Photos from India

[marduk]

The photos from India I've posted here in RFF gallery provoked a warm welcome so I decided to share a slideshow with 60 better photos made on my 17 days long travel to South India. It's best viewed with sound on. Photos are annotated with facts that I've found to be interesting or representative of the India's national psyche.

I've seen several interesting cities in Tamil Nadu, whole lot of interesting places in Kerala ("God's own country") and tiny bits of Karnataka and Goa. For anyone who travels with their eyes open going to India will be a memorable, fascinating and even life-changing experience. It has been at least very rich for me. And I know I'll certainly come there again. Love it or loathe it - it's a place you'll never forget. I'd like to stress that South India is greatly different from where most people go, so the sights pictured on the photos can be kind of unexpected for you.

Some technical data: those square photos are made with Bronica SQ-Ai, rectangles - mostly with Leica M3, but there are a few cropped 6x6. While I was there, the faultiness developed in the rear curtain of my Leica (sent it for a CLA), so some of the photos are unsharp. Some black and while images are scanned from the negatives (several of them in color mode) and some are the scanned prints made from 35mm film on the Ilford baryte paper.

I have applied almost no digital processing. I remember playing with levels to open up the shadows in a photo or two, and playing with scanning profiles to get vivid colors from the color negatives.

Equipment used:
Leica M3, Summicron-M 50/2 DR. Fuji Neopan 400 and Acros 100.
Bronica SQ-Ai, Zenzanon PS 80/2.8 and PS 50/3.5. Mix of films, but mostly: Ilford HP5+ and FP4+, Fuji Provia and Astia, Kodak Portra 160VC.

Enter the gallery:



Speed should be good enough for those in North America. If it's not, please let me know and I'll think up an alernative location. Perhaps someone knows a nice free web hosting for such slideshows?

Finally I'd like to cite the deeply touching preface story to the Stefan Rohner's remarkable India album:

And then again this incredible poorness in between all this positive feeling. When I left, a little bit aside a woman beggar with her small girl. The child was so beautiful! More or less the age of Ariel. There was a big 5cm boil on her back, I don’t know what could it be, I had tears right away ... from this moment I kept on thinking about this scene and I couldn’t take photos. I don’t find the way...anyway I don’t want to find it, it’s ok... it only hurts.

Today I was in the main train station, masses of people waiting hours for their trains, laying on the floor over the dirt, large families, small families.. sadus, again I couldn’t lift up the camera, the ones who are a more well off have their luggage transported by coolies, others fight to get in and out of the trains. In the third class wagons are hopelessly full. They travel with open doors, people sleeping on the floor, feet hanging out of the train...

....let´s see how this goes on. Tomorrow I’ll buy a ticket to Varanasi,

anyway everybody here is very friendly.

 

[Bingley]

Wonderful gallery! I particularly liked the photos of beach fishermen, w/ their boats going in and out of the water. Thanks for putting this together and sharing the link w/ us!

 

[zuikologist]

Excellent series, especially in the slide show format. I like 22 - an epic shot.

 

[xayraa33]

Nice photos !
I enjoyed them a lot.
who played the sound track?
as the music was super.

 

[rickp]

i enjoyed your images, slide show and musical background very much. they confirm that a visit to india must be on the top of my travel list. i forwarded the link to my son, who was stationed in chennai for 2 years.

thank you

greetings from hamburg

rick

 

[gudlagoba]

Excellent photos! Did you have a guide to take you around to places like the fishing villages and other areas in Kochi or did you just go by yourself?

 

[Nh3]

I have lived in New Delhi India for a few years and this was before I begun to get serious about photography... Anyway, sometimes I wonder if I go back to India how would I photograph - what i would photograph, but unfortunately there is no response within me...

 

[slm]

Very very good slide show. I will be watching it again for sure!

Cheers.

 

[35mmdelux]

Outstanding. Thanks for posting.

[pretty sharp little Bronica].

 

[Sisyphus]

Thank you for sharing your photos with us, a really wonderful series.

I am not sure if you want a constructive critique or not?

Also, I am not sure if this is more for your own personal or if you are thinking about trying to do something else with it?

First, I would just briefly suggest that the music is nice to listen to, but I am more interested in the photography than just music. The one time I enjoy sound is if it is the people themselves commenting about their lives.

Second, i think their are too many images in general, and their are way too many images of the fisherman, or the people on the beach-less is more--and if you were to take at least 30 images your series would have a much greater visual impact overall.
This is a hard lesson, even for me to learn. I am currently editing my work for a new website. This process is incredible overwhelming as I am also learning that showing 30 or less images creates a much greater visual impact. Also, I have a few images that are quite striking and emotionally powerful of the same scene or the same person, and i am only choosing the images that best relate to the story that is being told.

Third, I am not a big fan of mixing color and black & white together; it often looses focus and breaks up the visualness of the series. However, I would suggest that if you want to show b & W and color together, I would show the b&w images first, then the color ones.

Fourth, The images take to long to load from one image to the next. In order to speed the images up, make sure that they are 800 pixels wide, then use the save for web feature, and size the image to about 120KB. This will help make the sight run smoother. You may already know this.

Finally, you really have some beautiful images, but I think they get lost by having so many images to begin with, and then you have a lot of images of same scene or situation. Please do not take this in a harsh manner, but I do not need to see 5 or 10 images of the men pulling in the boat, or bringing the boat in, etc . . . just the image that you think tells the story of what you experienced, or the image that has them most emotional or visual impact.

I do appreciate the time and effort that you took to put this together, and thank you for sharing.

:s:

 

[Sanjay Sen]

Beautiful images! Thanks for sharing, and for the insightful comments.

BTW, I do not know if you ventured to the eastern Indian metropolis of Calcutta (now called Kolkata), but I have to say that Calcutta has the best street food - better than New Delhi, in my humble opinion! 🙂

Thank you for sharing your experiences.


Best wishes,
Sanjay

 

[Frank1969]

That was a very nice slideshow with great music and a number of outstanding photos. I visited most of these places in 1995 and 2001 and it is nice to see that not a lot has changed and also to recognize some places in particular.

Just 6 months than I am off to India once more, Ladakh this time, trekking from Lamayuru gompa to Zanskar and from there to Darchha.

 

[marduk]

Nice photos !
I enjoyed them a lot.
who played the sound track?
as the music was super.

Thanks. The soundtrack is by Prem Joshua - a German musician who learned to play the sitar and other traditional Hindustani acoustic instruments in India.

 

[marduk]

i enjoyed your images, slide show and musical background very much. they confirm that a visit to india must be on the top of my travel list. i forwarded the link to my son, who was stationed in chennai for 2 years.

It's a pleasure for me. When I first came across this forum, I liked the wonderful stories with photos from Avotius and others, so I was feeling obliged to make my own contribution.

greetings from hamburg

Thanks. Same to you from Kiev, Ukraine.

 

[marduk]

Excellent photos! Did you have a guide to take you around to places like the fishing villages and other areas in Kochi or did you just go by yourself?

I went there with fellow photographers and one of them had been to India about 7 times, including (some of) these particular places 🙂
However, I believe that when one is travelling alone he's going to get quite different experience and certainly his feelings will be sharper.. Or maybe I'm saying so because of my introvertish character, who knows.
I see you are from Vancouver - I enjoyed walking in the Stanley park and in its streets when i was there in fall 2007, hehe 🙂

 

[marduk]

That was a very nice slideshow with great music and a number of outstanding photos. I visited most of these places in 1995 and 2001 and it is nice to see that not a lot has changed and also to recognize some places in particular.

Actually, South India is changing: expensive hotels have sprung up in Kanyakumari, Varkala has become a prominent tourist destination and an IT town is going to be spread across an area of 70 acres in Kochi. My friend says Kochi has been a friendlier and more original town when he was there two years ago than now. But it's still a good place to be in and luckily there are plenty little gems all around India where mass tourism did not get yet...

Just 6 months than I am off to India once more, Ladakh this time, trekking from Lamayuru gompa to Zanskar and from there to Darchha.

Nice route. I hope to go there one day.

 

[marduk]

Hi Sisyphus,

Thank you for sharing your photos with us, a really wonderful series.

I am not sure if you want a constructive critique or not?

Also, I am not sure if this is more for your own personal or if you are thinking about trying to do something else with it?

The need for constructive critique was one of the reasons why I shared this work. So it's more than just welcome. Also, it's for my own personal. I'm not planning to make a website or a book in the foreseeable future. I have started to photograph not long ago and this is about the first travel of this sort - and certainly most productive. There are some shots I can show at the expo one day.

First, I would just briefly suggest that the music is nice to listen to, but I am more interested in the photography than just music. The one time I enjoy sound is if it is the people themselves commenting about their lives.

Good point - and it didn't occur to me before.

Second, i think their are too many images in general, and their are way too many images of the fisherman, or the people on the beach-less is more--and if you were to take at least 30 images your series would have a much greater visual impact overall.
This is a hard lesson, even for me to learn. I am currently editing my work for a new website. This process is incredible overwhelming as I am also learning that showing 30 or less images creates a much greater visual impact. Also, I have a few images that are quite striking and emotionally powerful of the same scene or the same person, and i am only choosing the images that best relate to the story that is being told.

There were 90 images in the first version of the slideshow which I've shown to my family. I will try choosing 30 images or less.. though it is going to be extremely hard. Good luck on your website project! I like the selection of photos from Tibet there.

Third, I am not a big fan of mixing color and black & white together; it often looses focus and breaks up the visualness of the series. However, I would suggest that if you want to show b & W and color together, I would show the b&w images first, then the color ones.

Fair enough. Mixing color and b&w was my biggest doubt so far. I didn't show the b&w images first and then the color to stay in line with my itirenary.. However, I've settled on the b&w now. Next time I will probably take 4x5 for color (and some b&w) landscapes and b&w for everything else. I will leave Bronica at home, take Leica and Rolleiflex instead and I'm going to add a Chamonix 45N-1 - that should make a nice and relatively light travel kit.

Fourth, The images take to long to load from one image to the next. In order to speed the images up, make sure that they are 800 pixels wide, then use the save for web feature, and size the image to about 120KB. This will help make the sight run smoother. You may already know this.

Alright. The images are 640 pixels side, but I could use compression a little bit more.. Thanks for noting.

Finally, you really have some beautiful images, but I think they get lost by having so many images to begin with, and then you have a lot of images of same scene or situation. Please do not take this in a harsh manner, but I do not need to see 5 or 10 images of the men pulling in the boat, or bringing the boat in, etc . . . just the image that you think tells the story of what you experienced, or the image that has them most emotional or visual impact.

I am not going to take this in a harsh manner. You put into words something that I felt subconsciously. I'm glad to know for sure.

I do appreciate the time and effort that you took to put this together, and thank you for sharing.

:s:

Thank you for the critique and appreciation.

 

[pachuco]

I am reaching for my passport as I type! I've been home over two months now and I am going crazy. Your slide show was just what I needed for inspiration. Thank you for sharing that great work and happy shooting!