Gujarat

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aCurator- Featured Photographer

View the magazine photo feature

aCurator is a full screen magazine featuring photography and art, edited and published by Julie Grahame in New York…

I am happy to be the current featured artist.

“My ongoing body of work, ‘Still Points in a Turning World’, explores our universal cross-cultural truths: the importance of family, community, ritual and the amazing diversity of its expression.

“The differences between our many world cultures are fading away. We all lose when ancient skills and visionary wisdom are forgotten. As a ‘visual archeologist’, photography has become my way to honor and celebrate an existence that may soon vanish and what it is that makes a people unique. I believe that sharing these stories and rituals can have a positive impact by providing a window on our common humanity.” – Terri Gold, July 2010

Click here to View the Blog Site feature

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Rajasthan and Gujarat-The Journey Continues

Village Life

Men In The Village

Village Schoolgirls

The group  would arrive at a village and spread out to see who we could meet and what was the story here.

Village life  is quiet in the heat of the day- much of the work is  done early in the morning and at the end of the day, so people had time to invite us into

their homes for tea.We met  school children everywhere  and sometimes would go into the schools and talk to them about  where we are   from.

By the time we left a village we would  have a trail of children and others following us back to the van. It was a good way to connect but often at odds with

creating an  unposed  photographic moment.

There was  curiosity on both sides. The women dress in floating  pink and orange chiffon saris no matter

what kind of work they are doing. They are the most  colorful  part of the harsh desert  landscape.

Yet for me , it is often  my  split toned infrared images, stripped of color, that capture the feel of the land and the rhythm of the life here.



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In Gujarat – The Hijras or Eunuchs

Hijras

The Hijras

In India, Eunuchs or Hijras often describe themselves as a third sex, and refer to themselves as “she. They are tolerated when they show up uninvited at special ceremonies such as births and weddings where they cash in for performing dances and blessings.

They are largely left to their own devices to sustain themselves – which include, dancing, singing and sexual embarrassments of various kinds.

It was not always that way for the Hijras.They used to have a place at court and were generally valued by society.

We were staying at the wonderful Rann Riders resort in Dasada, and its owner Muzahid Malik, suggested we visited Becharaji where hijras frequented its temple.”

I had read William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi, in which he tells the stories of a few hijras in Delhi. I knew of their existence but didn’t know I would get to meet them.They live in a secret world and do not share their stories easily.

We visited the temple and they suggestively and playfully danced for our cameras amidst some wonderful old broken temple statuary.

Hijras - members of the ‘3rd gender’ in India

Hijras dancing at the Temple

Dancing Hijras

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Still Points in a Turning World: In Rajasthan and Gujarat

CLICK HERE to Slideshow link

I am back from India a few weeks now and after a side trip to California to celebrate with old friends, I am now in the process of creating a new body of work from the images. India is amazingly colorful with rich traditions and rituals. Taking the picture is always just the beginning of the process for me. I am now working in the digital darkroom, the same way I used to work in the traditional darkroom, to tone and create my Infrared images and shape the stories I want to tell.


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Tribal Life in India: South Rajasthan and Kutch Photo Expedition

I am just back from a wonderful trip to Southern Rajasthan & Gujarat. In recent years I have been planning my own trips with well-known Photographer & Writer Mary Altier, her husband John Walker and my sister Ellen.  After meeting Tewfic El-Sawy and following his blog, The Travel Photographer, I decided to join the Tribes of South Rajasthan & Kutch Photo~Expedition™. It was wonderful group of accomplished photographers, well traveled with great stories to tell on those long bus rides and each with their own unique style and vision. The focus of the trip was exploring the tribal cultures of the Rabaris, Garasias, Bhils, Wadha and the reclusive Jats who we came upon one day by the side of the road. I am always looking at our cross-cultural truths, the importance of family, community, and ritual, and the amazing diversity of its expression. What intrigues me is discovering how people live, as if in different millennia, yet co-existing at the same time. Minds set in different ages, walk the same dusty streets, drink the same water and live out their lives amidst the cows, which wander everywhere, and the riotous colorful confusion.

My work is interpretative in nature. I was shooting with a Canon 5D converted to Infrared by Lifepixel.com and a Canon 5D Mark II often using the Lensbaby. I have always been attracted to creating imagery using the invisible infrared light spectrum and using other special effects lenses and filters. It adds an element of mystery and surprise to creating the work, to the post production and then to its presentation.

I found it interesting to see what caught each photographer’s eye and how it could expand my way of seeing. Some people went straight into the villager’s personal space and caught and held their eyes. Some posed their subjects like models while others looked for color and pattern. Also interesting to see the different configurations of cameras and gear; from computers, backup devices (I used the Hyperdrive Colorspace UDMA) to camera bags.

I met some amazing people, friendships were formed and future travel companions made and I had experiences that I will not forget. Now the next stage begins with creating and shaping a cohesive body of work.

Imagery and more stories to come in the days ahead…