Photoclubalpha

My recent trip to India for about 4 weeks was good and I hope to go there again someday, but to visit a different part of the large country. I was in Rajasthan, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Delhi. While traveling around in the north part of the country I stayed in Delhi, Agra, Bharatpur, Jaipur, Mandawa, Bikaner, Jaisalmer, Thar Desert, Osiyan, Jodhpur, Amritsar, and Rishikesh. Also went to Keoladeo National Park.

I got back to Japan from India right before Christmas, but have been busy. I finally got around to putting some of my photos on my website though. They are in the India gallery so if you are interested please take a look:

http://www.bakubo.com/Galleries%202/Ind ... index.html

This time I did something a bit different for my website. I added a Favorites album in the India gallery so if you don't want to look through all the photos you can just take a look at that much smaller subset. I may go back to my other galleries and do the same. Here is my standard statement:

My website has always had two, sometimes somewhat conflicting, purposes. One, is a place to put my favorite photos. Two, is a place to put my travel photos. Those two goals sometimes interfere with each other because in order to have a reasonably well-rounded selection of trip photos I must include photos that are not my favorites. Of course, I don't use trip photos I don't like, but I must include ones that are not what I think of as the best ones. It is not a commercial website so I can do as I please. And I do. The photos are in chronological order.

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Hi Bakubo;

Had a very brief look at your gallery. Looking very interesting. Colourful street photography; colourful clothes, moods, a very hard life on the streets....cows entering stores, etc.

Will take a deeper look at this new gallery on India. What a cosmopolitan country !! And, you appear to be enjoying yourself in some of the photos too !

Thanks for sharing,
Yildiz

aster wrote: Had a very brief look at your gallery. Looking very interesting. Colourful street photography; colourful clothes, moods, a very hard life on the streets....cows entering stores, etc.

Thanks for looking! India a big, heavily populated country working very hard to improve their economy and spread the benefits to the population. It takes time and, of course, as in all human endeavors it is imperfect, but progress is being made.

aster wrote: Will take a deeper look at this new gallery on India. What a cosmopolitan country !! And, you appear to be enjoying yourself in some of the photos too !

Yes, I did. Pretty often children and even adults would want to have a photo taken together with me. Here is the full gallery:

http://www.bakubo.com/Galleries%202/India/index.html

After I got back from the trip, coincidentally, I stumbled across these 2 sad stories. India is making progress, but it is a big, crowded country and it takes lots of time.

This is a very interesting article about the plight of the poor in Delhi during the winter. When I was there in November/December the nights were not so cold yet. Lots of people sleeping outside, but probably no danger of freezing to death at that time.

Desperate for Slumber in Delhi, Homeless Encounter a ‘Sleep Mafia’

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/world ... .html?_r=1

When midnight approaches in Old Delhi and a thick, freezing fog settles over the city, the quilt-wallah Farukh Khan sits on his corner, watching the market for his services come to life.

They shuffle up one by one, men desperate for sleep. The bicycle rickshaw pullers, peeling one of his 20-rupee, or 30-cent, quilts off a pile, fold their bodies into strange angles on the four-foot seats of their vehicles. The day laborers curl their bodies on the frigid sidewalk, sometimes spooned against other men for warmth.

Those who cannot afford to pay Mr. Khan build fires, out of plastic if necessary, and crouch over them, waiting for the night to be over.


The real Slumdog Millionaires: Behind the cinema fantasy, mafia gangs are deliberately crippling children for profit

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... rofit.html

Sadly, there are those who deliberately cripple children and send them out on the streets. I saw lots of happy children, but no doubt there were some others who have horrible, sad lives.

Great shots Henry. There's a lot of character in those shots. Love the isolation of the lone boater.

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Looking through the photos right now, in slow exploration mode. So much to absorb on those faces and real-life stories.

Thank you for sharing with us, Henry. I envy this life-style that you have; a little dangerous at times in the world and politics of the day but maybe it's more special to go to other remote and differently-cultured places in times like this. Best times to document the changes the communities and countries go through by photographers like you.


Yildiz

Excellent travelogue Henry. Your "My Favorites" captures the essence of your trip very well.
The human bondage (slavery) and trafficking (of all forms) are but two of the many things that
ail India. Stoicism is what gets people through their lives and also somewhat desensitizes them
to fellow human suffering(s).

aster wrote:.
Looking through the photos right now, in slow exploration mode. So much to absorb on those faces and real-life stories.

Thank you for sharing with us, Henry. I envy this life-style that you have; a little dangerous at times in the world and politics of the day but maybe it's more special to go to other remote and differently-cultured places in times like this. Best times to document the changes the communities and countries go through by photographers like you.

I have to be honest and say that the last couple of trips I have sometimes found my enthusiasm for travel flagging a little. Not all the time, but I notice that the hassles of travel seem to annoy me more than they used to.

I went to the India-Pakistan border to see the daily border closing ceremony at Wagah. Here is an interesting, short BBC video with Michael Palin, the Monty Python guy, when he was there:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9y2qtaopbE

sury wrote:Excellent travelogue Henry. Your "My Favorites" captures the essence of your trip very well.
The human bondage (slavery) and trafficking (of all forms) are but two of the many things that
ail India. Stoicism is what gets people through their lives and also somewhat desensitizes them
to fellow human suffering(s).

Next time to India maybe I will head south. There are always places to go and for several years a Sri Lankan guy I met in 2008 has been inviting me to come visit him and his family there. Haven't been to Sri Lanka, but every few months he sends me an email and invites me again. In December he sent one with a photo of his whole family standing in front of their house and told me that he has a room waiting for me. I would really like to go. Will I be able to do it this year? I don't know. Always other things in life and other plans and my wife too must be considered as to what she wants to do or where to go. South India and Sri Lanka might be doable in a single trip.

South India and Sri Lanka are eminently do able Henry. Sri Lanka is on my list too. You will find the South India and Sri Lanka a bit more homogeneous and somewhat less jarring culturally speaking. Mind you there are regional differences, but the cultural fabric is much more homogeneous than you would find in Northern India. Since there is a vast Tamil population in Sri Lanka, that
commonality extends to Sri Lanka to some extent as well. I am told the southern Sri Lanka is amazing.

Sury

Here is a panorama thumbnail I made at Keoladeo National Park:



Larger version:

http://www.bakubo.com/panoramas/OLYB3118-Pano.jpg

This is the first panorama I made completely inside Lightroom. The current Lightroom CC has a panorama merge function. Before I had to make panoramas outside of Lightroom and it was more of a hassle.

Excellent shot Henry. It was serene and yet gave me a feeling of "what's lurking in those calm waters" feeling.

Sury

Yeah, who knows what is lurking there. I don't suppose there were any crocodiles or anything like that, but who knows?

I leave on Tuesday for 6 weeks in south India and Sri Lanka. My trip in 2015 was to north India.

I vacillated a bit trying to decide if I would take my PEN-F + E-M10II (backup) or use the same kit as the earlier India trip which was the E-M10II + E-M10 (backup). The PEN-F uses the same battery as my older E-M5 (which I still have), but it is a different battery than the E-M10II and E-M10. That means different chargers too and 2 sets of multiple batteries. I decided to simplify things and use the same kit as last time: E-M10II + E-M10 (backup). I still like those 2 bodies a lot so I am fine using them again for this trip.

Look forward your photos Henry.

Sury