My photographic thoughts on India - 1

Well, it’s two weeks that I’m back home. First off, I already miss India and traveling. I could travel for months in India and not regretting a second of it. But I had to be back in Switzerland for some unfinished businesses I have here. Anyways, during these two weeks, I processed all my photos of India and Nepal. It took me quite some time, but I’m very pleased with the results!

I’d like to start with some statistics about my photography in this trip. I took 2100 photos during 5 weeks, but 600 of them were deleted on the camera. These were mostly the blurred, out-of-focus, badly exposed or framed photos which I reviewed and deleted in my spare times back in hotels. Out of those 1500 photos, I filtered out and processed some 400 photos in total. Among those 400, I selected some 150 photos to share with people. And guess what? I count only 50 of them to be really “good” photos. Nevertheless, I consider this a big achievement!

The main reason that I chose to travel to India was to photograph people. Arguably, India has the most photogenic people in the world. Their sun battered faces, their colorful costumes, and their love for the photo make them among the best people to be photographed. If you have followed my blog during my trip, you would know that my biggest joy was to find photogenic people, talk with them, and ask them for a photo. There was of course beautiful buildings, temples, etc, but I was not that interested into them. Though I didn’t miss the opportunity to shoot Taj Mahal for instance, but quite expectedly I didn’t do any “new” photo.

In India, I asked around 150 individuals for photo. Some statistics about my subjects: 32% of them were older men (maybe because they are the easy ones!), 22% were adult women (they are the tricky ones), 15% were young girls (it’s usually easier to shoot kids), 14% were adult men (usually the workers in the street), 9% were old women (again easier than younger women), and 8% were young boys. I would have loved to shoot the women more, but the cultural constraints are quite strict in some parts of the country. Also you don’t see as many women out in the streets as men. They are usually working back at home.

People photography in India is as easy as drinking a cup of Chai (tea) over there. When you see someone that you like to photograph, there is no need to sneak up them, use tele lenses, or do hip-shooting. You can just walk straight to them, smile, show them the camera and ask them for a photo. In 95% of situations, they smile back and say yes. You take your photo, you show it to them, they give you a big smile, and done. It’s even easier than drinking a cup of Chai, because you don’t need to pay!

But there are some exceptions to this rule. It’s generally more difficult to shoot young women (even more difficult, if you’re a male photographer), especially if they are accompanied by their husband. This is their culture, and you should respect it. As a rule of thumb, you should also avoid people that ask you to take their photos. Sadhus (holy men) ask you a lot for photo, and then they ask for some money in return. Or sometimes some kids do it. I am strictly against paying for photos. I have so many reasons for that, but the most compelling one is that it ruins the connection that I make with my subject. I did it once in India, and I regretted it the moment I did it, and I didn’t like the result at all, though the photo was beautiful.

Shooting children can be tricky too. If you ask one of them for photo, you suddenly see dozens of them running to you for a photo. They might also ask for money afterwards, which is not agreeable. I shot some children, but generally not when they were together with other kids. I took a lot of photos of shop owners in the old town or bazars. They are the easiest people to shoot. They are less photographed, so they like to be photographed, and they never ask for money in return. They are usually doing some work, and you can take great environmental portraits from them. On top of that, they mostly speak a bit of English, so you can keep talking with them and find yourself new friends!

When I think back, I see that there were some people that I would have loved to photograph, but I couldn’t. For instance, there was this little gypsy girl in Pushkar with beautiful eyes that I would have loved to photograph, but she was so shy of camera that she turned her face each time I showed her the camera. Or there was this beautiful Indian woman in a train, but it was not a good situation to ask her for a photo. But after all, I took the photos of so many other beautiful people, that at the end of the day, I can easily say I have very little regret for what I couldn’t shoot. As I had said before the trip, India is so full of photo opportunities that if you miss one, you have a dozen right in front of you!

In the next post, I’ll talk about the gear I used, and what worked and what didn’t work for me.

Check my photos of India and Nepal on flicker here: