Retro-Grouch
Mentor
That many "keepers" in 3.5 days? I am very impressed!
Freakscene
Obscure member
Thank you. It’s visually the richest place I’ve ever been. Everything looked like a photograph to me and the light was beautiful. I even found time to eat and sleep. But when I have time to concentrate I can work pretty fast. And the people, for the most part, were very friendly and accommodating of a foreigner with a camera. These things help.
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Freakscene
Obscure member
Yokosuka_Mike
Abstract Clarity
Hello Marty,
You’ve posted some impressive photographs but I feel that’s only half the story. Maybe I missed something, but I’d really like to know why you went to Rajasthan, when you went, in other words, I want to know the whole story.
Marty, I’ve followed your posts at RFF long enough to know that not only are you an outstanding photographer, you’re also an accomplished writer. Please fill in the blanks for me, pull these wonderful pictures together with some narrative, tell me, please, your motivation and your ultimate outcome from this fantastic adventure.
If this is too much to ask, please feel free to ignore my request.
All the best,
Mike
You’ve posted some impressive photographs but I feel that’s only half the story. Maybe I missed something, but I’d really like to know why you went to Rajasthan, when you went, in other words, I want to know the whole story.
Marty, I’ve followed your posts at RFF long enough to know that not only are you an outstanding photographer, you’re also an accomplished writer. Please fill in the blanks for me, pull these wonderful pictures together with some narrative, tell me, please, your motivation and your ultimate outcome from this fantastic adventure.
If this is too much to ask, please feel free to ignore my request.
All the best,
Mike
Freakscene
Obscure member
How can I ignore such a polite request? Mike, you are very kind.
In early October I went to a conference in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India, which included a trip to Agra and the Taj Mahal. I am a scientist with a background in diseases of aquatic organisms and the conference was about a group of parasites that can be important disease causing agents in fish. I worked on these a lot early in my career, but have substantially changed my work focus in recent decades, although I am still very interested in these organisms. I was invited to attend as a keynote speaker, and have been going to this meeting since the 1990s. The peripheral nature of the conference to my current work meant that I didn’t think that it was appropriate to attend in an official manner and to use agency funds, so I paid for myself. This also released me from my agency’s strict arrangements about unofficial engagements or leave during work travel. My commitments at home defined my total travel window.
So, I knew I would be in India, and had about 4 days to spare before I had to come home. Where to go? I looked at Lucknow and Agra on Google Street View and figured I would see a fair bit of urban India and people. So, I then looked at a table of Indian States by reverse population density, eliminated offshore islands, areas where I would need special permission or clearance to visit (by now there wasn’t enough time), or where there were obvious risks from political instability driven by border disputes. I settled on Rajasthan quite quickly, particularly when I realised that several artesian water supply and irrigation system diverted water was being used for both irrigation and fish farming and that the Kalbeliya/desert gypsies live there - I had seen the Musafir Gypsies of Rajasthan at Womadelaide world music festival in 2006 and loved their music.
So I hired a translator/guide Jaisalmer Tour Guide - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (with Photos) and with him planned some village visits, a day in Jaisalmer, and a day in the desert, all near to one of the irrigation schemes. It didn’t all work out that way; on returning from the villages I came down with a respiratory virus (I’m still coughing 2.5 weeks later, but my lungs have never been the same since I had COVID in 2022) and I spent an afternoon in bed and then more time in and around Jaisalmer than planned. These photos are the results of that little adventure. I’ll spare you the photos of pipes, bores, pumps, canals, fish etc etc. This is what I saw wandering around Jaisalmer and the villages around.
If you are thinking about going, I cannot recommend the guide/translator I engaged, Harish Giri, highly enough. You could never find the villages or small places without a local, and he is Jaisalmer born and super efficient. Just a great guy. If anyone did decide to go, please contact him directly - you can book him through several sites but they all take an egregious proportion of the cost. I have no connection with him other than as an extremely happy customer. Harish has a network of guide/interpreters throughout most of Rajasthan.
Back to the photos . . .
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Yokosuka_Mike
Abstract Clarity
Thank you, Marty, thank you very much! It's so kind of you to respond to my request. Great story! And, well told!
All the best,
Mike
All the best,
Mike
Freakscene
Obscure member
Freakscene
Obscure member
Dogman
Mentor
Beautiful, Marty! These are some of the most beautiful photos I've seen recently...anywhere.
I hope your respiratory condition improves soon and causes no long term limitations. Especially to your ability to make pictures like these.
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I hope your respiratory condition improves soon and causes no long term limitations. Especially to your ability to make pictures like these.
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Hilmersen
Established
Love your photos! I am thinking many these would have been impossible to take in a different cultural setting - chassing a young girl in order to take a portrait could easily be misunderstood. I have myself almost been attacked when taking a picture of a boy playing with a ball with some striking shadows - I managed to calm the father, but the whole situation scared me. I guess a translator might help. Did you take any other precautions?
Freakscene
Obscure member
Thank you, particularly for the health wishes. I seem to have picked something up from one of my kids. It’s probably the thing I noticed most since I had COVID - I catch everything going. I’m sure I’ll be fine. I’ve been back to work for 2 weeks since I got back from India.
ironhorse
Joe DuPont
Absolutely beautiful photographs, Marty. The first portrait is stunning. Thanks for sharing.
Freakscene
Obscure member
Thank you. The way I did this work was very considered.
The cultural differences are huge. At home I photograph children of people I know and where I am an event photographer. This, in some ways, was similar. I don’t go to public places and photograph children I don’t know or have had no means of connecting with at home, away, anywhere.
The general principles are the same wherever you go. I had a South Australian working with children check, and international volunteer clearance from international volunteering work with children. The training for these is helpful. My translator told the village elders that I was coming to photograph. This is incredibly important - you can’t just arrive in these places unannounced and start photographing. That would cause problems.
When I first arrive anywhere I explain that I’d like to take some photos, that people live very differently in different places and that showing this is important to me. I took gifts for the children and adults, and was careful to ask the adults first if it was ok to give things to the children. Don’t take unhealthy food; I don’t eat lollies/candy, and try to keep my own kids diet healthy, so don’t go feeding children sugar while you’re travelling. Take educational books in the local language, pens, pencils, other things they can use and learn with. I left large packs of kids multivitamins in all the villages too - they may throw them out, but if you buy sugar free ones that taste good they usually get eaten.
It is very important that I am never alone with a child or children; although the photos are often just of the children, a relevant local adult and my guide could always see what is happening and what I am doing. In the villages I stayed in people’s houses and it is relevant that in a lot of these places, the people I am photographing are people I was staying with. Building a level of trust and living up to it is critical, not just for me, but for my guide and anyone who comes in the future.
Also, to be clear, this trip wasn’t without its problems and difficulties. At the place where I photographed the girl with the goat, my guide had paid the village - for access, lunch, water and the general hassle of me poking around their place for a day. But although he had told them that I wanted to photograph, they wanted more money because I took so many photos. We cut our visit short. It was unfortunate, but things like this sometimes happen. Stay calm, smile, and let the guide deal with it. That’s why you hire one.
Think about what you plan to do, act responsibly and in a controlled context and you should be ok. Don’t make trouble for yourself or someone who might come after you.
A final thing - if you say you’ll do something - send prints, help out with something, whatever - do it. Broken promises are unhelpful and will also create distrust for anyone who visits in the future. This is a long way of saying ‘don’t be creepy and act responsibly’ but I think explaining is useful for anyone who wants to go on a trip like this for themself and who might not know where to start.
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Darthfeeble
But you can call me Steve
All these shots are outstanding, the pick of the litter for me is the fellow in the doorway.
Freakscene
Obscure member
Thank you. The man in the temple door is my wife’s favourite photo so far (I haven’t actually edited or closely looked at them all yet) too. He was off his head (my guide said that a lot of what he said didn’t make much sense) on bhang (a cannabis drink) and he was singing a song with lyrics that he seemed to make up on the spot that urged me to have some and how wonderful it was. I explained that what happens in my head is weird enough without adding any encouragement and that I therefore had to politely decline his kind offer.
Darthfeeble
But you can call me Steve
Been there, I understand.
Freakscene
Obscure member
wlewisiii
Just another hotel clerk
I'm not a very good people shooter myself so I'm always appreciative of those who are really good at it.
Makes me wonder what the land looks like around there; I'll bet I'd love shooting that!
Thank you so much for this series.
Makes me wonder what the land looks like around there; I'll bet I'd love shooting that!
Thank you so much for this series.
Freakscene
Obscure member
Thanks for looking and giving feedback.
Getting better at any sort of photography, like most things, is generally a matter of application. Someone asked me when I showed them a few of these photos from Rajasthan how long it took me to learn to photograph people like this. I said “48 years” - I was 48 when I went. With a bit more seriousness, I have probably spent 25,000+ hours working on photographing people since I took up photography seriously in the middle 1990s, and have thousands of catalogued rolls of 35mm film that have no, or sometimes at best, one or two decent frames on them. It is much easier now. An SD card that costs about the same as a roll of Tri-X, development and a contact sheet will hold over a thousand photos, and they are easier to view and edit. I miss the look of printed 35mm film, but I don’t miss shooting it. Anyone who complains that high end digital cameras are too expensive doesn’t use their cameras enough.
The land looks mostly like this: Google Maps
Thanks again for looking.
wlewisiii
Just another hotel clerk
Oh, I understand what you mean. I have a younger friend I recently gave my D7100, a 35/1.8 & a 50/1.8 to. We were talking about getting better and I commented about how it has taken me since my first Canon AE-1P in 1983 to get to where I am now, a pretty good landscape photographer with my own distinctive style.
I do enjoy shooting film but I do not miss printing
The hybrid life for me! But I am not going to give up my digital cameras either. They're all good for specific things.
Desert is hard to shoot but when you find the beauty, it makes the work well worth the effort. I'd love to get there someday with both film and digital rangefinders in hand.
I do enjoy shooting film but I do not miss printing
The hybrid life for me! But I am not going to give up my digital cameras either. They're all good for specific things. Desert is hard to shoot but when you find the beauty, it makes the work well worth the effort. I'd love to get there someday with both film and digital rangefinders in hand.