TRIBES | Tuesday, March 30, 2021
#TRIBES: all the wonderful people in my pictures on this project were helpful, open and usually talkative. They’re all very aware of how the system has been stacked against them and appreciative of the work done by groups like #VSSM to get them their rights back. #india #nomads #gujarat #photojournalism #women
TRIBES | Tuesday, March 30, 2021
#TRIBES: I envy my musician friends who have been able to carry on creating during the pandemic, I’ve got nothing new. Well, not really. What I do have is a different way of looking at things than I did 12 years ago, so I’m pulling out pictures that were never shown, or appeal to me now, or have stuck in my mind. The technology is better so they’re getting re-graded from RAW, and I hope you enjoy them. I wonder what has become of all the subjects. #india #nomadic #tribes #gujarat #photojournalism
VELVIA | Saturday, October 31, 2020
#VELVIA: before the 2005 trip to #India, I was there in 2001, and still shooting film. Contax for B+W, Nikon for colour, and I think every photographer of that era must miss #Fuji Velvia. This is a straight high-res scan I found in the archives, and I’d hoped I’d see this image again someday. There’s some places you just can’t reach with a digital camera. #flowers #filmphotography
KASHMIR | Saturday, October 31, 2020
#KASHMIR: after @vtwingrin asked after a video made in 2004, I ended up gathering a billion CDs and DVDs from my mother’s to look for old material. And found the RAW files from Kashmir that I’ve not touched since I shot them in 2005. I’d been trying to get to Kashmir for over a decade at this point, but was constantly fobbed off my relatives on spurious grounds, until I was finally able to do it myself. And you can understand why they’re fighting over it. It truly has the most staggering natural beauty and photographs barely do it justice, including this one. The place is not especially stable, and YMMV, but it won’t stop me if I ever get a second chance. I don’t know what the poor people of Kashmir ever did to deserve being trapped between three hideous human rights abusers seeking to outdo one another. #india #crown #lineofcontrol
AUNTIE | Wednesday, September 30, 2020
#AUNTIE: all my late dad’s sisters adored my dad and treated me like a jewel, they showered me with love and affection and kindness. I don’t have favourites, but I knew Babyfoi the best from spending so much time with her. She had a pretty hard life, and my dad and myself were always trying to help and keep a lookout for her. Her late husband, my uncle, was one of dad’s best friends and he gave me my name: Vishal. It means ‘great’ or ‘wide’ or ‘unstoppable’ and I can only lay a clear claim to the last and am unlikely to ever make the second in my lifetime, and aspire to the first posthumously. My awesome Babyfoi passed away yesterday and my family shrinks again. My dad had a massive family, he was one of eleven, and it was truly amazing, in hindsight, to visit and be surrounded by family. I have never, ever, witnessed my entire family of uncles, aunts and cousins all in the same place at the same time, and never will. There’s only 3/11 left. I took this picture in 2001 in the family home in #Pondicherry. The house was gifted to the ashram by my philanthropist grandfather on the proviso that his family would live there. It’s been empty for some time, and will surely revert to the ashram. I hope they make great use of it and restore the life it must have seen back in the 1950s. #family #aunties #india
#ATMA: This is my eldest, and coolest cousin, with my late auntie Chandra on the back of the bike. This is in front of the family house in #Pondicherry. Family legend has it that just after he was born, in 1960, he was given the soul of his recently-deceased uncle, who was killed in a motorcycle accident aged 19. The family says he is just like his uncle. I think I took this picture in 1994, and printed it at the @northlondondarkroom in 2013-ish. #motorcycle #sriaurobindoashram #themother #pondi #india #streetphotography #yashicamat124g
GANGES | Wednesday, July 8, 2020
#GANGES: #Varanasi is one of my least favourite places in #India, but there were still moments of joy in this town. This river is a law unto itself, a host to the most incredible numbers of antibiotic-resistent bacteria, but surprisingly, they are present from the #Himalayan foothills onwards, rather than your usual suspects in the picture. #Rishikesh is the demarcation line between clean and not-clean, it seems. The river is actually an amazing opportunity for research into bacteria and drug-resistance. Also, we all miss the magical quality of the most vivid film we’ve ever seen, #Fuji #Velvia #rvp50 #velvia50 #nikon
