Feeling less than inspired by the guidebook description of Kalimpong as ‘grubby’, with ‘a recent history of neglect, decaying infrastructure […]
Tag Archive for ‘travel portraits’
If at first you don’t succeed
‘Sometimes you’ve got to work a little harder and chip away until you get the images you want and not make the mistake of walking away too soon.’
Seen from both sides
This one was shaping up to be everything I don’t want out of an encounter. Driving along in the pickup […]
For the times they are a-changin’
“They were in a fun mood and we enjoyed some banter while we bought them some drinks and Theng practised his flirting skills again, while I did them some instant polaroid photos for them to keep. One of them didn’t like her image though, and handed it back to me insisting that I do a better one.”
Funnily enough. . . can’t say I do!
So as not to offend Theng, I mooched around for a bit, and seeing that he’d found a pretty young lady to flirt with, (hmm – so is that why we came here . . .?) I wandered off and poked my nose into the doorway of a building round the back of the Wat. Sitting inside was an elderly monk smoking a pipe. Being more interested in living beings than statues, I asked if I could go inside.
Magic Moments
Returning to the Lisu village in N.W Thailand where I had stayed last year, I had a surprise in store for Asur and Asa
Losing my mojo in Hanoi and finding it with the chestnut lady
Asking to take a stranger’s portrait is a bit like riding a horse. They sense when you’re frightened. As soon as I’d had one good experience, my approach must have subtly changed as I suddenly started to get much more positive responses, and started to get the photos I had wanted
Keeping it real with the Lo Lo
as we waved goodbye to her, and her grandchildren dressed in Western clothes, I came away hoping that in some small way, the photos I’d taken that day had helped more in the preservation of their precious culture than in contributing to its demise.
On the trail of the little black dot.
Pinned to the wall of a home stay I’d been at last year in N.W.Thailand, was a torn handwritten map on a scrap of paper marking out where some of the local settlements were. It was a bit like Christopher Robin’s map of Hundred Acre Wood, and on it were little black dots on wiggly lines indicating where the various ethnic minority people lived.
Remembering we’re not ornithologists.
We have to stay sensitive to our impact both on our subject and the ground we lay for future passing tourists/photographers, and try to keep the interaction a positive one for both. Ultimately I think it will make for a better travel experience and better photos too, and done unthoughtfully we risk ‘killing the goose that lays the golden egg.
Singing In The Lifeboats 