Jaipur, India © 2006
Monthly Archives: August 2010
Big L
August 17, 2010
Daniel Hofer (link only in German) is going to spend some time in Bolivia for his thesis in Photo design. He wants to document the life of the people living in Uyuni next to the salt planes. The salt planes of Uyuni are the one of Earth’s most important reserves of Lithium, the metal used in the batteries of laptops, cell phones and, soon, of electric cars. Daniel’s aim is to document the change ongoing in the lives of the people living next to the salt flats.
From the series "Bergwerk Ost" © 2007, Daniel Hofer
He has some money to go there, but not enough. Therefore he’s selling some prints to try to collect the missing amount. I saw some large format prints of his in an exhibition and I was really amazed by their quality. The price of a print is 50€.
By the end of the months he plans to start a blog to document his whole work. Well, good look, I’ll follow you from here.
Agra
August 16, 2010
I thought I’d stop posting only photos and write a few words about the situations in which the photos were taken. I can’t find anymore my travel journal from 2007, I’m not even sure that I wrote one, so I jump one year back. Agra is the place where the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort were built. They receive a quite huge quota of tourists every year, the Taj Mahal is one of the symbols of India. Unluckily, Agra is also one of the poorest cities I ever saw in my life.
It was my first visit in India, probably my lack of preparation made the shock even worse.
August, 24th, 2006
The monkeys in the Agra Fort live in a much more dignified way than great part of the human beings that I saw in the bazaar today. More space, more cleanness… I can’t understand the attitude of the (Indian) middle class regarding the way things are. I talked with a soldier on permit who told me that he was ashamed by the way the streets were dirty. People belonging to upper classes visit the monuments and live a kind of Bollywood dream together with their families.
Rickshaw wallahs are a real nightmare here, they try to convince me to do anything just to get a ride paid.
A street vendor offered me some postcards of Agra for 200 Rupees, I wasn’t interested in them, he kept lowering the price down to 40 Rupees, throwing them in the seat of the Rickshaw in an act of desperation.
Bazar in Agra, India ©2006
August, 25th, 2006
Yesterday’s visit to the Taj Mahal was awful.
No, the Taj Mahal isn’t awful. It is impossible to get in without getting a guide. Then this person will stick to you for the whole time telling exactly what, when and why you need to take a photo. Remember that “photographer” in almost any place of the world, except the rich countries, means “guy with a camera”. The whole thing feels much more as being kidnapped than someone visiting a monument. Luckily the guy went away after a while. The sun started to set, all the tourist vanished, and the miracle happened: the white marble of the Taj started to reflect all the colors of the sky: blue, orange and pink.
August, 26th, 2006
I’ve been at the “motorcycle market” in Agra, it was awesome. A deep breath, then my first dive into the real India. A group of men tried to get the shorts off from a boy to show me how small his dick was. I told them to stop, that I wasn’t interested, but they went on. They gave up only when I told to the fattest of them (maybe the shop’s owner) “So, you think that yours is bigger?” You always have to aim to the head of the pack and you will scare everyone else off [...]
The most interesting encounter has been Ajay, a owning a shop of car spare parts. He’s a devote of Ganesh and Hanuman, he told me that he’s married since 13 years, no children, but spent a fortune trying to have some. At a certain point he poured some water in my hand. I asked him: “what am I supposed to do with it?” His brother replied that it was holy water, Ajay poured the water in his mouth an told me that I should do the same. I was afraid to drink it because of bacteria, but I didn’t want to offend them, so I brought my hand to my mouth and got some water while trying to put as much as possible in my beard.
Motorcycle Market, Agra, India © 2006
Motorcycle Market, Agra, India © 2006
It took me quite a while to get myself in the attitude of not being judgmental when on a trip in a foreign country whose culture is so different. At that time, obviously I was not and it remained so for the whole duration of my 2006 trip. The things started to change after my return in Europe, but that’s another story.
There is one thing that’s been a lesson for me: the first time I walked through the bazaar I wanted to get out of it as fast as possible. The place was crowded, the climate was hot and wet, the people looked threatening. The second time I walked slowly, the climate was still hot and wet, but I realized that the threat was in my mind and not real. What the first day appeared to me as something coming out of Dante’s inferno, the second day transformed itself in the funny stories you have read above, the kind glances of the shopkeepers and me who wanted to stay there but had to leave to catch the bus to Jaipur.
Bus Station, Agra, India ©2006
