Faces of Kerala: The Group Pic

Group pictures are almost a subset of street portraiture, and at least in India, they are an inevitability. They happen generally like this: you ask people if you can take a photo of them. In general, they agree, or at least the men do – if there are women with them, they tend to slink out of the picture. While you take the photos, other people are watching this, and they then come up to you as well, as a group, and want their photo taken., which then may trigger off a chain reaction…

The other way it happens is that a group of mostly young men come up and ask if they can take a photo with you, which of course I always agree to, then I take their photo in return.

Group pics are difficult to get right. People in a group are likely to clown around, or else get all serious as if it was a formal family picture. It’s very much also a generational thing: older folks would look formal and stiff, younger ones fall into the Instagram cool selfie face mode.

Be as it may, here is a selection of group photos which I took in various places in Kerala.

Muslim youths in Trivandrum (through a misted up lens)

On the Beach in Korvalum

Varkala

Streets of Kollum

All photos taken with a Fujifilm X-T20

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Faces of Kerala: Pandits on the Beach

Continuing the series of portraits from Kerala in India, where I am currently travelling, here is a mini-series of images which I captured on the beach in Varkala. In the mornings, priests, a.k.a. pandits, come here to sell puja, that is prayers. There are many devotees on the beach in the mornings, not just for the pandits, but also to give offerings to the sea or to take a (ritual?) bath.

In some places, pandits ask for money if you ask for a photograph; these here didn’t. A few asked if I wanted puja, but they didn’t insist.

Again, all photos taken with a Fuji X-T20 and a 35mm lens.

Faces of Kerala: In a Small Fishing Town

I’m currently travelling Kerala, a state in Southern India. This is the first post in a series of portraits of people from the region.

These photos were shot in a small fishing town, Vizhinjam. People are mostly welcoming photographers, some are even eager to get photographed. In return, one has to pose for photos quite often as well. But that is more than ok.

Kerala itself is a great place to visit. It is very green, with hills covered in tropical forests, quaint seaside towns, backwater channels and very importantly, with a very tasty cuisine.

Photography-wise, I decided to travel light: I brought the Fuji X-T20 with a 35mm lens, which I used on all the photos below, and a 16-50mm zoom lens in case I want to shoot buildings or nature.

Interior: Art Deco

Following up on my earlier blog post about photographing urban interiors, here are a series of photographs from an interesting Art Deco hallway and stairwell which I captured here in Berlin.

Paris, Fashion and Irving Penn.

I spent a day in Paris last week, basically just passing through. It was a warm autumn day and people were enjoying it. Fashion was ever present, in fashion shoots or in fashionable people lounging about. I had a good time photographing people, some candidly, some with their consent.

I also visited the excellent and comprehensive exhibition with the works of Irving Penn at the Grand Palais. It features the most significant photos from his long and distinguished career, from the Vogue cover shots to the more intimate celebrity portraits of his later days, also showcasing the series he made on craftspeople and other regular folks around the world. Highly recommended.

Man Facing Warrior (at the Irving Penn exhibition)

 

Camera: Fujifilm X-E2

Interior: Bar

For a change of pace, and in order to hone my eye for formatting photos, I decided to step away from people photography for a bit and embark on something which I have never really attempted before: photographing interiors. By this I was inspired by some of the photos I took inside some of Sevilla’s historic buildings. The challenge is to capture the elegance and beauty of a room while working within a confined space.

These images are from my first attempt. I shot them in a club here in Berlin which was empty at the time, a club in a historic 19th century building that used to house craftspeople’s workshops. It’s a first attempt, more to follow…

Sevilla: Textures and Colours

Here are more photos which I brought back from Sevilla. This time not people-centric, but exploring the details that make a city, the colours, the grit, the imperfections…. which to me say more about a city, it’s history and its culture than any panorama shot out there van convey. Well, that’s my opinion…

To see the full set on my website, [click here]

All photos taken with a Fujifilm X-T20 camera.

Streets of Sevilla

One of the places in Europe which I have been meaning to visit for ages is Andalusia. I’ve always been fascinated by the history of that particular corner of Europe, and the mix of cultures and religions (Muslim, Jewish, Christian) that existed for the span of a few centuries. I don’t know why it took me so long, but this month I finally got around to visiting it. I stayed in Sevilla for a week, which gave me plenty of time to visit the city and also take day trips to places like Córdoba and Cadiz. I missed out on places like Granada, but that gives me an excuse to go back there sometime.

Sevilla’s crown jewel is of course the Real Alcázar palace, a fascinating mix of Arabic, Mudéjar, Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque architecture. Other highlights include the Plaza de España and the Casa de Pilatos. In Córdoba, the highlight is the Cathedral which is a transformed Mosque, which again was built using Roman foundations.

While I visited all the touristy places, I also took time out to just walk the streets and observe and photograph people. That was easier said than done, seeing the temperatures were always in the high 30s, but I walked some 15-20km pretty much every day.

I have posted a selection of the street photographs to my web site: Streets of Sevilla. It includes photos from a number of the spots listed above, but also photos taken around the city. Despite its name, the set also includes photos from Córdoba and Cadiz.

I used a Fujifilm X-T20 camera for all photos.

Enjoy.

Links:

– Streets of Sevilla

– more international street photography

– Real Alcazar web site

“No Photo”

Saturday was not a good day for street portraits. I found three people who I thought were interesting, got my courage up to ask them if I could take their photo, and all three said no…. Well, you have days like that. I couldn’t help wondering, though, whether it was the fact that Saturday I had mounted the rather big 56mm lens, instead of the rather unobtrusive 27mm pancake lens I normally favour… who knows?

The story with the guy depicted above, though, was different… He was hanging out on Admiralsbrücke, a bridge in the Berlin area of Kreuzberg, a spot where people (locals, expats and many tourists) just love to hang out and drink beer. He was with friends drinking beer, and at some point started playing the guitar and signing in Spanish. I took these two photos and was just about to approach him when he noticed the camera and very energetically told me “no photos”, and a bunch of other stuff in Spanish which I didn’t understand. I nodded yes and that was that, but I didn’t delete the photos I’ve taken earlier.

Now, normally if people tell or show me that they don’t want their picture taken, I respect that. But in this case, I thought, if you’re playing guitar and singing in the middle of a street in the middle of a bridge in the middle of a city, you’re not exactly minding you’re own business, are you? So, whether you like it or not, being photographed is part and and parcel of making yourself a public spectacle… Hence, I decided to publish these pics.

I don’t know why he so vehemently refused to have his photo taken…. but maybe the clue lies in his tattoos…?

 

Camera: Fujifilm X-T20

Tales of Strangers #4: Diego

Continuing the series of stories behind some of my recent street portraits, here is a young man from London:

Diego

Diego was sitting on a bench by the banks of the Thames, across the river from Westminster. Like myself he was taking his lunch break. When I asked him if I could take his photo, he said, cool, he needed some decent photos of himself. I took this one and a couple more, and emailed them to him later. I hope he likes them. Diego is Spanish and living in London. He’s a musician and does odd jobs waiting for his career to take off….

Diego, London 2017. Camera: Fujifilm X-T20

For more on the 100 Strangers project, visit the 100 Strangers Flickr Group.