanted to show you this image is because I think it's fairly mono-chromatic. All the tones are sort of reddish-brown. Personally, I love it (but I'm apt to like my own work - it's what I do - so no surprises there). This is one image that would be very tempting to turn into a black and white because it just has different shades of the same colour, but then again, there's nothing wrong with having a colour image that is mono-chromatic. There's a lot of warmth in those tones and that is something that would, I feel be missing from a black and white image.

Khuhri Portrait

The desert village of Khuhri is where I made this portrait. It's one of those 'moments' in my trip where my mind 'registered' a distinctive face.

The village in question is one of the major Camel ride starting points far out in west Rajasthan. Memorable to me because we'd spent most of our time in India trying to get out or avoid the prospect of riding a camel. My father had already suffered greatly in Egypt, and I'd already spent two hours (which was two hours too long) riding a camel in Morocco.

The pressure was enormous to go on a camel ride, and when after the n'th time we'd made it clear there was no way we were going to 'cameley', the villagers took on a solemn look of dissapointment. I hate to dissapoint people, but in this occasion, I was just much happer to 'no cameley' rather than 'to cameley'. So I took this portrait instead.

Wedding Girl?

My encounters with the people I photograph can sometimes be fleeting. Take this image for instance. One minute I'm wandering the 'blue city' area of Jodpur and I've passed several places of worship with sounds of music and clapping.

Then I turn a corner, and this little girl is on her way with her mother somewhere. I don't speak the language, but I'm able to open a dialog and quickly we're on the same page and i'm able to make this shot.

But I don't know where they were going, or what the occasion was. Does it really matter I ask myself? I guess it doesn't, and in some ways, not knowing allows us to conjure up our own emotion and mood, our own idea of what was going on.

Portraits & Approach

How do you approach the making of a portrait? And more specifically, are there any golden rules in the approach, or is each image made under its terms?

I'm an emotional photographer. By that I mean that I'm not really consciously aware of what it is I'm doing - I tend to go with a gut feeling. My friends say that I'm an open book and that I tend to be aware of others feelings - emotional intelligence.  Without putting too fine a point on it, I think that this is really at the core of people pictures. You need to have a sense of empathy for your subject. I know that when I approach someone, I go in there with an excitement to make an image of them because there is something about their pose or aesthetics which has inspired me. But I also go in there with an appreciation that I am entering into someone else's life. And each and every one of us has our own thoughts, feelings, aspirations and agendas. I never really know for sure how my advance is going to be interpreted, but I feel confident that I'm able to read body language well. I can tell sometimes when it's not going to happen. They're either blatant at moving away, or it's more subtle - a stiffening of their pose, a hardening of expression.... I just get a feeling and I know if it's going to work out.

I heard two stories about Steve McCurry. One contradicts the other. The first is that he communicates with people on a body language side only. This I can appreciate because it's exactly how it works for me. Most of the time there is very little said in the exchange. It's all done in a non verbal way and like I said, if you show empathy and respect for your subject, then the karma starts to flow. The other story I heard just recently was from a couple who went to Pakistan and said that the village they were in were fed up with Steve, because he'd been there for three weeks, orchestrating them into doing what he wanted - and giving nothing back. I personally doubt that this is true - it would go against the grain and we would see it in his photos.

About my photos. Well, the first one at the top of this posting, is of an old man in Jodpur. I like nothing better than getting up early and heading out for a wander. I just roam and roam. Sometimes I see someone and think they're interesting - something catches my eye and with this old man, I'd specifically asked him for his photo. Many people go into a 'ridgid' pose as soon as you enter into a dialog (verbal or non), but he was pretty cool. I like his pose - he seems almost inquisitive as to what I'm doing. The head is tilted to our left, and his hands are carrying a bucket - but they're in a nice position to seal off the bottom of the frame. Then there are the colours - they're all very complentary.

The second image, that of the girl happened in an entirely different way. Just outside Jaipur there's a little village run by the Bishnoi tribe. We were taken on a guided tour and I came upon this girl just leaning against the wall. The dialog was non-verbal. She didn't change her stance or anything (which made me happy - as I could already see the photograph right there). I nodded, held up the camera and shot, then smiled and she nodded back and I could see the trace of a smile as her eyes creased at the sides. It was non invasional, and like I've said - if I'd approached and she wasn't happy, I feel confident I would have picked up the vibes. Sometimes that's all you've got to go on.

Tightrope

We came across a little girl walking the tightrope in Jaisamler fort, Rajasthan.

She's not falling, she's deliberately wiggling the rope from side to side while her torso remains in the same place.