Rajan Parrikar
pro member
A stormy monsoon morning in the village of Nerul in Goa (India) with the village temple in the background.
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Just for Fun No C&C will be given: Monsoonscapes of Goa, 2010
- Thread starter Rajan Parrikar
- Start date
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Rajan,
The architecture of Goa is so unknown here in the West! When one goes away from the Taj Mahal, we are pretty ignorant. So it's a treat to see this building in the background. So you have more pictures and some info about it? Being this special, I'd try to tidy up a bit.
The composition is tough as a challenge. Did you take this from a bridge, a boat or the other ide of the water? The image could be balanced better by rotating a tad in photoshop counter clockwise, (select all, edit, transform, rotate, for anyone needing to know) and adding a tad more sky. The golden reflection in the water to the right might be enhanced so as to make a vertical splash of color to balance the strong impression of the men in the canoe. I'd think of cloning out the iron work to the lower right.
Asher
Rajan Parrikar
pro member
Asher,
India is a rich and largely unexplored terrain for photography. I mean photography that goes beyond casual snapshooting. But it is also a difficult place to do high quality photography, for a variety of reasons (that I won't get into right now).
Apropos of the current photograph, it was a a spontaneous situation. I had photographed the temple on earlier occasions. But we were driving yesterday through the Goan countryside and it was a classic murky monsoon morning. Suddenly I noticed these guys rowing upstream and saw some potential. Luckily there was an ad hoc platform on stilts jutting into the water and I quickly positioned myself. It was beginning to pour heavily and my driver quickly came along and protected the camera with an umbrella.
Composition-wise, there was not much leeway. In Goa, as in India (and other places that, for want of a better word, are referred to as Third World), you often have beauty living with ugliness cheek-by-jowl. I had to keep out objects from the frame that I did not want intruding, and so...
Re. the temple - this is a new temple, and I don't much care for these new concrete structures. The older temples in Goa are real gems, built in traditional style and with traditional materials. In this instance, the colour stood out smartly with the surrounding wet green accentuating it, and so it worked out well.
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Rajan,
In general, is there objection to photography? Here the guys seem so happy that you are giving them attention! Places like Romania, they might get angry! In a village in Eastern Nigeria, I was once accused of capturing a boys soul in the camera and threatened with jail. I was allowed instead to buy some sandals from the Chief's store!
Well then, good job! But you can still straighten it and tidy up the iron work on the right! Whenever you get time!
Thanks so much for sharing these sights! Get a waterproof camera! The Olympus is "relatively" inexpensive and waterproof.
Asher
Dr Klaus Schmitt
Well-known member
A well executed composition Rajan!
Rajan Parrikar
pro member
Asher: I will be brief, since this is a topic worthy of an essay.
In this photograph there was absolutely no issue. These are fellow Goans and they were inviting me in for a ride. For me the logistics of photographing in Goa is a cinch since I am a Goan and crucially Goa is what I term "not-India" - i.e. different from the rest of the country in important ways (translation: it is the last pleasant haven left in India, but not for long mind you).
The photographer in India is faced with several hurdles. First of all the weather, which for the most part is hot and sticky. To add to it is the dust. It is a crowded country which means you and your gear often have to navigate through a sea of humanity. If your subjects are within the jurisdiction of Indian officialdom you start off screwed and work your way out. The motto of Indian officialdom is: how can we best stop you getting from point A to point B? Someone or the other will pull rank if for no other reason than to assert his ego. This kind of mindset carries over to many middle-class Indians. At monuments like Taj Mahal you are not allowed to take your tripod. But at least they open at sunrise. At other places you are lucky if you can get in until 9 or 10, the worst time of the day for photography. And did I mention the touts that you have to ward off? You may often come across the perfect composition but suddenly a rickshaw will drive up and park in the frame. By the time you have dealt with the rickshaw your light is gone, or it has started to rain, or something else has appeared to soil your composition. And so on.
In rural areas people by and large will be friendly. However, I have noticed that in popular tourist regions like Rajasthan, the rural folk have now come to expect cash or gifts (spoilt by Westerners who have indiscriminately handed out goodies believing they are dealing a good hand to the poor).
None of the above is to discourage anyone. I am simply outlining some of the challenges of photography in India, challenges that I have faced and are only too real for me.
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Thanks for sharing these experiences. This is similar to traveling in all ex colonial countries. The officials are abusive, pompous and impossible as the British, French, Dutch and Belgian former expatriots who ran the places!
Keep up the clicking!
Asher
Rajan Parrikar
pro member
Asher,
The people responsible for the sad state of affairs in India today are not the former colonialists but Indians themselves. Look at the sorry Indian cities of today: ugly, squalid, noisy, chaotic urban slums. In every major Indian city, the only areas or structures that have any aesthetic appeal are those built by the erstwhile colonialists or those which preceded the colonialists. You would be hardpressed to point to a single instance of a post-Independence Indian structure that has anything to recommend it; almost always it is likely to be Third World quality RCC rubbish. Whatever little beauty we have remaining is of colonial vintage and even that the Indians cannot maintain. Mind you, I am not arguing in favour of colonialism. The colonialists were exploitative and brutal, and they set India back incalculably. But Indians can no longer trot out the colonial excuse for their pathetic, corrupt present and the environmental mess they have looming ahead.
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