Portraits – Chasing the Light

Travel Teaches Tolerance” Benjamin Disraeli

Smile….. put your hands together, and say Namaste. That’s all you need to do to be welcomed and feel welcomed in Nepal. It’s a country of incredible physical and geological contrasts but the one constant is the earnest friendliness of it’s people. As a cultural and travel photographer I’m always looking for that one special person or face which reflects a life well lived, an inner peace, an acquaintance with life’s vicissitudes or reflects the unique traditions of a place.

These are some of Nepal’s most interesting people.

Morning tea is a traditional rite in Nepal. Vendors will set up a hot plate and set out a half dozen milk crates and begin their morning business. These fellows don’t know each other but are participating in the ritual together.

I was able to photograph a number Hindu Holy Men, mostly around Kathmandu. As you can see this fellow gave me a routine OK sign. Nothing terribly inventive or revealing but he’s got a look with the hair and orange beard that appealed to me.

These boys are Mahouts who normally have a single elephant they care for. I took this photograph in Chitwan National Forest and these young men are bringing in a crop of grass they have just cut in the forest. The grass will be used to feed the elephants. You can’t quite see it here but the lead Mahout was reading an iphone as he ambled along.

Kumari, or Kumari Devi is the tradition of worshiping young prepubescent girls as manifestations of the divine female energy or devi in Hindu and Buddhist religious traditions. The word Kumari is derived from the Sanskrit Kaumarya, meaning “Young”.

In Nepal, a Kumari is a prepubescent girl selected from the Shakya caste or Bajracharya clan of the Nepalese Newari Buddhist community. The Kumari is revered and worshiped by some of the country’s Hindus. (Wikopedia)

This young girl is 8 years old, lives in a secluded fashion with several adult helpers, and will retain her title and lifestyle until she menstruates. She will then be considered unclean and unworthy of worship and will be returned to her parents. There are obviously lots of questions and commentary that could be (and are being) asked and made regarding this tradition.

I love this photograph. And it speaks to the power of observation while moving in space. I was returning from a cultural celebration and was shoulder to shoulder in the street and barely able to lift my arms and all of sudden I looked to the right and saw this guy slumping against the pole. I struggled to raise my camera and get this one shot off as I was pushed along by the crowd. And as luck would have it he looked right at me as I pressed the shutter.

I’m proud to say this photograph was chosen to be displayed in a juried competition at the Plymouth Center for the Arts. This Holy Man is a much photographed figure and it’s not hard to discern why. He’s in his mid 80’s, hasn’t had a haircut in 50 years and has a great face.

I was privileged to visit an Assisted Living Facility in Kathmandu. Having a Mom who resided in a U.S. based Assisted Living Facility I found amazing similarties between them. These women had just received a Tikka (red dot on their forehead) from a Hindu priest visiting the facility.

This lovely woman graciously agreed to let me take her photograph and although neither of us spoke a common language, we managed to communicate beautifully. She really enjoyed seeing her image in my LCD.

I spent some time with this woman who was toiling in her small open workspace when I came upon her. She was busy sewing and immersed in her purse production when she noticed me asking to photograph her. At first she nodded no. I saw a group of people coming down her small alleyway and told her should come out and try to sell a few purses. She did and sold quite a few…I bought a couple for Christmas presents.

I don’t need to say anything about this image. It’s too cute and speaks for itself.

These Chrysanthemums are iconic and she is selling them to customers who use them to decorate their homes, cars, motorcycles or other possessions they want to give thanks for in the country’s Dashain festival.

Hindus believe cremation on the banks of the Ganges River frees the soul from the cycle of death and rebirth and spreading the departed’s ashes in the river will allow their soul to finally achieve nirvana.

This image of the final rites being given to a dear one is at the Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu. Shortly after the body was cremated the ashes were spread onto the river which runs into the Ganges downstream.

As with many of people I photographed on this trip, this woman could not have been more gracious in letting me take a few minutes of her time. I was taken with the beauty of her daughter and I believe the image shows the inner beauty of both of them.

I’d be remiss in these Nepal posts if I didn’t thank Nathan Horton and Bipin Tiwari for their help and guidance which allowed me to focus my creative abilities in the right places at the right times. I’m indebted to them.

Thank you for reading my latest blog entry. If you thought it was worthy of your time and you hadn’t already done so, please take the opportunity to subscribe by clicking the “Follow” button in the middle of the right side of this page. You will receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription. Also, you can share this blog entry on your Facebook page by clicking the share button below or you can email it to folks by clicking on the “Email” button.

Frank Binder

“In religion, India is the only millionaire….The one land that all men desire to see and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for all the shows of all the rest of the globe combined.” Mark Twain

From the jungles to the Himalayas India boasts such geographic diversity. The Thar Desert is in the north/north-western section of the country….not so far from the Pakistani border. Not as large as its African desert counterparts, but still steeped in the soulfulness that large desert expanses present, it is a playground for young Indians who delight in getting into 4-wheel vehicles and careening up and down the dunes to loud pulsating music. But somehow after the day is done and the jeeps return to their overnight stations, the quiet returns and camels and their drivers can enjoy the solitude.

These jockeys differentiate themselves sartorially from their brethren at Churchill Downs or Pimlico….but they are just as skilled. We witnessed several heats of camel racing and I can tell you the rides are hair-raising!

Nagaur, one of Rajasthan’s most charming desert towns, comes alive during the Nagaur Cattle Fair. Held in February, the Fair is one of the biggest events on the desert calendar and attracts people from rural communities all over the region. Although a quieter and more local event the famous Pushkar Fair, it attracts more participants and livestock than it’s more prominent cousin.

The Fair is a delight for photographers. Everywhere you turn there are striking looking owners sprucing up their camels with haircuts, jewelry and colorful adornment.

No part of the camel is left unadorned……as is demonstrated by this handsome rear end.

Mornings come early at the Fair. Participants and campers arise before dawn to light their campfires and make their morning tea. And even though the daytime temperatures can be quite warm, the mornings are cool and it’s always nice to warm your hands by the fire.

This guy would be a stern Father!

This owner was selling two camels and having no luck attracting buyers, but seemed of good spirits anyway.

He’s got quite the look!

Frank Binder

Shrewsbury, MA

“When I first visited India, I was stunned by its ability to overload the senses with the pure, concentrated intensity of its colors, smells, tastes, and sounds… I had been seeing the world in black & white and, when brought face-to-face with India, experienced everything re-rendered in brilliant Technicolor.” (Keith Bellows; National Geographic Society)

I made my first photographic visit to Rajasthan earlier this year and Keith Bellows’ quote above says it all. It’s a sensation a minute….women in bright saris, men with long beards and lined faces, colorful turbans, cattle roaming freely (and depositing freely!), camel herders, street urchins, Sadhus, snake charmers, local markets, massive cities, quaint villages, scooters, tuk-tuks, street vendors…..and the list goes on and on.

Sometimes I felt I was walking around inside a Van Gogh painting….splashes of color were everywhere. These two windows on this large wall were painted green and then surrounded by an outline of blue with the remainder of the wall left unpainted. Did they run out of blue?

Chasing the Light-9 — Need some Cauliflower?

Not sure why….but I was surprised by the variety and voluminous offerings of vegetables in local markets. Meat based meals were a much larger part of local diets than I anticipated but vegetables were still central to much of Indian cuisine. 30% of Indians are vegetarians with the remaining 70% consuming fish or meat as a normal part of their everyday diet.

We came across this man smoking a cigarette while he was waiting for a local bus. He noticed us raising our cameras towards him and was eager to be photographed. He smoked continuously while we all intensely snapped away trying to get the smoke “just right”.

Everything works here…..the background is sufficiently blurred, the colors pop because of the foggy soft light and the smoke adds a lot of character to the portrait.

As a developing country, India’s level of sophistication in many infrastructure arenas is wildly eclectic. In some places you’ll find the latest in computerized transportation technology and in others a way station or midpoint on the way. This man is loading his cargo from a donkey cart to a bus and somehow the juxtaposition of using a transportation mode that is at least 2,000 years old in conjunction with a modern motor vehicle informs much about India’s developing economy.

On a wandering around visit to a small village, this man invited us to his home for some tea and some Indian hospitality. This is really the raison d’être for travel. It’s always thrilling to see legendary landmarks wherever you go but connecting on a person to person basis changes your relationship to the country and its people and allows you to rise above all of the formal government to government folderol.

These kids were in the same village and it’s a common tale among photographers that if you walk down the street with a camera in a developing foreign land you will soon be followed by children wanting their photo taken. One of my favorite gimmicks is to get them all to jump up at the same time which releases any inhibitions they may have and I am able to capture a “true” moment. And of course you always get the one kid who can’t follow directions! The payoff comes when you show them the LCD image in back of the camera and they break out giggling.

I enjoy wandering around the streets or back alleys of new places and waiting for a scene, a person or moment that captures the essence of the place I’m visiting. It’s almost the opposite of a normal tourist experience where one wanders around appreciating the “big picture” and the entire landscape; where one looks for an integrated experience with a new place. I’m usually focusing on something smaller and narrower…details and scenes within the scene.

This woman was with a few friends getting into a local Tuk-Tuk. Her friends were unremarkable but she had an exotic interesting look and when she stared right back at me I snapped the shutter.

Indian cities and towns are filled with local shopkeepers and craftsmen who offer their goods and services in open air shops and small cubbies. This fellow was sharpening knives for his customers.

These ladies were available to apply a traditional Indian skin tattoo practice for their customers. It’s actually probably not a tattoo but more of a skin painting technique.

Looking closely, this clothes line contains both traditional Indian saris and shawls plus jeans and other clothing familiar to all western developed countries.

This fellow is a greeter at a local hotel and I persuaded him to pose in this scene which needed some local color.

Frank Binder

Shrewsbury, MA

Ethiopia is such a remarkable country….a land of astonishing physical beauty, the only place on Earth with the spectacular Gelada baboon, a country where our earliest ancestors roamed, a place with ties to King Solomon and events in the Old Testament, and home to some of the most colorful ancient tribes on Earth.

Lucy, one of our earliest hominid ancestors, was discovered in 1974 in northeastern Ethiopia by paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson. Named after the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” Lucy was dated to be 3.2 million years old (that’s a lot of candles on her birthday!), stood about 3 1/2 ft. tall and weighed about 65 pounds. Subsequently other older ancestors dating back almost 7 million years have been found in Ethiopia but none is as renowned as Lucy.

In the country’s Omo valley, indigenous tribes have been painting their bodies with pulverized minerals for millenia. In the Lower Omo Valley of southwest Ethiopia, eastern South Sudan and around Lake Turkana in north Kenya reside over 500,000 indigenous, tribal people. Many are agro-pastoralists who live close to the river or lake during the dry season but return to the grasslands when the rains come. The young men have the responsibility of grazing the cattle and they have long slathered on clay to prevent sunburn. Colors are used to designate position, for ritual, to ward off illness, to attract the opposite sex, to associate with family, a tribe or an animal, and in the last ten years… to impress tourists and attract photographers.

Photographers have been coming to the Omo to be able to capture portrait images like this one. She is the wife of a young man who acted as my guide during our visit to this village.

This is a natural light image. I placed her just inside the entrance to their abode and let the outside light softly light her face. I concentrated on ensuring that her closest eye was in perfect focus.

A few other helpful portrait hints….Keep the background simple and neutral. And side lighting (rather than direct head on lighting) gives a portrait more drama and character.

This mother is rocking a traditional look for women in her village. Her leather garments, snail-shell necklace and braided hair treated with local ochre colored mud are the hallmarks of the her Hamer heritage.

These girls and women in a remote Dassanech village are working hard grinding their local grain into flour.

This young boy getting a bath illustrates the water challenges of the village and of the region in general. Obtaining water is one of the major daily activities undertaken by women in Africa. This woman likely carried a twenty gallon container of water from the local river ( a 1/2 mile away) to her home. And most likely did it by balancing the container on her head! Her use of the water bottle to bathe her child is simply a judicious way of using the water that she worked so hard to obtain.

In some respects women are the pack mules of their families. This woman is returning to her village from the local town with her purchases of straw and other sundry items. I personally witnessed her walk 1 1/2 miles to this point and followed her with my eyes as she seemed to walk into infinity on this road. She wasn’t pleased that I took this photograph.

A face that's been lived in — A face that’s been lived in

In our journey through Ethiopia, we overnighted in a small town and my colleague Dave and I decided to amble through the downtown area to see if we could stumble into anything interesting. We came across a small coffee cafe (Ethiopia is one of the coffee capitals of the world) and this fellow enjoying an afternoon cup of Joe. He was gracious enough to allow me to photograph him. It’s one of my favorite portraits from my trip. I love everything about this portrait….from the jaunty way his hat balances on his head to his character lined face.

Taken only a few minutes after the portrait above. As we wandered through town we eventually collected 25-30 children who followed us in our little photographic sojourn. We loved taking photos of them as they were so excited when we showed them the LCD images on the back of our cameras.

I was able to gather these five for a group portrait. Notice the facial expressions and reactions to being photographed. The two girls on the left (sisters) were very cool and collected, the young girl and boy in the middle are excited and the young girl on the right is nonplussed.

Such an incredibly photogenic set of subjects! The Omo Valley and it’s traditional and colorful set of tribes is a photographers delight. But the traditions and very existence of the ways of life are under stress for a variety of reasons. There are economic development water projects that threaten the downstream lifeblood flow of the Omo River, a growing tourist activity that threatens to overwhelm and change the local ways, and finally the normal march of progress that improves people’s lives.

Finally one last portrait. Notice the piece taken out of his upper ear…..most likely the result of a coming of age ceremony as a young man.

Frank

Shrewsbury, MA

During my recent photographic journey to Ethiopia (with intrepid African Photographer Piper McKay), our small band of photographers climbed into Simien National Park which contains Ethiopia’s highest peak, Ras Dejen at 15,000 ft. Over millions of years the area’s plateaus have eroded to form precipitous cliffs and deep gorges of exceptional natural beauty. While we appreciated the spectacular surroundings, we were there to photograph some of the park’s most famous residents, Gelada baboons. And I couldn’t have been more excited….after all how often do you see Italian ice cream loving baboons?

The identifying mark of these wonderful animals is a red heart on their chests which cause some to call them “bleeding heart monkeys”. They are actually monkeys in genus…the last surviving branch of the Gelada ancestral tree.

Geladas spend much of their morning grooming each other to make sure that they are looking good as they venture out onto the grasslands to feed. Here a female grooms a sister Gelada as a little one is sheltered.

Gelada are herbivores but have very large predator like teeth and can look fierce when they draw back their lips and show off their bicuspids.

untitled-5 — Just back from getting my hair done!

We saw several large troupes of Geladas each day with each group being at least one hundred animals. To protect themselves from predators, Geladas spend their nights perched on steep cliffsides and emerge at dawn each morning as they make their way up and over cliff rims to spend the day socializing and feeding.

Each troupe featured large numbers of youngsters from newborns to teenage equivalents. The babies often travel on Mom’s back and resemble jockies riding in a race.

If you remain still and unthreatening the Geladas will become comfortable with your presence. This duo was within 6 ft. as they passed by.

The troupe would move over large distances during the day in search of pristine grasses. I found a favorite photographic tactic which was to plant myself on the ground in the direction the troupe was heading and wait for them to arrive. Soon I was surrounded by animals who completely ignored me as I furiously snapped my shutter.

Mothers keep their newborns very close and are wary. I found that if I was quiet and moved slowly I could get quite close to this pair and spent 10-15 minutes photographing them after they came to ignore me.

These two young boys followed us one day in hopes of selling their portrait to us. I couldn’t resist. Those blankets weren’t for show…it was cold at 10,000 ft!

Frank

Shrewsbury, MA

A few weeks ago I attended a lighting class in New York City sponsored by Nikon and Popular Photography magazine. Over the years I gained lots of experience shooting landscape and wildlife images, but had virtually no experience using speedlights or other lighting mechanisms in producing images. The class was led by three world-class photographers whose names I had seen many times in the photo magazines so I expected I would learn something useful, but past that I had no idea what to expect.

It turns out that the class consisted of photographing models from one of the worlds most prestigious modeling agencies, Elite Model Management who provided some of the most beautiful/handsome women and men in New York City

Like many folks, I suppose, I carried firmly embedded stereotypes on the personalities and lives of Hi-Fashion models. And it turns out some were dead on and others not so much. For the most part the women were all impossibly trim, tall and well….beautiful.

Notice the backlighting on Richelle’s hair which is caused by a speedlight directly in back of her.

This was taken at Roosevelt Island in the middle of the East River with the NYC skyline in the background. Our teachers were very good and amazed us with how much equipment they carried with them on a professional shoot. Each of them had a very large trunk filled with an enormous amount of lighting equipment.

Surprisingly, many of the models were either Russian or from one of the USSR’s former satellite countries. Rasul was born in Tajikistan.

Most of the models have dual career tracks…modeling and trying to break into the acting profession through acting schools and their modeling activities. Two weeks after I photographed Andy, I saw him on Comedy Central’s Daily Show as a fake “regular citizen” in a skit.

Rasul is taking acting classes and was cast in the next Spiderman movie. In the film, which is being released early 2014, he plays one of Peter Parkers classmates. He proudly told me it was a speaking part!

While looking straight up at her, I suppressed my desire to ask Key if she had ever played basketball. Looking very striking, she strolled into the shoot wearing 3″ heels which put her at about 6′ 5″ tall. This was shot in a very trendy club and we asked her to emulate a blues singer ala Sara Vaughn.

The models who had previous experience working with still photographers separated themselves from the others quickly. With portrait photography being a new experience for most of us, we welcomed the subjects who were able to strike an endless number of poses and attitudes without us giving them specific instructions.

The inexperienced models waited for us to provide posing instructions which most of us were incapable of doing in any meaningful way, which led to some really inept and bumbling moments between photographer and subject.

Richelle was among the most accomplished models. She could switch from giggly schoolgirl mode to vampy vixen mode instantaneously with 25 striking poses for each character. Seeing the fluidity with which good models can move in and out of character was remarkable and I developed a healthy respect for their skills.

Thank you for reading my latest blog entry. If you thought it was worthy of your time and you hadn’t already done so, please take the opportunity to subscribe by clicking the “Follow” button on the right side of the page. You will receive an email asking you to confirm your subscription. Also, you can share this blog entry on your Facebook page by clicking the share button below or you can email it to folks by clicking on the “Email” button.

Frank

Shrewsbury, MA

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