I’m going to start out with a few photos plus a story here, and then, in a few days (promise!), a slideshow.

You may remember my experiences shooting in India, and how most people there were, in some way, very self-concious about having their photos taken, though that manifested in a variety of ways. Hong Kong was a fairly startling contrast to this.

I was wandering around the streets of Kowloon, just looking for subjects to photograph. Though I’ve heard a lot of people speak English, I found this wasn’t so much the case off the main island. It made for some challenges- I was faced with a language barrier I hadn’t really experienced alone before, so I wasn’t sure how to approach people. Travel was easy- the subway is basically like any major underground system, so I had all sorts of places to go, but was rather lost culturally. Then, it started to rain, and rain heavily.

I headed across the street to shelter, in a small park with covered areas where a bunch of older men were playing a game that looked like Chinese chess. I say a bunch of people were playing, but really, it was mostly a large group intently, and somewhat silently, watching two play. I hung out with them for a bit- quietly enquiring to a couple of them if they spoke any English, which yielded me just a confused look or a quick shaking head, eyes going immediately back to the game. I puzzled over the various approaches I could take, and more minutes passed. Finally, I decided to try a stronger message. I held my camera up, and enunciated clearly- ‘Pictures OK?’ I figured that would be universal.

I could hardly believe it was the same serene group I’d been hanging out with, avoiding the rain, for the past few minutes. This group of old, quiet and stoic guys suddenly lit up. They all looked at me, some smiling broadly, all of them loud and very clear- they were gesticulating and shouting excitedly, ‘yeah, yeah!’

Then, all of a sudden, they stopped.

It’s like they were experts at getting their photos taken. They had absolutely no self conciousness at all- they just completely ignored me. It’s a veritable photojournalist’s dream. This turned out to be more or less the case in Hong Kong- most people were very comfortable with photography, to the point of completely ignoring it. That was also the case with this butcher.

With a few exceptions, most of these vendors were more than happy to have me take photos. Interesting side note to this picture by the way- I’ve found myself surprised at the reactions it elicits, especially negative ones. It seems to have a strong gross out factor. I’m fascinated by this phenomenon. I’m vegetarian, but I really have no problem seeing this cut up meat laid out and presented like this, nor did I have a problem being around it. I’ve found the opposite is true with many of my omnivorous friends, who in some cases are actually quite disturbed by it. I’m curious- what do you think of it? Is it a bit disturbing seeing where your food comes from? (Or, in the case of fellow vegetarians, seeing an animal carved up like this for food?)

Coming up- I did a lot of still life photos in Hong Kong. That’ll be in a slideshow soon enough.

My time in Hong Kong was fairly brief, and almost an afterthought. Coming back from India, I had a stop in Hong Kong. Since this trip was my first Asian journey, I realised I should make the most of it, and extended my stop in Hong Kong by about three days. Shooting in Hong Kong was world’s different from shooting in India, but that’s a story to come when I get back in a week and a half.

Part of my purpose here was to just get shots of the children playing for their parents. I have plenty of those, but I’m more interested in showing the more photojournalistic, and perhaps more abstract shots, like this one of Albert preparing the orchestra.

Having some experience in youth oriented photography (the infamous youth soccer days), I have an idea of what parents look for- the face. It’s a bit of a shame, not only because face shots get a little boring, but what really makes string players are the hands. I got this shot of Albert here with just that in mind, and he really liked it. Maybe I’ll give it a try in the future for his younger players.

Of course, with all this formal attire, you can’t miss the black and white shots.

It’s not all serious though. Here’s something of a less-than-formal group shot.

Finally, the reception was over, and it was speech time.

Overall, what did I learn about Edwards? He really, really likes to gesticulate.

Hm… nice hair.

Thanks for looking.

Moments before disaster.

Let me just caution to everyone- sandstone is slippery. It looks and feels solid. It isn’t. That is all.

Eric let me play around with a 15mm fisheye lens he brought with him. First I took a self portrait.

Then, a group shot.

Finally, an HDR for good measure.

Afterwards, I used the good old 24mm tilt shift lens.

As the sun was setting, a good time was had by all as we tried to set up portraits and mess around with the fading sunset colours.

I recommend you click on each of their sites. It’s safe to say they all have wildly different styles, but they’re excellent photographers.

We cruised around town for a bit afterwards. I got this fairly glamourous shot of her.

First, a shout out to the Indian state of Karnataka: thank you. You rock. We three went to many an Indian state- Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Goa- and out of all of them, only you, Karnataka, were cool enough to let us go about our merry way without having to bribe a police officer. Maharashtra had us stopped a few times for a couple 100 Rp bribes, Goa hit us for a bribe of over 1000 Rp, and Andhra Pradesh… well, doesn’t count because cross country vehicle paperwork wasn’t an issue since the vehicle we were in was from Andhra Pradesh. That being said, I’m willing to bet that if we weren’t in an Andhra Pradesh vehicle, they would have made us pay a bribe. That’s because Andhra Pradesh isn’t as cool as you, Karnataka. Give yourself a pat on the back, Karnataka- you are one classy state.

Other than having a lot of class, Karnataka was generally characterised by having a lot of dust and being really hot. While travelling through Karnataka, we made a stop in the city of Bijapur which, as noted in our travel guide, foreigners have no business in after February- the heat gets so bad that all businesses and shops close around 1 pm. For early year travellers, however, it’s worth visiting for its Muslim tombs, including Gol Gumbaz- the ‘Taj Mahal’ of South India. It’s famous for having the second largest dome in the world, being surpassed in size only by St. Peter’s Basilica. It really is a humongous dome. The photo above shows Gol Gumbaz from a distance.

Walking towards the building, I realised that even from this distance it was easy to appreciate its grandeur and epic scale. Around the main structure, the ruins of the smaller buildings lay haphazardly around the grounds- a wall here, flooring there-, and gardens had been carefully cultivated around the area, giving it a strangely dynamic feeling of being overrun by well kept vegetation.

Kalyan started to talk to us about the ‘Whispering Gallery’ at the top of the structure, where standing inside the dome creates an effect where you can hear the whispers of an individual standing across on the other side of the building, and about the numerous and difficult to scale steps up to the top, tumbles from which were responsible for taking the lives of more than one individual, from servants to monarchs.

My anticipation grew- as I walked through the gardens surrounding the ruins and approached ever closer, I felt that even from a distance, I could begin to hear ghostly howls emanating from the Whispering Gallery (people in the gallery tend to shout rather than whisper, and the echoing has a very eerie effect), imagine people running up the stairs centuries ago, and understand Henry Hinton’s sense of wonder when he first laid eyes upon the magnificent edifice. I could almost see the ruined remains of buildings around me restored to their original states and imagine the whole area in its heyday.

That is, until I was attacked by a horde of colourfully garbed Indian children.

Remember how I was talking about an exception to India’s self-conscious photography rule?

Domestically, sure, it’s handy being white sometimes. There’s that money and power thing. There’s that low infant mortality rate at hospitals thing. There’s the ability to get waved through sobriety checkpoints in Carson that everyone is getting stopped at (true story). The underlying causes may be disgustingly racist, but still, occasionally handy!

That being said, there’s a certain disadvantage to being a tall, bald white guy in these mostly Indian tourist spots- I stick out like a sore thumb. Kalyan and Theresa weren’t quite so affected in this area. Observe:

Kalyan, though being at heart a total surf’s up California boy (without the surf’s up part), is ethnically Indian, and his friend Theresa here has cleverly disguised herself as a Southeast Asian Muslim pilgrim. No doubt a pair of clever tricks they learned from UC Berkeley. I find myself damning UC Irvine for its isolationist policies.

So between the guy who looks local and the pilgrim disguise, I guess I can understand why the kids run after the guy who looks like Dr. Venture in denim and a hemp hat. On top of this, what effect does carrying a camera have, you may ask? Apparently it multiplies the enthusiasm of the kids ten fold.

I found myself totally swarmed by Indian children. If I turned, they ran around in front of me. If I tried to back up, I found myself unable, being completely surrounded by them. They started making demands to me in English, and it seemed the only English they seemed to know involved asking me to take their picture. My only means of escape seemed clear: I started to get down and snap away, hoping their photographic hunger would soon be satiated, but nay, I was a fool- their hunger only grew. They soon grew tired of group pictures, and each child wanted an individual picture. As I tried to comply, other children would rush in to sabotage efforts of their fellows’ solo photo attempts, and immediately ask for their own solo shot afterwards. It was a whirlwind of treacherous individualism gone horribly, horribly wrong, and I was stuck in the middle of it all.

Kalyan and Theresa, not having garnered the interest of the kids, struck out for Gol Gumbaz on their own, leaving me to content with the onrush alone.

Possibly an attempt at some coordination. I have no idea what they were saying.

Unfortunately in being left alone I had lost my translator, so I didn’t have much in the means in getting the situation under control. The parents thought it was hilarious, and in keeping with the white-foreigner cool factor I had observed, broke through the kids for a little while to shake my hand and say ‘Hello, nice to meet you,’ with huge grins on their faces. The kids also thought this was hilarious.

It was an interesting experience to say the least, and fairly refreshing after other people’s rather stoic photo poses. After while, the kids began to settle down a bit. I didn’t know if it was due to tiredness or my losing my novelty, but I did manage to get them all still enough for this group shot:

After I finally managed to pry myself away from them and make my way towards the main building, they’re energy grew once again, and I found myself leaving behind their excited farewells (in the form of repeated and loud ‘bye!!!!!!’s) and aggressive waves, finally making it to the tomb. It was cool, but somehow seemed a little smaller after experiencing an enthusiastic Indian kindergarten assault.

Incidentally, regarding those black and white shots of another tomb below: it had its own set of children.

Saturday morning, I got up at 5 am, showered, and headed down to Newport Bay. It never ceases to amaze me that despite barely being able to wake up in the morning during the week everyday to go to work at 9 am, I don’t have any trouble getting up for shooting jobs. There’s also something cool and calming about being up that early and driving around. You feel a sense of camaraderie with the few other early risers you share the roads with in the early hours. Also, waking up early to be on a boat in Newport Bay isn’t a bad way to start the day, either.

Here are the shots I ended up submitting to the paper:

That first image made the cover, and the two other images are a large spread on the back page. You can see them here. Just click on the Coast Report thumbnail on the left side, and it’ll download 7.5 meg PDF copy of the paper.

Woot. Anyway, more on India coming up soon. One more fluff entry later in the day though first.

I decided that I was going to bring Cherise back some kind of black pearl jewellery as a gift from India. Hyderabad is something of a world center in pearl commerce: around 90% of the world’s pearls pass through Hyderabad at some point. You might find this odd for a city that’s nowhere near the ocean, and you’d be correct. It’s pretty damn weird. From what I understand, it has little to do with geography and more to do with historically cheap pearl processing labour. That’s right. Hundreds of years ago, pearl processing was outsourced to India.

So Hyderabad became the the world’s place to buy pearls. If you happen to be in Hyderabad, the Laad Bazaar is the place to haggle for them. It’s a large shopping area in historic Charminar, the area’s ‘Old City’.

Having a girlfriend, I have some minuscule amount of solo jewellery purchasing experience. When you want to surprise her with jewellery, you can’t exactly bring her along, but pearls were something I’d never done before. I usually keep it simple- either gold or silver. No diamonds (I’ve been anti-DeBeers since well before Blood Diamond, thank you), and really no gems at all. They’re shiny, pretty, and extremely confusing. Rubies? Sapphire? Just what the hell is Moonstone? Just give me some of what they keep at Fort Knox. If the US has a whole division around it, it’s gotta be pretty valuable.

However, Cherise really likes pearls, and I happened to be in pearl capitol. Pearls it had to be, and it came with a host of new challenges. I had to check the luster and general feel of the pearls to gauge their quality. Looking specifically for black pearls only compounded these difficulties, as there are many fake black pearls which are merely dyed rather than cultured. After doing some research, I found that in general, the best way of testing the ‘authenticity’ of a black pearl was to gently rub it against your teeth. A dyed pearl would be extremely smooth from the layer of dye surrounding it, whereas an authentic black pearl would have a harsh, gritty texture.

At once, the question surfaced: what’s the polite way of asking a vendor if you can rub their expensive wares against the inside of your mouth? It also posed the problem that if it did indeed have that authentic grit, I was basically compelled to buy it. If there’s a ‘you break it, you buy it’ rule, I’m fairly certain that somewhere there’s a ‘if you get saliva on our jewellery, you really should buy it’ rule.

Perfume dealers in Laad Bazaar. I was almost tempted to take this as an easy way out.

Once at the bazaar, I was completely overwhelmed. There really were pearl dealers everywhere, basically as little shops crammed into tiny nooks and crannies in the streets. I stopped inside a couple of them, and was presented with various items when I asked to see the black pearls. It was then I realised that I had no idea what I was doing. I couldn’t bring myself to rub them against my teeth. I tried rubbing my fingernails gently over them, but that proved to be completely ineffective. At some point, one of the dealers handed me a knife. I assume it was to test the pearls. I still don’t know. Maybe it was an extremely passive threat.

Most of the dealers were honest people though. When I asked, they usually admitted that the pearls they had were dyed rather than cultured. It seemed like this could be a long search, so in the end, I caved. I left the bazaar and headed to a very official looking dealer.

Krishna Jewellery Mart was a pretty classy place. It felt a little weird to be walking in there with a floppy hemp Tilly hat. The stuff they had was very nice though, and we were served some excellent chai tea in small, delicate cups. I ended up buying Cherise a black pearl necklace with a little white gold clasp. Which, er, I don’t have a picture of. I’ll post it later.

Krishna Jewellery Mart. For the confused shopper’s black pearl needs.

I’ll wrap this entry up with one last shot from Laad Bazaar.

This photo was probably the first good ‘people shot’ I got while I was in India. I took it at Golconda Fort, a fairly popular domestic tourist attraction for Indians, with not quite so many foreigners present. We had been cruising around the place, and this young woman took a quick interest in my camera. She was separated from her group, so I asked if I could get her picture. She didn’t quite understand me, so I gestured with my camera and asked if it was ok. She hesitated, looked back at her group who weren’t paying much attention to her, and then smiled… and bobbed her head. I paused for a second. What the hell does that mean? And that was my first cultural gap experience in photography.

Of course, I knew what it meant. Kalyan explained to us that in India, while people nod and shake their heads (though I didn’t see much nodding), there’s a third option as well- the head bob. It’s kind of a smooth swaying of the head from side to side. In a way, it means ‘yes’, though in reality it isn’t quite that simple. It’s sort of a general affirmative, meaning anything from ‘yes’ to ‘yeah, I guess so’ to ‘I really am listening to you’. (You see people doing the bob all the time in general conversation while listening to each other. And yes, I’m completely aware that referring to it as ‘doing the bob’ makes it sound like a really unhip dance move.)

Being my second day in India though, I wasn’t totally used to it. After taking a second or so to process the gesture, I took the shot you see above. Afterwards, she all of a sudden became bashful. If this had happened in the States or any other Western country, I wouldn’t have thought much of it, but being in a completely different environment, I quickly began to wonder- had I made a mistake? Had I committed some sort of cultural transgression? Had I misread the bob?

I was about to find out that this sort of self-concious reaction to photography was pretty common in India.

“

On several occasions, I got stopped by groups of guys who really wanted to get their picture taken with me, and I started to gather that there’s a certain coolness factor right now to being a Westerner in India. In the big Bollywood movies, you randomly see white people in the background. They don’t have speaking parts- rather, they’ll just be eating at a dinner table near the main characters in a restaurant scene, or obviously walking by as the main characters are taking a stroll. Judging by my popularity for random photos, I could probably seriously make a living as a Bollywood background extra. (Fortunately, these extras aren’t in the dancing scenes. I guess for all the hipness factor, Indians are realistic about whitey’s moves.)

I’d go along with random photo requests on the condition that I could get photographs of the people asking. I quickly learned that most men who get their photo taken, no matter how jolly and happy they were moments ago, will adopt a solemn macho pose for photographs. Women, on the other hand, remained fairly shy about photographs. Also, women weren’t asking for pictures with foreigners- it was exclusively a guy thing.

Those photos above by the way are taken in Hyderabad’s Laad Bazaar, an open air market that’s in the Old City portion of town. If you want to get your haggle on, this is the place to be. Unfortunately, I am a terrible haggler. A bit more on the market later.

Also, there is an exception to the photo self-conciousness rule. That’ll be the tease that’ll hopefully keep you coming back.