London street photography festival: Hard to win but not impossible

According to the LFPH guidelines the key to street photography lies in capturing an un staged, un-posed moment. The most remarkable ones often capture, explore or question contemporary society and the relationships between people and their surroundings.

I’m not sure if my entries fulfilled the latter. All I can say is that I’m glad to overcome my inhibitions by embracing this philosophy every time I’m on the street with the camera. I have learnt to  shoot strangers in public spaces at a time when the camera is seen as an intruder. It’s tough to capture spontaneity with permission from the subject. So in a way its like being a spy.

Another key aspect of street photography as described in the LFPH are the elements of unplanned, careful observation and an open mind ready to capture whatever appears in the viewfinder. Today with a variety of smart phone cameras its easy to embrace this genre. Everybody is doing it. Technology has simplified the whole thing to a point where I wonder if its necessary to have a degree in photography at all.

That being said, its tough to shoot strangers or to predict an action. It requires practice and discipline to capture a moment that changes our perception of the usual.

I’m still searching for that.

I thought I had a winner in this picture. It seemed to be pretty mundane on one level, but on another I liked the near perfect symmetry of the subjects against an old crumbly backdrop, not to mention the outsider crossing paths with the insider, black and white and what not….

I pitched camp for about half an hour to take several pictures of people at the railway station. This moment seemed more engaging than the others shots. The woman seemed to be happy without a companion in sight. Her happiness seemed to be mysterious to the other woman in the foreground reflecting my mindset behind her. Precious I thought.

I had no idea about the existence of a mosque in this bazaar until after I took this picture. The man seemed suspicious of me and appeared as if he was willing to shoot me instead.

I like to watch people. The merry-go-round is essentially for toddlers or as in this case for those who want to revisit their days as one. Butterflies in the stomach, or just plain dizziness from the sheer color and movement?

Ooty is School town. The happy energy of school kids running out of school as soon as the last bell rings is uplifting. Here a bunch of school friends spotted me focusing on them. I liked the way the reluctant boy was being persuaded to put on a cheesy smile by his buddy in a matter of a moment when the shutter went off.

This one is shot from inside a train almost ready to take off. A classic street portrait I thought. I loved the colors in the backdrop, the ticket collector’s posture and his strangely formal but untidy attire.

The quaint railway station of this town has vibrant blue colored walls with hand painted signage. This man became quite self-conscious once he noticed I was aiming the camera at him. Thankfully a few seconds after this capture.

The theme Hometown. The following are another set of images reflecting upon the subject. Ooty is not a major city of the world. Life is pretty humdrum here. Its charming though. The architecture is quaint and run down. The people on the streets are peaceful and not the adventurous kind. Mostly farmers, shopkeepers, bakers and lodge owners. It’s a small town like many all over India except that it is in the hills making it a pleasant place to study and explore.

Ooty has been a tourist destination for years. The town is full of haphazard, beaten down places. There is nothing divine other than this ambitious signboard promising celestial nymphs in a squalid neighborhood that has perhaps seen better days.

There is something classical about the patina on the broken, beaten down walls of this town.

When it rains it seldom pours in Ooty where acute water shortage comes in the way of a comfortable life. This is in a tea factory overlooking the town below on a drizzly day.

This could be anywhere in India. Wherever you go you will see a line of laundry open to public view. I liked the colorful backdrop.

The winners of the competition can be see here:

http://fotoura.com/2013/03/peter-de-krom-ispas-2013/

http://fotoura.com/competitions/international-street-photography-award-2013/

 

Backlog

I’ve been gone a long time and now I find myself with way too much to share with very little time. So here I’m picking up the threads with a set of landscapes I have shot in a place which I call my second home. Ooty is where my kids have attended school. The places a little away from the bustling, beaten town are still very pretty and as my daughter says “the clouds are great out here.” It’s great to be wandering around with your camera with a sky so vast.

Ketti valley is a bit of a cliché, but it offers some great views especially in the month of August.

A walk around the botanical garden and you’re sure to be rewarded with some amazing trees like this one with roots that spread as wide as its canopy.

Coonoor is on the way to Ooty from Coimbatore. It is truly wonderful to spend a day driving along the circuitous roads soaking in the sights and sounds of silence.

The British established the hill resort of Ooty to escape the summer heat, and years after they’ve left, it’s still like a patch of British countryside in India.

Sometimes I feel like watching those clouds just wander by. I can spend an hour or two just looking at the way light shifts on a landscape as pretty as a postcard!

Ketti valley offers some great views, that being said, due to the extensive development of the valley in recent years, the fauna present here has dwindled to a select few. I was happy to focus away in the distance!

Most of the people living around Ketti and Ooty are manual labourers. The valley is surrounded by industrial establishments, such as the needle factories, the mushroom factories, tea factories, Mini flower gardens and the various educational institutions established from almost a century ago.

Inside Agra Fort: A saga of sieges and plunder

 

As a student of history, I found myself snoring through most of my lessons in school. Especially the chapters on the long and laborious Indian past. There was so much packed into those text books in the middle years of high school, it was a task keeping track of events dating from 75000 years ago. The  Harappans, the Vedic culture, the Guptas, the Cholas, the Mauryas, the Rajputs, the Chalukyas, the Pallavas, the Pandavas, the Marathas, the Afghans, the Baluchis, the turks…whew I was a nervous wreck before exam time! One needed to have the memory of an elephant to respond with exact dates of all the wars fought and not to mention the names of all the Kings, emperors and their entourage to get a pass grade. With the Mughals it was a bit different for me. Their lineage was far simpler to comprehend as was their accession and decline. I found myself bewitched by all the tales of betrayal and passion, the art and architecture that flourished during their rule.

A couple of years ago on a trip to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, I was greatly enamored of the Agra Fort that  was home to 6 generations of Moghul emperors. There’s so much to see and discover here, you need at least 4 days to explore and experience the stories the locals tell you. Here are my impressions from a short visit of just 6 hours.

The Agra Fort in its earliest form was built from bricks held by some Rajput Kings before the first Moghul emperor Babur captured it. Between three battles and two generations of Mughals over the next 30 years, the fort served both as a palace and arsenal to all those who seized it.

The fort was in a ruined state by the time Akbar captured it back for the Mughals. He rebuilt the fort cladding it in red Sandstone. The fort is 2.5 kms long. There’s no way you can see it all in a couple of hours.

This is the part that Shah Jehan rebuilt when he was crowned emperor after his father Jehangir died. He rebuilt a large part of the fort in marble. It served as his palace whilst overseeing the work on the Taj Mahal.

This is a view of the public hall where the Emperor held court. The fort faces the Yamuna river (currently in a toxic and wasteful condition). The fort is a UNESCO Heritage site.

This is the spot Shah Jehan perhaps breathed his last, staring at the mosque he built for his beloved Mumtaz Mahal. The Taj Mahal cost him his life. Legend has it that his son Aurangzeb was unhappy about his father’s obsessions and blamed him for bankruptcy of the Sultanate. Reason why he killed his older brother and deposed his father, holding him captive here until he died.

I was fascinated by the patterns and designs on the Sandstone. A fusion of Islamic motifs and Rajput flair. The Sandstone was imported from an area in Rajasthan. A million workers or maybe tens of millions were involved in building and decorating this marvelous fort.

A view of the Taj Mahal from one of the balconies. Made me wonder what the landscape must look like in 1556. Deer and tigers instead of cars and buses?

Could this be the space where Shah Jehan sat on the famed peacock throne with the Kohinoor diamond embedded in it? The space that saw Nader Shah steal it in the dark of the night to take it back to Turkey?

The exquisite inlay work that can be seen in the Taj Mahal is also visible here. The precious stones and gold inlay might be missing but the floral motifs seemed to be indestructible.

Legend has it that Shah Jehan cut off the hands of the workers who built the Taj Mahal. The local guide who accompanied us believed it and added that the monuments had left the city of Agra and its people impoverished for the rest of their lives.

It is said that the decline of Aurangzeb paved the way for many looters and local tribes to desecrate the monument before the British took over to help themselves to what was left over.

According to the Guide who accompanied us, this area was laden with Gold leaf on the reliefs. These were melted and stolen by all those who invaded the fort after the decline of the Moghul empire.

When I looked up at one of the domes, I was at once amazed and shocked. Amazed to see the detail of decoration on the dome and shocked to note the burn marks all over. Pity no one cared or offered protection with the fall of a glorious empire.

Besides the plundering of rubies, emeralds and gold, the monument was subject to further defacing in modern times when tourists without any prohibitions scribbled, scratched and illicitly filled the walls with graffiti.

According to the guide who accompanied us, this hole in the marble arch was from a bullet of a rifle. The British had turned the fort into army barracks upon the fall of the Moghul Empire. The parrot is a common leitmotif in Moghul frescoes. I was pleased to see the real one

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Inside

Inside is a dream that the mind believes and the eye sees

It’s a beautiful Saturday morning. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss are filling up my senses as I post this picture of my writer husband’s eyes. Have a great weekend wherever you are

Went to the fortune teller
To have my fortune read
I didn’t what to tell her
I had a dizzy feeling in my head

Said she’d take a look at my palm
Said “Son do you feel kind of warm?”
And she looked into her crystal ball
Said “You’re in love.”

Said it could not be so,
Not with all the girls I know.
Said when the next one arrives
Looking into her eyes.

I left there in a hurry
Much to my big surprise
The next thing I discovered
The fortune teller told me lies

So I ran back to that woman
Mad as I could be
Told her I didn’t see nobody
How she made a fool out of me

At last something shook me
As if it came down from above
And now the fortune teller
And I fell in love

 

Indian Street photography: the shutter in the clutter

With a camera, a fleeting moment transforms into a permanent memory of life, captured like a butterfly in a net. The streets, particularly in India offer enormous opportunities for candid photography. The diversity and plethora of cultures and subcultures can leave you wobbly, never mind the crowds. I believe, street photography is far more challenging here. It’s not easy to get a great minimalistic shot unless you are more than a keen and creative observer. For me its hard to get those clean, graphic images I see in the entries at the London street photography shows: minimalistic, quirky and sometimes theatrical ones that look like very cleverly choreographed compositions.

Indian streets are crowded, finding a moment that tells a story that’s different, unique, unposed plus unusual is tough. Our poverty, street kids and colorful expressions of daily life have been documented, exported to the world besides being done to death. I feel no one ever tires of such imagery no matter how over exposed since there is such a massive crowd with so many untold stories. I’m hoping to stumble upon mine someday.

I feel, it helps to be familiar with a street and know the ideal time of day to shoot it. Like a tennis player you should be able to predict a situation that may present itself in the spot you wish to shoot. This of course is not possible if you travel to unknown places and don’t have the luxury of time or familiarity on your side. I respond with athletic zeal applying the same predictive sensibility even if the lighting conditions may not be ideal, focussing more on the composition or ambience. In some such cases I get closer to the subject and do portraits after a brief conversation with the subject. There’s so much going on that I allow for my instinct to guide me to the moment.

Some of the most inspiring and classical approaches in this genre can be seen in the works of photo journalists like Raghu Rai who manage to live in the moment with their characters invisibly. Then there is the mesmerizing work of Steve Mc Curry. With so much already documented on the days in the life of Indian streets, my photographic exploration is more about finding my voice in the crowd.

There are many versions to this genre, conflict reportage is the other space where I find some great work and inspiration. Ami Vitale is my recent favorite. Her work is brave, heart warming and revealing. Her photo essays are poignant and speak louder than any news report you may read on human issues that shock and stun. Like the Godhra riots in Gujarat and the plight of the average Indian in a riot prone Kashmir.

When it comes to the more day-to-day expressions, no one compares to the romantic aesthetic of Henri Cartier Bresson. His work is truly ingenious. The play of light and shadow, the exquisite monochrome palate and brilliant compositions are a source of eternal inspiration for me. The grandfather of street photography, I never tire of his sensitive and beautiful yet graphic expressions of life in small towns of France. Here are my interpretations, I wish I was Henri!

Eye Candy: Sadly a college girl was raped by a drunken cop in the marine drive police station in 2009.

Itching to have some fun: These boys were either excited or anxious about having lost their bearings on Marine Drive on a very rainy day.

Superhero: Every city has its superheroes, this one is from amchi Mumbai watching over the revelers in Nariman Point.

Help I need some lovin: The man in the centre seemed to be pretending waiting for someone after getting wet in a downpour minutes before this capture.

Mumbai mates: In a conservative society such as ours, I’m always wondering why I see so many male couples walking hand in hand.

The walls that speak: In Fatehpur Sikri, the walls are built to carry voices from one space to the other, ghostly and mysterious.

Will I make history: A production assistant walks back to the crew after ensuring the street is clear of all passers by in preparation for the frame in a film they are shooting.

Who wants to go to school: A bunch of kids are teasing their friend as they take time out from school in a small town in Tamilnadu

Will I be rich, will I be famous: A lil kid in a small town seeks some answers from the city slicker visiting his home in Jodhpur.

The great spectators: A crowd gathers on the rooftop to watch a film shooting, everyone is star struck hoping to see a Bollywood actor.

The wolf in sheepskin: The older boy is actually plucking a shaky tooth on his younger sibling’s mouth.

The tailor and the old men: A tailor mends the blouse of the starlet minutes before a shoot

Mumbai rains: revel in the muck

Hard to believe but this is a view of one of the most expensive localities of the city. A murky shade of brown envelopes us as the dust comes trickling down the concrete structures and billboards.

Stuck in a traffic jam on a water clogged road, there is little else to do but watch the water pouring down the windscreen to the fascinating chorus of “here comes the rain again” by the Eurythmics.

The rain brings out the dancer in this little school kid who enjoys kicking a puddle furiously, right in the middle of the road.

Mumbai has some beauty spots, like the worli sea face, a great place to be stuck in jam; at least you can look at the lashing waves on the sea wall as you wait to get a move ahead.

Gusty winds, lashing waves and a whole bunch of people with flimsy umbrellas are the predictable sightings on a rainy day in Mumbai. This is on Chowpatty, one of my favorite spots for a rain walk.

The predictable aspects of an unpredictable monsoon: The trains will stop, the bus services will be disrupted, tv anchors will scream disaster from on top of their voices, the MET department will make inaccurate predictions, commuters will be stranded, Mumbai’s brave work culture will be lauded…..

The ghost of the floods that drowned the city in 2005 may exist (see potholes behind) but the euphoria of walking and getting wet is far more palpable as you can see on the face of this happy citizen.

Among the biggest challenges faced by the Mumbai Municipal Corporation is ensuring that the history of flooding that saw dung on the faces of its office bearers is not repeated. The method they employ is mostly an ancient one, they keep their fingers crossed.

As the average Mumbaiwallah complains about the plight of the city’s infrastructure a BMC garbage collector goes about ensuring the dirty work is done. There is a rumor that garbage is mostly managed efficiently only in those areas where the government officials or wealthy live.

Getting out instead of getting home is what the rains do to most people in this city. Munching ‘seng” (freshly roasted peanuts) or ‘Bhutta’ (coal roasted corn) is what attracts the pedestrians.

Marine Drive or the queen’s necklace is a popular place for people to walk, amble along, romance and generally while away some time on a rainy day. The crows are always waiting for the right opportunity to pick on someone’s snack.

Mumbai’s beggars and the apathy towards them is an age-old problem of this city. The barefoot street kid crosses the road like a sprinter not afraid of slipping or falling on the wet road.

One of the other common sightings are male companions sharing umbrellas designed for women. A phenomena that leaves me baffled about their sexual orientation. This is at the famous Gateway promenade near the Taj.

There is a belief among Mumbaikars that they should expect a traffic jam in case the signals are being manned by traffic policemen. Their lack of training in coordination may be faintly visible in the body language of this cop posted on duty here.

This is an endangered species of cabs in Mumbai. The 1970′s Fiat taxies are under the scanner with the traffic department and are steadily being replaced by Cool cabs. Strange that this one is parked in front of a hair dressers parlor also dating back to the 70′s!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Create

With such intense creativity at work in the world, I decided to celebrate an existing work of creativity that blows my mind. Hope you enjoy the show.
Sydney opera House: Lights

Down under, up above Australia with two megapixels.

The great barrier grief: Azure blue waters, translucent and clear with fish of every hue, the gently pulsating corals, there is indeed no other place on earth with such pristine life. Shot with an underwater (toy) film camera bought for under AUD 100 on the boat that took us there. This collage is an attempt to depict the whole feeling but is woefully low resolution.

Bondi beach, skate park: My head was in a whirl just looking at the sheer zest, dexterity and athleticism of the average Australian youngster. I was mesmerized by the spirit of these youth, maneuvering the sharp corners of a skate bowl with a depth of 12 ft shaped into the sidewalk. These guys were tumbling and never losing balance, bouncing so high up into the air and landing into this concrete hole…amazing is all I got to say of what I saw.

The great ocean road: There is a reason why this is possibly the most spectacular coastlines on earth. This is where the cliffs meet the angry blue waters. A land of gorges, shipwrecks and some weird rock formations called the 12 apostles. These were shot, freeze frame from a helicopter on a handy cam after a 4 hour bus ride along the circuitous Ocean road off Melbourne. This collage expresses the tumbled and turned vision of the landscape as seen from the copper ride above.

Melbourne musings: No trip to Melbourne is complete without a visit to the busy streets of St. Kilda’s. The luna park, the circus, the beautiful architecture and a browse around the Victoria museum. From Cairns in the north to the Gold coast & Byron Bay at the easternmost point to Melbourne in the south, the trip made for one of the most memorable holidays of our lifetime.Thank you Australia,we love you.

Sydney sunrise: These pictures were shot at daybreak from the apartment window where we stayed in downtown Sydney. The rapid shift of color in the sky was one of the most fascinating aspects of this sunrise for me. Unlike India where you can almost always spot the sun, here I noticed only changing colors and light. In a matter of 5 minutes the city was bathed in bright light.

Sydney sights: A leisurely Sunday I can’t seem to forget. It may seem hectic in this collage but was actually one of the most relaxed days of my life. The boat ride to the Taronga zoo offers some great sights of the harbor. How blue can blue be?

One of my life’s biggest tragedies was carrying an instamatic camera and a handy cam on a holiday to one the world’s most beautiful coastlines. Though I’m happy I have some great footage from the month-long trip on videotape, I kept lamenting the loss of my old Minolta SLR. I realized I was too much of a still shoot person as soon as the plane landed in Cairns. On my shoestring budget there was no chance I could indulge my passion of acquiring a brand new DSLR in foreign exchange!

These images have lain and then transferred from the various computers I owned and junked over the 8 years of their existence. When I looked at them recently, I was a bit disappointed. But then, I love them so. A tad touristy, but what the heck! What could I possibly do to get away from the hackneyed? I looked at Hockney instead! I turned the images into collages to make sure that the memory of all that I saw was not lost altogether. I worked on these on the assumption that a cubist mindset might help express that the whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts. Had I had more than 2 mega pixels to play with, I would’ve blown up the parts in sharp contrast to these multitudinous low resolution images. Hope the experiment worked.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Friendship

There are friends and then there are true friends. There are virtual friends but just a handful I meet in the real world. Some friends are helpful, some boastful, some just there to say hello to, so you feel alive. Some have thousands of friends, others a few hundred. Some are funny, some are gentle, some are losers and some are just so beautiful, you wonder why you were not a bit like them. Some are loners, some are social butterflies. Some friends you lose touch with, others touch your life in profound ways. Whatever they are, they’re friends and none of their flaws or strengths really matter when you meet them, laugh with them, celebrate life with them.

Friendships are delicate fragile things, they may last a season or if you’re lucky, a lifetime. Can friendship be defined as a fleeting moment of joy between two people, maybe three, maybe four? Maybe friendship is a party. Or is it an unbreakable tie that bonds us all in a special way forever? For me, friends are like that spoon of sugar you add to your favorite beverage. They’re those lines running parallel to your lifeline on your palm. No matter what the diversion, they come back to run by your side. Maybe some fade away at the end, some may run longer. To me a great friend is one who knows you, respects you, trusts you and above all doesn’t ditch you in your time of trouble. Those kind of friends are hard to find. I count myself lucky if I have one.

When I looked through my collection of images, I found several moments of friendship. Here are a few of some people I know and some I don’t. For me they capture the many facets of friendship. A moment in time that flickers by. I’m happy, I’m trigger happy.

The beach is one of those playgrounds the earth provides us to form eternal friendships.

Friends from childhood have a special space in our memories, no matter how old we get and how forgetful we get we’ll always remember those castles we built-in the sand together.

Sport and a passion to do similar things is probably the reason these two para sailing operators from a remote village in Orissa are so chummy. They love serving tourists in Goa.

The owner’s son may be a petulant globetrotter but when he meets the man who manages their shack in Goa, they’re like old buddies, exchanging jokes in Portuguese.

Talking, walking, discussing and losing an argument to let your buddy win is a sure sign that the friendship is going to last.

Joining in with a bunch of volleyballers to knock the ball around makes friends out of complete strangers as they scream, hum and haw in unison.

Sometimes a daughter is a mother’s best friend.

As the adage goes ” the dog is man’s best friend” in this case my girls’ best friend.

I hope to be my daughter’s best friend, but to be that I know I will have to stop being a pest first!

A glowing tribute to the beautiful faces of a friendship that was refreshed with Christmas lights.

It’s great to see young friends grow up together, no matter how apart, they’re always together.

These two Egyptian girls were so thrilled to see the camera that when I asked them not to pose they decided to express their bond of friendship in the most natural manner. These little girls were part of a brood of school children on a study excursion in Luxor.

Sometimes a friendship might depend on doing as being told. Especially if they’re screenplay writers bored with all the sightseeing in a historical hotspot where every statue is an immortal Sphinx or Pharaoh.

Physical appearances can most certainly make friends out of strangers.

As the old Simon and Garfunkel song goes: The sounds of the city sifting through trees,                                                          settles like dust on the shoulders of the old friends

The school and the bonds we share doing silly stuff together bring us back together as pictured here. My mother was reunited with her buddy in her neighborhood after a gap of almost 30 years! How heart warming is that.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Today

The Tooth Conspiracy

My tooth has a cavernous hole, and I’ve been avoiding the dentist. My toothbrushes are probably exhausted from all the overwork. This morning when I stepped into to the loo, lo and behold they seemed like they were murmuring a secret plan to each other. How long would it be before they put their hands up and tell me to stop procrastinating that appointment for a root canal? “Aaaargh…don’t remind me” I tell them and take hold of them by their necks. “I will go when I have to go, meanwhile let me squeeze some more life out of your bristles so that another aimless day can go by.”