Faces of India
This first set will focus primarily on individual people I photographed while in India. There are some pictures with pairs of people and one of a group of school children, but generally I avoided group pictures for this set. I took a lot of group pictures and those will show up in other sets (particularly “Village Life”). As humans aren’t the only ones to have faces, I’ve also included animal pictures in this set... and even stretched the category far enough to include a statue... So here are (at the very least the majority of) my 50 best ‘face’ pictures from India!
On our first full day in Bangalore we were brought to Backward Village (Yes, that is an unfortunate name.) to see the community we would be working in. We were surprised to see that a large number of the children were dressed in their best outfits and jewelry for the arrival of the Japanese Habitat for Humanity team. We were touched and honored by the gesture. I will share a lot more pictures of the village and groups of children in another set, but for now I’ll share my two favorite pictures of the day. The first is of this little girl enjoying her popsicle.
This is the second of my favorite pictures from the first day. When I took this picture, I thought it was a picture of a woman and her mother in the background. I thought it was a nice picture of two generations within a family. Well it is definitely two generations, but the women aren’t related. ^o^; That said, I still like the picture.
The next day we were scheduled to start building the house. Unfortunately, the day brought with it a family tragedy. During the night, the mother of one of the women we were helping build a house for, passed away. She had purchased the small plot of land the house was to be built on. In the morning we went to pay our respects and a few of the other JETs placed flower garlands on the sheet covering the deceased. After a few minutes we left the village.
Nirmala, our Habitat for Humanity host cooridinator, brought us to the Bangalore Bannerghatta Zoo. It was divided into a pretty standard style zoo and a bus safari section. The bus safari wasn’t through a true wilderness area. Instead we went through different sections (separated by double gates) which contained different types of animals. This picture was by far the best I took there, but don’t be too impressed, the Tiger was totally indifferent to the bus that was parked 15 feet away. So it was like shooting (a well framed) fish in a barrel.
On Tuesday we finally got started on the Habitat build. This picture is of one of the two cows that were often tied up near the granite block pile (you will see it below) near our primary build site. It was not a really dark area, but rather shows that I forgot to adjust the shutter speed when I left the direct sunlight. I could have digitally improved the exposure and actually did, but found the picture lost its punch when it didn’t show the head emerging from darkness. Note the flies covering the face and the rope through the nose.
This little girl was always close by... which is probably the reason she is the only one pictured twice in this set (Other than the Kathakali performers near the bottom of this set). She tried to help do things like carry empty concrete pans or fill empty pans with concrete. She got very angry when we prevented her from doing such things. She also called out “Kevin-uncle” or “Lizzie-aunty” each time one of us passed, which frayed the nerves of some of the volunteers. I tried to teach her to call me “Superman”, but after learning the phrase she instead gave the title to Jeff, much to my disappointment.
This man was one of the masons who helped place the granite blocks we carried for the foundation building (By the way, once you see other sets, some of the things I say in this one will make more sense). He is sitting on a pile of soil that was left from the excavation of the foundation trough, which was already completed before we arrived.
I know this picture is slightly out of focus, but I wanted to include a picture of this girl. She is the older sister of the girl pictured above. She was fantastic. Her English was remarkable and she did her best to keep her little sister out of our way as we worked.
This shows a woman cleaning clothing outside the front door of her house. This was a daily activity in the village. The women would bring a bucket of soapy water with the clothes soaking in it to the nearest large flat rock to their home and then scrub it without mercy. It was definitely hard on the clothes, but I’ve never seen cleaning so effective. It cost about $.20 to have a t-shirt washed by the hotel we stayed in and mine always came back spotless (others weren’t so lucky). By comparison, when I brought my clothes back to Japan and washed them two or three times in my washing machine, they still were covered in stains from the job site.
And here is our little monkey girl again. She is holding the handle of a broken water pump (also featured in a picture below) and leaning backwards. I find the picture very striking. *Laughs* ‘Monkey girl’ is surprisingly appropriate. She was actually bitten by a monkey (pictured below... that is the monkey is pictured... not the actual biting) later in the week, which lead to the infamous 'Tom rabies scare of 2007'!
This is my only picture of a large group of people in this set. I was actually trying to get a picture of the game the boys were playing. They were jumping over the kid that is on his hands and knees to the left. He gradually raised himself higher and higher. It was kind of like limbo in reverse. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to be the bar. I say I was trying to take a picture of the game, because I failed to do so. Literally within 10 seconds of appearing over the outside wall of the school grounds with a camera, I had dozens of kids sprinting towards me to be included in the pictures.
Here is a small portion of the rock pile mentioned above. The cows were about five yards to the man’s right. He was breaking the irregular granite pieces into smaller sizes that could be used to fill in the gaps between the larger, more regularly shaped blocks. I like the composition of this shot.
This man was on a scaffolding within one of the houses we helped with. This house was almost finished. The main work here was to plaster the walls and lay a concrete floor, but first there was a room full of sand that had to be removed and sifted for use in making the plaster. I actually didn’t have a chance to help with this house. After the first few days he decided that it was easier to mix the plaster himself since he could adjust the texture from batch and he didn’t allow the ALTs to do any of the actual plastering. So they were sent to work on the two foundation projects.
Here is another picture at the broken pump seen above. This girls hair was really beautiful. I was amazed at how shiny some of the women’s hair was in India. The school rules required all the girls to put up their hair like this. I believe the boy in the background is her brother, but I’m not sure.
This woman with her child lived in the house just in front of where we were building the foundation of the second house (on the land purchased by the mother that passed away). She was feeding the boy lunch when I asked her if I could take her picture. In India almost all food is eaten with the right hand (the left is considered dirty). I found it really challenging. It is one thing to eat dry food with your hand, but the main foods of India are a variety of curries. I found the learning curve to be rather messy.
I know this picture is sadly out of focus. However, I wanted to share it anyway. This man had a cart filled with fruits and vegetables that he rolled through the village each day. He would stop in front of each house and ring a bell or call inside for the woman of the house to come out and purchase her fruits and vegetables. He used this handheld scale to price the fruit. One of the best things about working in the village each day was getting to see small aspects of village life like this one.
This picture was also taken in the village. In the tree over the granite block pile to be exact. There were four monkeys up in this tree just before we left for the day. The next morning we came back and found that one of these monkeys had bit the little girl mentioned earlier. Apparently, two of the monkeys were fighting and she threw a rock to break them up... one of them didn’t take kindly to the interference and the girl ended up having to get a shot because of it.
This woman was working in the stone quarry we visited one afternoon. I’ll have an entire journal entry dedicated to the situations in the quarry. Here I’ll just say that she (and everyone else in the quarry) worked for about 11 hours a day, 6 days a week and made about $1.40 for all that backbreaking labor. I really find this picture very powerful. Her expression, the sledgehammer in her hand, and the way she stands out so vividly against the monochromatic background all contribute to create its impact.
^o^ This is a much more light hearted picture. This man was the main chef at the hotel we stayed in in Bangalore. I asked all the kitchen crew for a picture and then the chef asked me to take a picture of just him. Then he motioned for me to wait and ran back into the kitchen and reemerged with his chef hat. After this picture he removed it with a flourish that knocked a tea cup off the table and shattered it.
One afternoon we finished at the village early so that we could head into Bangalore and do some souvenir shopping for those that were leaving immediately after the build. We went to the commercial district. It seemed to be set up at least as much for Indian shoppers as for tourists which set it apart from most of the places I went shopping. On the street side were a number of various venders. This woman was fanning corn sitting on charcoal to toast it. To the far left of the frame you can see a stall set up primarily for tourists. He was selling best selling paperbacks to anyone who needed some reading material. It was interesting to see these people. I saw the book venders everywhere I traveled and they all had pretty much the same collection of books including all the Harry Potter books, The DaVinci Code, Lonely Planet guides, etc.
Here is another vender in the same area. I believe those are banana chips piled high in the center of his tray, but I’m not sure.
This officer was standing in the doorway of a building in the commercial district. I didn’t ask if I could take his picture, which was very rude. In fact, one of the other ALTs grabbed my arm and told me not to take the picture, but I really wanted it!
On Sunday we went to Mysore, a popular tourist destination near Bangalore for some sight seeing. The second place we visited was the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary. It was the most impressive place I’ve ever seen for bird watching. We paid for a rowboat ride around a small lake with many islands of nesting birds. The first picture is of a Eurasian Spoonbill (Platelea leucorodia. The next is a perched Painted Stork (Mycteria leucocephala), followed by an Asian Open-billed Sork (Anastomus oscitans) and another Painted Stork in flight with a twig for its nest (All names are courtesy of "Riverine Wilderness A field guide to Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary". It was one of the better souveneirs I bout in India!). I really could have spent an entire day at just this one place.
Another stop on our Mysore tour was The Nandi bull statue. Nandi was a bull that lord Shiva rode. This picture doesn’t have anyone next to it for scale, but if I remember correctly the kneeling bull was about five meters tall and 12 meters long. I may have more pictures of it if I have time to make a “Mysore” journal entry.
We made a chain of 100 paper cranes to give to the family that was moving into the house we dedicated on our last day. While we were making them, we taught a few children how to fold them. This boy is proudly posing with a crane he folded himself.
After asking this woman if I could take her picture and then doing so, I showed it to her. She was very embarrassed by it, but at the same time flattered. After she looked at the preview on the back of my camera she covered her face with her hands and said something to me I couldn’t understand, but at the same time she was smiling.
This picture is from the ceremony for the house dedication on the last day. The house wasn’t quite finished. The interior plaster was finished the day before and the concrete floor was laid that day. As we were having the dedication ceremony the man pictured above was finishing up the exterior plaster work. However they wanted to have the dedication before we left. This girl performed a traditional dance on plastic sheets spread in front of us. I’m really glad this picture came out so well.
The rest of the pictures were taken as I traveled around Kerala on my own. The first day I went to Thekkady, which is known for its wonderful wildlife. I saw this little monkey (along with the rest of its family) at Periyar Tiger reserve. The park was really disappointing to me. It was famous for wildlife viewing, but they had no concept at all of ecotourism. While I was waiting to board the boat for a 2 hour wildlife viewing cruise a park ranger, of all people, brought out a plate of food and gave it to the family of monkeys. A monkey tried to steal my food in the little snack stand, but I yelled and flung my arms up to scare it away. It is the behavior of people like the park ranger that makes that necessary. On the cruise people were talking and throwing orange peels and food scraps off the side of the boat. I saw some plastic bottles floating in the lake, but didn’t see anyone throw any plastic into the lake from my boat. It really bothered me. Ecotourism is growing hugely in India and I really hope they learn the real meaning of the term and put a stop to the behavior I saw that day.
This woman was picking tea in Munar, the next stop in my wirlwind Kerala tour. ^o^ Just wait until you see my pictures of Munar! It was such a beautiful place. There were mountains covered in almost nothing but tea plantations. From the peak of a mountain I could look across the valley to the mountain side on my left and see tea plants all the way from the far peak down to the center of the valley and back up the mountain I was on. Then it continued down the side of the mountain to my right, across that valley and up and over that mountain as well. I was then shocked to learn that Munar isn’t one of the larger tea growing areas of India. To the north there are many places that dwarfed the operations in Munar. For a little information to compare the working conditions of this woman to the woman in the quarry, she worked 8 hours a day (compared to their 11). She made about $2 compared to their $1.50. Her labor was also much less intensive and it was about 15 degrees (8 degrees Celsius) cooler than in the quarry.
This guy (girl?) was to become my mount for a pleasant ten minute ride up a road and back. A few days later I read in a paper about how many elephants are horribly mistreated as their owners bring them from place to place for tourist rides without ever giving them a break. The article was written after an incident where an elephant collapsed and died of exhaustion the week before in another part of India. I don’t know how well this particular elephant was treated, but at least he was fed a bunch of bananas at the end of the trip by each tourist. None-the-less, after reading that article I don’t think I’ll ever take another elephant ride.
I love this picture, but its composition is entirely a fluke. I was waiting for the elephant ride when I saw this boy about a hundred yards up the road, running down hill rolling his tire with the stick. By the time I adjusted my camera’s settings (inadequately, I had to adjust the exposure in Aperture), and got the camera up, I only got this one shot as he was passing. That is why it is clipped on all sides, but I really like the way it turned out. About ten minutes later, while I was on the elephant’s back, I saw him walking back up the hill with his tire. Then as I got in the car to drive to our next stop he came running by again. He made me smile. I’d always heard about kids rolling hoops in the past as a game, but it was interesting to see it actually in practice.
From Munnar, I moved on to Fort Cochin.
The next portion is admittedly a very disproportionate showing of one night in India. Out of 50 pictures in this set the following 9 were taken over a three hour period. However, this set is called “Faces of India,” and these were certainly some of the most interesting faces I saw while there. I’m really, really happy and proud of how well these pictures turned out. I bet the guy in the front row with the ginormous digital camera didn’t get any better shots than I did (Although he likely got more full body shots, I had to shoot from about the knees up because he blocked the bottom of my frame). These pictures are of an art form called Kathakali. It is a form of dance that developed in Kerala and which groups are working hard to preserve. The dancers must train for six years before they are allowed to dance professionally. There are similar study times for the musicians and the singers.
The first three pictures show the performers preparing their makeup before the nights performance. It takes at least an hour to apply all the make up which is created naturally from plants and minerals. The white line beneath the green paint on the jaw of the young man in the first picture is a paste made from sticky rice. It will be used to attach a prosthetic, which you will see in the later pictures. I really like the way he looked into the camera as I shot this picture. I was using a tripod for these pictures. Flash photography was prohibited during the actual performance, but I didn’t want to use a flash at all. In the dark, the flash had to hurt their eyes. I carried around a full size tripod the entire time I was in India... and I was getting annoyed with myself for having done so, but this night made it entirely worth it. None of these pictures could have been taken without a tripod. The third picture of the man applying to blue paint to his face is interesting. He played a woman as women are not allowed to perform in Kathakali.
The next photo is of one of the actors demonstrating the meaning of different types of facial expressions, gestures, and movements as they were used in Kathakali. It was interesting, there are no articulated words in the art, so an entire language is expressed in their movements. The majority of the movements were fairly clear to all that watched, but an entire additional level of appreciation was there for people that knew the meanings behind the gestures. The Kathakali Center was a great place to first experience the art. It was designed to share the art with foreigners. They gave descriptions of many gestures in English (which is one of India’s seven official languages) and had a summary of the night’s performance available in, I believe, five languages. The sheet really helped me follow the performance. The performance we watched was only about 1 hour long, but it was only a single act from a much longer play. A full play would take at least 8 hours. In a lot of ways Kathakali reminded me of Japanese Noh and Kabuki (Elaborate make up and costumes, length of performance, and forbidden to women), but it was also completely distinct from them.
The next five pictures are from the performance itself. Those costumes must have been incredibly hot! There are a few things I’d like to point out in the following shots. First, you can see the disk that was attached to the face of the actor in the first shot above. Also note that his eyes are pink. They actually put a seed in each eye for three minutes to create the color. I’m not sure if it was caused by irritating the eye or if it served as a type of dye, but it really shows the lengths they go to for the performance. Also, take a look at the guy who was putting on the blue face paint above. He makes quite a convincing woman, doesn’t he.
The next four pictures were taken on a backwater cruise I took the following day. This was a better (if not perfect) representation of ecotourism. We loaded up in a long, beautiful boat (again ^_- wait for another set of pictures!), and pushed along by two men with poles. One in the front of the boat and the other in the back. I took this picture of a man just before seeing a sign that said, “No photography please”. I’m not sure what he was doing... and I’m sorry to have missed the sign, but it is a great picture!
We made a short stop at a place where women demonstrated how the fibers that wrap around coconutes (bottom right) can be woven into very strong twine. I was more concerned with trying to get a good shot of this woman who operated the wheel than much else.
Okay, this is the only picture in this set that doesn’t really feature the face of the subject. The rest of the pictures are at least close enough that the facial expression makes an important contribution to the picture’s composition. That isn’t really the case here, but I still like the picture a lot.
Yes, I know this picture is a little out of focus and significantly underexposed (I tried adjusting the exposure in Aperture, but found it just made the fact that it is out of focus much more apparent). I love cats, and I’m particularly fond of taking pictures of cats with heterochromatic eyes (though the chance doesn't often occur). This cat was afraid of me, but its scraggly little friend (a tuxedo) was very friendly. The two kittens lived around a hut on a little island where the backwater cruise stops for lunch. Two women made a really excellent meal for us. I was really surprised by how good the food was. I hadn’t expected much out of such a touristy program.
The last three pictures are on the beach at Fort Cochin. This girl was so photogenic. At first her mother (At least I believe it is her mother) was weary of having the foreigners take pictures of her children, but after Darlene (see below) and I started wandering around and taking pictures of other things, the adults not only allowed us to start taking pictures of their children, but also eagerly demonstrated their desire to be photographed themselves.
This is the woman that I believe is the young girl’s mother. For some reason, she clapped and hopped up and down a few times and then started walking towards her children. It made me smile to see the family enjoying themselves so much... =D and providing me such pleasant models.
The last two pictures are the only two of tourists. This is Darlene. I met her the day before on the backwater tour and then bumped into her again while wandering around Fort Cochin the next morning. Or rather she saw me. She called to me from the back of a rickshaw and we met for lunch before walking around to do some shopping and take some photos together. So this is a test to see if she actually follows up on the promise to look at my journal! Sorry its a little out of focus.
And finally!
This is the face of “Kevin in India” (as opposed to “Kevin in Japan”). Chronologically this picture takes place right after the boy rolling the tire above, but I decided to stick it at the end for two reasons. One, it sort of doesn’t fit with the the theme of the first 48 pictures... and two, because it is the only picture in the set that I didn’t take myself. Stay tuned for more pictures from India.
On our first full day in Bangalore we were brought to Backward Village (Yes, that is an unfortunate name.) to see the community we would be working in. We were surprised to see that a large number of the children were dressed in their best outfits and jewelry for the arrival of the Japanese Habitat for Humanity team. We were touched and honored by the gesture. I will share a lot more pictures of the village and groups of children in another set, but for now I’ll share my two favorite pictures of the day. The first is of this little girl enjoying her popsicle.
This is the second of my favorite pictures from the first day. When I took this picture, I thought it was a picture of a woman and her mother in the background. I thought it was a nice picture of two generations within a family. Well it is definitely two generations, but the women aren’t related. ^o^; That said, I still like the picture.
The next day we were scheduled to start building the house. Unfortunately, the day brought with it a family tragedy. During the night, the mother of one of the women we were helping build a house for, passed away. She had purchased the small plot of land the house was to be built on. In the morning we went to pay our respects and a few of the other JETs placed flower garlands on the sheet covering the deceased. After a few minutes we left the village.
Nirmala, our Habitat for Humanity host cooridinator, brought us to the Bangalore Bannerghatta Zoo. It was divided into a pretty standard style zoo and a bus safari section. The bus safari wasn’t through a true wilderness area. Instead we went through different sections (separated by double gates) which contained different types of animals. This picture was by far the best I took there, but don’t be too impressed, the Tiger was totally indifferent to the bus that was parked 15 feet away. So it was like shooting (a well framed) fish in a barrel.
On Tuesday we finally got started on the Habitat build. This picture is of one of the two cows that were often tied up near the granite block pile (you will see it below) near our primary build site. It was not a really dark area, but rather shows that I forgot to adjust the shutter speed when I left the direct sunlight. I could have digitally improved the exposure and actually did, but found the picture lost its punch when it didn’t show the head emerging from darkness. Note the flies covering the face and the rope through the nose.
This little girl was always close by... which is probably the reason she is the only one pictured twice in this set (Other than the Kathakali performers near the bottom of this set). She tried to help do things like carry empty concrete pans or fill empty pans with concrete. She got very angry when we prevented her from doing such things. She also called out “Kevin-uncle” or “Lizzie-aunty” each time one of us passed, which frayed the nerves of some of the volunteers. I tried to teach her to call me “Superman”, but after learning the phrase she instead gave the title to Jeff, much to my disappointment.
This man was one of the masons who helped place the granite blocks we carried for the foundation building (By the way, once you see other sets, some of the things I say in this one will make more sense). He is sitting on a pile of soil that was left from the excavation of the foundation trough, which was already completed before we arrived.
I know this picture is slightly out of focus, but I wanted to include a picture of this girl. She is the older sister of the girl pictured above. She was fantastic. Her English was remarkable and she did her best to keep her little sister out of our way as we worked.
This shows a woman cleaning clothing outside the front door of her house. This was a daily activity in the village. The women would bring a bucket of soapy water with the clothes soaking in it to the nearest large flat rock to their home and then scrub it without mercy. It was definitely hard on the clothes, but I’ve never seen cleaning so effective. It cost about $.20 to have a t-shirt washed by the hotel we stayed in and mine always came back spotless (others weren’t so lucky). By comparison, when I brought my clothes back to Japan and washed them two or three times in my washing machine, they still were covered in stains from the job site.
And here is our little monkey girl again. She is holding the handle of a broken water pump (also featured in a picture below) and leaning backwards. I find the picture very striking. *Laughs* ‘Monkey girl’ is surprisingly appropriate. She was actually bitten by a monkey (pictured below... that is the monkey is pictured... not the actual biting) later in the week, which lead to the infamous 'Tom rabies scare of 2007'!
This is my only picture of a large group of people in this set. I was actually trying to get a picture of the game the boys were playing. They were jumping over the kid that is on his hands and knees to the left. He gradually raised himself higher and higher. It was kind of like limbo in reverse. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to be the bar. I say I was trying to take a picture of the game, because I failed to do so. Literally within 10 seconds of appearing over the outside wall of the school grounds with a camera, I had dozens of kids sprinting towards me to be included in the pictures.
Here is a small portion of the rock pile mentioned above. The cows were about five yards to the man’s right. He was breaking the irregular granite pieces into smaller sizes that could be used to fill in the gaps between the larger, more regularly shaped blocks. I like the composition of this shot.
This man was on a scaffolding within one of the houses we helped with. This house was almost finished. The main work here was to plaster the walls and lay a concrete floor, but first there was a room full of sand that had to be removed and sifted for use in making the plaster. I actually didn’t have a chance to help with this house. After the first few days he decided that it was easier to mix the plaster himself since he could adjust the texture from batch and he didn’t allow the ALTs to do any of the actual plastering. So they were sent to work on the two foundation projects.
Here is another picture at the broken pump seen above. This girls hair was really beautiful. I was amazed at how shiny some of the women’s hair was in India. The school rules required all the girls to put up their hair like this. I believe the boy in the background is her brother, but I’m not sure.
This woman with her child lived in the house just in front of where we were building the foundation of the second house (on the land purchased by the mother that passed away). She was feeding the boy lunch when I asked her if I could take her picture. In India almost all food is eaten with the right hand (the left is considered dirty). I found it really challenging. It is one thing to eat dry food with your hand, but the main foods of India are a variety of curries. I found the learning curve to be rather messy.
I know this picture is sadly out of focus. However, I wanted to share it anyway. This man had a cart filled with fruits and vegetables that he rolled through the village each day. He would stop in front of each house and ring a bell or call inside for the woman of the house to come out and purchase her fruits and vegetables. He used this handheld scale to price the fruit. One of the best things about working in the village each day was getting to see small aspects of village life like this one.
This picture was also taken in the village. In the tree over the granite block pile to be exact. There were four monkeys up in this tree just before we left for the day. The next morning we came back and found that one of these monkeys had bit the little girl mentioned earlier. Apparently, two of the monkeys were fighting and she threw a rock to break them up... one of them didn’t take kindly to the interference and the girl ended up having to get a shot because of it.
This woman was working in the stone quarry we visited one afternoon. I’ll have an entire journal entry dedicated to the situations in the quarry. Here I’ll just say that she (and everyone else in the quarry) worked for about 11 hours a day, 6 days a week and made about $1.40 for all that backbreaking labor. I really find this picture very powerful. Her expression, the sledgehammer in her hand, and the way she stands out so vividly against the monochromatic background all contribute to create its impact.
^o^ This is a much more light hearted picture. This man was the main chef at the hotel we stayed in in Bangalore. I asked all the kitchen crew for a picture and then the chef asked me to take a picture of just him. Then he motioned for me to wait and ran back into the kitchen and reemerged with his chef hat. After this picture he removed it with a flourish that knocked a tea cup off the table and shattered it.
One afternoon we finished at the village early so that we could head into Bangalore and do some souvenir shopping for those that were leaving immediately after the build. We went to the commercial district. It seemed to be set up at least as much for Indian shoppers as for tourists which set it apart from most of the places I went shopping. On the street side were a number of various venders. This woman was fanning corn sitting on charcoal to toast it. To the far left of the frame you can see a stall set up primarily for tourists. He was selling best selling paperbacks to anyone who needed some reading material. It was interesting to see these people. I saw the book venders everywhere I traveled and they all had pretty much the same collection of books including all the Harry Potter books, The DaVinci Code, Lonely Planet guides, etc.
Here is another vender in the same area. I believe those are banana chips piled high in the center of his tray, but I’m not sure.
This officer was standing in the doorway of a building in the commercial district. I didn’t ask if I could take his picture, which was very rude. In fact, one of the other ALTs grabbed my arm and told me not to take the picture, but I really wanted it!
On Sunday we went to Mysore, a popular tourist destination near Bangalore for some sight seeing. The second place we visited was the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary. It was the most impressive place I’ve ever seen for bird watching. We paid for a rowboat ride around a small lake with many islands of nesting birds. The first picture is of a Eurasian Spoonbill (Platelea leucorodia. The next is a perched Painted Stork (Mycteria leucocephala), followed by an Asian Open-billed Sork (Anastomus oscitans) and another Painted Stork in flight with a twig for its nest (All names are courtesy of "Riverine Wilderness A field guide to Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary". It was one of the better souveneirs I bout in India!). I really could have spent an entire day at just this one place.
Another stop on our Mysore tour was The Nandi bull statue. Nandi was a bull that lord Shiva rode. This picture doesn’t have anyone next to it for scale, but if I remember correctly the kneeling bull was about five meters tall and 12 meters long. I may have more pictures of it if I have time to make a “Mysore” journal entry.
We made a chain of 100 paper cranes to give to the family that was moving into the house we dedicated on our last day. While we were making them, we taught a few children how to fold them. This boy is proudly posing with a crane he folded himself.
After asking this woman if I could take her picture and then doing so, I showed it to her. She was very embarrassed by it, but at the same time flattered. After she looked at the preview on the back of my camera she covered her face with her hands and said something to me I couldn’t understand, but at the same time she was smiling.
This picture is from the ceremony for the house dedication on the last day. The house wasn’t quite finished. The interior plaster was finished the day before and the concrete floor was laid that day. As we were having the dedication ceremony the man pictured above was finishing up the exterior plaster work. However they wanted to have the dedication before we left. This girl performed a traditional dance on plastic sheets spread in front of us. I’m really glad this picture came out so well.
The rest of the pictures were taken as I traveled around Kerala on my own. The first day I went to Thekkady, which is known for its wonderful wildlife. I saw this little monkey (along with the rest of its family) at Periyar Tiger reserve. The park was really disappointing to me. It was famous for wildlife viewing, but they had no concept at all of ecotourism. While I was waiting to board the boat for a 2 hour wildlife viewing cruise a park ranger, of all people, brought out a plate of food and gave it to the family of monkeys. A monkey tried to steal my food in the little snack stand, but I yelled and flung my arms up to scare it away. It is the behavior of people like the park ranger that makes that necessary. On the cruise people were talking and throwing orange peels and food scraps off the side of the boat. I saw some plastic bottles floating in the lake, but didn’t see anyone throw any plastic into the lake from my boat. It really bothered me. Ecotourism is growing hugely in India and I really hope they learn the real meaning of the term and put a stop to the behavior I saw that day.
This woman was picking tea in Munar, the next stop in my wirlwind Kerala tour. ^o^ Just wait until you see my pictures of Munar! It was such a beautiful place. There were mountains covered in almost nothing but tea plantations. From the peak of a mountain I could look across the valley to the mountain side on my left and see tea plants all the way from the far peak down to the center of the valley and back up the mountain I was on. Then it continued down the side of the mountain to my right, across that valley and up and over that mountain as well. I was then shocked to learn that Munar isn’t one of the larger tea growing areas of India. To the north there are many places that dwarfed the operations in Munar. For a little information to compare the working conditions of this woman to the woman in the quarry, she worked 8 hours a day (compared to their 11). She made about $2 compared to their $1.50. Her labor was also much less intensive and it was about 15 degrees (8 degrees Celsius) cooler than in the quarry.
This guy (girl?) was to become my mount for a pleasant ten minute ride up a road and back. A few days later I read in a paper about how many elephants are horribly mistreated as their owners bring them from place to place for tourist rides without ever giving them a break. The article was written after an incident where an elephant collapsed and died of exhaustion the week before in another part of India. I don’t know how well this particular elephant was treated, but at least he was fed a bunch of bananas at the end of the trip by each tourist. None-the-less, after reading that article I don’t think I’ll ever take another elephant ride.
I love this picture, but its composition is entirely a fluke. I was waiting for the elephant ride when I saw this boy about a hundred yards up the road, running down hill rolling his tire with the stick. By the time I adjusted my camera’s settings (inadequately, I had to adjust the exposure in Aperture), and got the camera up, I only got this one shot as he was passing. That is why it is clipped on all sides, but I really like the way it turned out. About ten minutes later, while I was on the elephant’s back, I saw him walking back up the hill with his tire. Then as I got in the car to drive to our next stop he came running by again. He made me smile. I’d always heard about kids rolling hoops in the past as a game, but it was interesting to see it actually in practice.
From Munnar, I moved on to Fort Cochin.
The next portion is admittedly a very disproportionate showing of one night in India. Out of 50 pictures in this set the following 9 were taken over a three hour period. However, this set is called “Faces of India,” and these were certainly some of the most interesting faces I saw while there. I’m really, really happy and proud of how well these pictures turned out. I bet the guy in the front row with the ginormous digital camera didn’t get any better shots than I did (Although he likely got more full body shots, I had to shoot from about the knees up because he blocked the bottom of my frame). These pictures are of an art form called Kathakali. It is a form of dance that developed in Kerala and which groups are working hard to preserve. The dancers must train for six years before they are allowed to dance professionally. There are similar study times for the musicians and the singers.
The first three pictures show the performers preparing their makeup before the nights performance. It takes at least an hour to apply all the make up which is created naturally from plants and minerals. The white line beneath the green paint on the jaw of the young man in the first picture is a paste made from sticky rice. It will be used to attach a prosthetic, which you will see in the later pictures. I really like the way he looked into the camera as I shot this picture. I was using a tripod for these pictures. Flash photography was prohibited during the actual performance, but I didn’t want to use a flash at all. In the dark, the flash had to hurt their eyes. I carried around a full size tripod the entire time I was in India... and I was getting annoyed with myself for having done so, but this night made it entirely worth it. None of these pictures could have been taken without a tripod. The third picture of the man applying to blue paint to his face is interesting. He played a woman as women are not allowed to perform in Kathakali.
The next photo is of one of the actors demonstrating the meaning of different types of facial expressions, gestures, and movements as they were used in Kathakali. It was interesting, there are no articulated words in the art, so an entire language is expressed in their movements. The majority of the movements were fairly clear to all that watched, but an entire additional level of appreciation was there for people that knew the meanings behind the gestures. The Kathakali Center was a great place to first experience the art. It was designed to share the art with foreigners. They gave descriptions of many gestures in English (which is one of India’s seven official languages) and had a summary of the night’s performance available in, I believe, five languages. The sheet really helped me follow the performance. The performance we watched was only about 1 hour long, but it was only a single act from a much longer play. A full play would take at least 8 hours. In a lot of ways Kathakali reminded me of Japanese Noh and Kabuki (Elaborate make up and costumes, length of performance, and forbidden to women), but it was also completely distinct from them.
The next five pictures are from the performance itself. Those costumes must have been incredibly hot! There are a few things I’d like to point out in the following shots. First, you can see the disk that was attached to the face of the actor in the first shot above. Also note that his eyes are pink. They actually put a seed in each eye for three minutes to create the color. I’m not sure if it was caused by irritating the eye or if it served as a type of dye, but it really shows the lengths they go to for the performance. Also, take a look at the guy who was putting on the blue face paint above. He makes quite a convincing woman, doesn’t he.
The next four pictures were taken on a backwater cruise I took the following day. This was a better (if not perfect) representation of ecotourism. We loaded up in a long, beautiful boat (again ^_- wait for another set of pictures!), and pushed along by two men with poles. One in the front of the boat and the other in the back. I took this picture of a man just before seeing a sign that said, “No photography please”. I’m not sure what he was doing... and I’m sorry to have missed the sign, but it is a great picture!
We made a short stop at a place where women demonstrated how the fibers that wrap around coconutes (bottom right) can be woven into very strong twine. I was more concerned with trying to get a good shot of this woman who operated the wheel than much else.
Okay, this is the only picture in this set that doesn’t really feature the face of the subject. The rest of the pictures are at least close enough that the facial expression makes an important contribution to the picture’s composition. That isn’t really the case here, but I still like the picture a lot.
Yes, I know this picture is a little out of focus and significantly underexposed (I tried adjusting the exposure in Aperture, but found it just made the fact that it is out of focus much more apparent). I love cats, and I’m particularly fond of taking pictures of cats with heterochromatic eyes (though the chance doesn't often occur). This cat was afraid of me, but its scraggly little friend (a tuxedo) was very friendly. The two kittens lived around a hut on a little island where the backwater cruise stops for lunch. Two women made a really excellent meal for us. I was really surprised by how good the food was. I hadn’t expected much out of such a touristy program.
The last three pictures are on the beach at Fort Cochin. This girl was so photogenic. At first her mother (At least I believe it is her mother) was weary of having the foreigners take pictures of her children, but after Darlene (see below) and I started wandering around and taking pictures of other things, the adults not only allowed us to start taking pictures of their children, but also eagerly demonstrated their desire to be photographed themselves.
This is the woman that I believe is the young girl’s mother. For some reason, she clapped and hopped up and down a few times and then started walking towards her children. It made me smile to see the family enjoying themselves so much... =D and providing me such pleasant models.
The last two pictures are the only two of tourists. This is Darlene. I met her the day before on the backwater tour and then bumped into her again while wandering around Fort Cochin the next morning. Or rather she saw me. She called to me from the back of a rickshaw and we met for lunch before walking around to do some shopping and take some photos together. So this is a test to see if she actually follows up on the promise to look at my journal! Sorry its a little out of focus.
And finally!
This is the face of “Kevin in India” (as opposed to “Kevin in Japan”). Chronologically this picture takes place right after the boy rolling the tire above, but I decided to stick it at the end for two reasons. One, it sort of doesn’t fit with the the theme of the first 48 pictures... and two, because it is the only picture in the set that I didn’t take myself. Stay tuned for more pictures from India.