Faces of India

Here I am, back to blogging, after nearly 7 months. I clearly didn’t stick to the whole blogging system and posting regularly. But honestly after my Italy trip, nothing too interesting happened. However, I have accumulated all my pictures from last year and I am planning to create new blogposts (I promise).

Anyways, this blogpost is about the two trips I made to India last year. I went for two weeks during April/March, and recently in December/January 2017. During these two trips I wanted to explore India in a different way. I not only wanted to go to all the amazing places, but I also wanted to get to know more about the people there. During my summer trip to India in April, I went to many places near my hometown (Indore). For instance, I explored Maheshwar, Dhar, Mandav as well as Dewas. Going around those places, I came across many types of people. My second trip to India was during the winter time (which was honestly the best because their winter weather is like our summer in London). This time I went further away from my hometown, and more towards North India. This was an extremely long road trip – I went from Indore – Kanpur – Delhi – Haridwar. Although it was a long trip, it allowed me to keep a hold of my camera more and take pictures. Again, I wanted to take pictures of the people around me, but this time I wanted more candid shots. I took pictures of people as I was passing by, rather than stopping by.

I’m going to stop rambling and show a few of my favourite pictures:

I’m going to start of with this picture. This is probably one of my favourite pictures because of the extremely unique and eye catching features. The large ears, to the bold nose, everything about his features made me want to take a picture. I knew I was never going to see this person again, therefore I wanted to take this photo as a way to remember his astonishing features.

I remember coming across this little girl. This was taken on top a hill where there was a small mandir and tons of tiny markets. I sat there for a while, and I saw this little girl wandering about for a really long time. She was alone and I never saw her parents. She seemed so content walking around by herself and she hardly made eye contact with anyone. I felt quite scared for the girl, because she was by herself and she seemed a bit lost. But that didn’t stop her from wandering about. I called for her and she looked up at me, and she had the most beautiful eyes. I don’t think this picture does much justice, but her eyes were green with a bit of brown/red. I knew I had to take a picture of her. I feel that the eyes play a really big part in portraiture. Along with framing the face, the eyes must be captured well too. The girl was too shy at first and ran away, but she eventually came back. After some serious bribing with chocolate (which she loved), she finally allowed me to take a picture of her.

I took this picture while I was in the car, we were stuck in a bit of traffic as we were approaching Rishikesh so I took this moment to get some candid shots. This man was sitting there for a really long time, I don’t think he had a small street market opened, but he just sat there. He looked around constantly, observing the people around him.

This was a lady I came across during rush hour too. She stood there for at least 10 minutes trying to find a way to cross the busy road.

This was a Rajasthani man I came across in a mandir in Indore – Khajrana. I have never been to Rajasthan before, and it’s a place I’ve been wanting to go for a really long time. Therefore, coming across a very traditional Rajasthani-looking man, I had to get a picture. He was extremely nice and let me take a picture of him instantly. In fact, he was intrigued and amazed by my camera and how well it captured him. Wait, how can we forget about his moustache though?

Here are just a few more:

Also, being a huge Steve McCurry fan (if you haven’t seen his work I highly suggest you do), I really wanted to improve on my portrait skills and try out his amazing style of photography.

Here are a few of my favourite McCurry photographs. Aren’t they just so powerful and beautiful?

That’s pretty much it! I hope you liked my blogpost and my pictures!

Thank you for reading!