India’s 1.3 billion people and millennia of cultural evolution put this country firmly at the top of the list of Seriously Good Places to Shoot. You could visit this country ten times in ten years and come away with startlingly different images each time together with a renewed resolve to go back the following season.
Much of this is because the Indian experience is uniquely rich and varied. ‘Been there, done that’ doesn’t hold here. This is no one dimensional monoculture, nor is it merely the classic duality of traditional-rural/modern-urban that one sees in some rapidly developing nations.
India is an explorer’s nirvana of over 2,000 distinct ethnic groups. Amongst these are millions of tribal people indigenous groups whose lifestyles are rich with visual opportunities.Other tribal groups, fortunately friendly, reasonably accessible and happily out of step with 21st-century change, remain scattered across the deserts, jungles, plains and towering Himalayan landscapes of this vast nation.
Alternatively, you could nominate a couple of themes you’d like to explore in depth, as many of our private clients do. Vanishing lifestyles, disappearing crafts and trades, religious life and rituals, womenfolk and their costumes, villagelife. This more considered pace makes time for the repeat visits, the emerging rapport between shooter and subject, the just-so juxtaposition of light and opportunity, the luck that comes from preparation and patience.
