The Village

It was like walking in a David Bowie song. The foot fell onto powder, a soft cushion that give way and sent a cloud of moon dust into the air. This was the path to Dana's village. I've never walked on anything like it.

Dana led me back to his village, well I would say hamlet. The village is Brirendiaya but 'village' is a loose term. It clovers 7 KMs and consists of many hamlets. Dana's hamlet had about 10-12 houses or Bhungas (round houses).

Dana is the village pop star. He has just come back from Indonesia. He plays the wash board but that's his English. He plays a drum that uses goat skin over a medium sized pot and a wash board. It doesn't seem much but it sounds great, especially in a round house.















This is Dana's season and he's playing a concert most nights. In April he'll go to America.

Father and Son













Arjun (above) is Dana's brother but I don't think this is in the literal sense. They don't have the same mum for starters. Arjun works with camel leather and fashions wallets, shoes, mirrors and accessories for the house.

Communial cooking. For villagers and visiters. For a mere 25 ruppees (20p UK or 40 cents US) you get a spicy vegetable curry and as many chapatis as you want.












House












Stand strong girl! Some kids from the village















The head of the village.

White Balance; an area to work on

I'm fairly new to digital photography. I got my Canon EOS 400D about six months ago and I have learnt loads since then. Evidently, I have loads more to learn as well.

White Balance is the issue I most need to address.

White Balance (WB) - the camera uses a 'recording' for white to work out the reproduction of colours. If the white is recorded right then the reproduction of the colours will be accurate (for a camera). But the 'recording' of white changes all the time due to 'colour temperature' and therefore white balance changes all the time.

Many of mine photos have been affected by either using Auto White Balance (ABW) when a preset or custom setting for WB would have been better or using the preset 'sunny', 'cloudy', 'tunsgens', 'fluorescent' etc., and not changing the setting when the light source changes. This has lead to many of my photos looking a bit strange or dull.

At this stage

I guess that I need to have my light setting to ABW for most occasions. At the moment, the main exception I know of is for sunrise and sunset.

Use preset WB if the light source is going to be constant and remember to turn back to AWB when I finish shooting.

Also to learn how to do custom WB, so if I'm going to a lot of photos, say indoors, then a Custom WB would be better.

Also to shoot using RAW, as this will give you the option to correct WB after shooting.

I might have found a village

I was heading to another place but I had to change at Bhierndiara. There this man came up to me and offered me a tea. This is very common in Gujarat.

He told me he's a pop star for old music. I thought yeah, but he's right. He had just come back from Indonesia where he proformed at several cultural events.

Anyway, I took up his offer and headed to his village. A 15 minute walk down the most dusty I've ever seen. It's powder, space powder, you could feel the ground give as you walked along.

His village contains about 10 houses, most of them round mud huts. I went to his house where he played some music on his 'pot' drum and wash board. His friend accompanied him with tiny cymbals. The music was great, it was music that you could feel resonating in your body. I was surprised.

Anyway, I went there earlier and had a 'kinda' meeting with the village elder and some others. I explained the project, though it would have been a lot better to show demo pictures. I not sure of the answer, I think they gave me a cautious yes. Will print some demo pictures for them.

So hopefully, things will happen on Sunday. We'll see.

Indian workshops

India is fast industrialising. Everyone has a mobile, even in the depth of the desert, a turbaned wearing man will pull out his mobile phone. ATMs are now commonplace, internet shops aplenty (sometimes) and in the big cities, the sign of international arrival, chained coffee shops are opening up.













But India is vast. In size and especially in the number of people. Old ways can still be seen, leave the main street in a major city and the backstreets will show you how India has looked and worked for many decades. In a small city or a town, this is still how many of the places look on the main street. It is these streets that I enjoy as they evoke the past and stand for the achievement of previous generations. I like the industrialness of these places, the big machines and the dust of production. The people that work here are masters of their trade. They have practical skills that only a few have in the west.

Indian Streets

It's winter so the temperature falls quickly as the sun goes down. This motley crew was gathered around a raging fire, chatting and keeping warm. One of them offered ganga after taking the pictures. I was little scared at first, they looked fearsome but they just laughed and carried on with what they were doing whilst I messed about with my tripod.

I regret not using flash, as mixed with a long exposure it could've added another dimension to the picture. I plan to go back, give them a copy of the photo each and if daylight, take their individual portraits. It'll be nice to do the fire shots again. Anybody has any suggestions on how to take a better shot here?













I love Indian streets at night, especially in photos. These lights make the street look other worldly. I'm not sure what Indian light's use? Sodium? The redness mixes well with the fluorescent lights.

Self portrait with me camera, self-portrait and portrait

Hi

The above was loaded for this competition. Link below.

http://blog.epicedits.com/2007/12/13/photo-project-shoot-yourself/

Added a this 'self-portrait' because I feel that aren't enough photos on this site. Honest gov, it's a photo blog. Actually, it's not a true self-portrait as Steph, my girlfriend took it, under my guidance.


















And this is the wonderful Steph. Halloween 2007.

Gujaratis, tops my list of friendly Indians

So far, I've received many small acts of genuine friendliness. These include the offer of tea, soft drinks and sometimes even some meals bought for me. Sometimes, there's no escaping this. 'This is Indian way, you are a guest, we must treat you.' I feel like I'm taking advantage but I'm not even allowed to buy a tea back for them.

In the streets people are curious. They ask me my name, 'which country/ from where?' and 'Are you married?' They smile and usually we shake hands. If their English is good, they want to find out more. Sometimes they joke but it's all good humoured. If they can't speak English, some try with Hindu or Gujarati but I only know 'hello' in these languages.

It's a refreshing change from some other parts of India where the 'tourist dollar' invites the worst of Indians to talk to the tourist.