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In January I went on a photo trip with award winning street and travel photographer (of Cardiff After Dark fame).

My usual bag is shooting interiors, portraits, weddings and general corporate and marketing stuff, not travel and street photography. So this photo trip was 100% a learning experience for me. I went into it not really knowing what kind of photos I wanted to produce, but by the end I realised that what I really love is shooting places, spaces and people – lucky, as this is what I already focus on.

So, I’ll start blogging photos from the Gujarat trip over the next few weeks, but here’s a sample of three totally unrelated images for now.

This was one of my first shots on the photo trip that I liked, I think on day two. I really liked all the horizontal lines here and the different element in the foreground and background. The trader also posed well. Also, the guy next to him looks a bit like a cooler, slimmer, Gujarati version of Anthony Worrel Thomson, don’t you think?

A nice clean image, taken towards the end of the trip on the little island of Diu. Shot with a 35mm, I wish I’d also had something wider with me to get more of the blue sky and coloured flags in. But it’s ok like this I think.

This was the last place I shot on the trip, on the ironically named Relief Road in Ahmedabad, a city of 6 million people – the largest in Gujarat. I waited as long as I could manage in the mad crowds, trying to avoid getting run over, but this was the best moment without too many auto rickshaws filling the foreground, while having a point of focus in the form of the guy in the light blue shirt. I was gutted, though, that it this point, the crowds on the stairs and walkways in the background suddenly dropped off. One of the main things I learned from Maciej about street photography is that you have to be patient, wait and make photos happen. I’ll be looking for scenes like this when I visit Mumbai next month, and I’ll stick around for as long as it takes… You can also see a black and white version of this photo on my flickr.

I’ve posted a few other shots on my flickr, so do have a look.

Pushkar wasn’t my favourite place. I’m not one of those people who condemns all popular tourist spots for being terrible because they are touristy. However, Pushkar, during the camel festival – which we didn’t realise was happening – was noxiously crowded, scam filled and *ahem* touristy.


Nevertheless, the lake was very pretty. As I wandered around at sunset, the light sky very quickly went from red to blue. So here’s a few postcard type shots, and I’ll share some camel photos soon (it was a strange spectacle…).

Rishikesh is a town in the lower Himilayas, Uttarakhand state, about six hours from Delhi. It’s known as the yoga capital of the world – there’s apparently over 900 teachers there (of varying quality). It’s full of domestic tourists, backpackers heading between Himichal Pradesh and Varansi, yoga students and spiritual types.

I really liked it for the fresh air, greenery, space, and relative cleanliness – you can even swim in the water. Everywhere else I’ve been is so polluted and crowded in comparison.

It is also home to the abandoned, overgrown “Beatles Ashram”, which will feature in my next post.

Apparently there are a lot of fires on Diwali night across India. This makes sense.

Despite our British sense of health and safety we did get slightly involved a the festival of lights couple of weeks ago, as Biresh, our kind host, had some fireworks for us. We fired a couple from the roof and then went out onto the street, where local kids were running around with also sorts of bright, loud, exploding things.

Later we went into Delhi and the fireworks were still deafaning after midnight, despite the local authorities deeming fireworks after 10pm unlawful.

A fitting intro to India

Click the images to see larger size.

Hello.

I’ve nearly got my webiste sorted, so I’m looking forward to posting some blogs very soon.

I’m away in India at the moment (back June 2012), so I’ll mostly be sharing images from my travels here. But I’ll also do some back dated posts with image from interior shoots and other things I did, beyond what you’ll find in the galleries.

More soon…