In the last 18 years or so, as I’ve travelled the world in search of new and interesting images, I think I’ve worked with a truly vast array of guides, fixers and travel companies both local, regional and international. Now, this was a necessity - I chose to never use one of the many companies offering “travel photo tours” as I have always found them to be too superficial, mostly inflexible, extremely expensive and ultimately, geared for people looking to add ready-made images to their portfolios - and, to make things worse (for me anyway) they are usually “led” by another photographer who assumes, by definition, to know more than you do. Not falling into this category (and not having upwards of £7,000 for two weeks to spend), I have always gone it alone.
I mentioned in one of my previous posts that a few months ago I made the decision to make video an integral part of my storytelling arsenal. It was not, I have to admit, a decision I arrived through some internal search or a result of limitations of photography - not at all. It was driven by project requirements, pure and simple. Customers these days demand, in addition to great images, short videos to supplement the story or tell different aspects of it for which photography is simply not the most sufficient medium. But I have to say this: because - and through - this process I learned a lot! Not only technically, but also with respect to photography too. Nobody was more surprised at this than me, but having to learn about video will, I am certain now, make me a better photographer.
There have been a number of articles and arguments lately on people attempting to visit and photograph remote, previously unreachable, tribes, be that in the Amazon or the Andaman Islands or any of the other places such tribes still live. The arguments against it are many but they essentially filter down to: “live them alone as the modern world will only bring about the destruction of their innocence and their way of life”.
I have almost always used local guides in my trips - discovered through a variety of ways, from word of mouth and recommendations, from lists provided by some of the largest publications and organisations in the world and, sometimes, through my own personal research and vetting. It’s usually a long and very rigorous process based on a wide variety of layers, from the financial to the intuitive - from what a person says to how they respond to the details they readily provide. Some shine immediately as real stars - professional, responsive, detailed and with clear mastery of their area of coverage - others need a lot more filtering and communication.
For most tourists and visitors Nagaland, that narrow strip or land at the north east of India, sandwiched between Myanmar and China, is about the Konyak head-hunters and little else. A simple Google search should convince you. Why? The Konyak are different, exotic, remnants of a time the world left behind. And, of course, they make for great images. I travelled to Nagaland to see beyond that, meet the people as they are today and see how the modern world has changed them - if at all. What I discovered were the warmest, kindest, funniest and most hospitable people in the world!
…and an insane amount of trial, error, horrible failures to succeed and once you do, you have to do it all over again (preferably without the errors and the failures, but I’m almost certain they will happen!) However, these days, more than any time in history, amazing images don’t just happen - they are crafter, carefully and with the collaboration and support of a lot of people who sometimes don’t get enough of the credit. I wanted to do just that!
2020 has certainly been an insanely challenging year for all of us - for photographers a time for introspection, of rethinking a million billion things, of looking back and forward, of finding new creative avenues and pathways. Stuck inside our homes, cut off from our clients, our models and our muses, unable to collaborate with all those people who give life to our ideas we were forced to look back to our past work and, in more ways than one, reevaluate it. At least, that was what I did and it led me to, well, think differently.
Mr Pahari is a street photographer plying his trade - and what a trade it is - on the streets of Jaipur, a few dozen meters away from Hawa Mahal (also known as the Palace of the Winds). Armed with a camera built more than 100 years ago, a bucket of water and a piece of cloth in lieu of a backdrop, Mr Pahari shoots, develops and sells portraits of his clients and has been doing so for the past 30 years, just like his father and his father’s father before him. The portraits he takes are reminiscent of those images we see in museums only they feature us, dressed in our colourful, branded, every day t-shirts and shorts - a far departure from those elegant and timeless portraits of the late Victorian era.
