Life through a lens

I had heard so much about South Beach in Miami, Florida.  While working on an assignment in South Florida, I decided to visit the South Beach in Miami on a weekend.  I took the scenic coastal route and it was late afternoon when I reached South beach.  I was mesmerized by beautiful clouds, clear inviting waters and people out to enjoy the beach, the sun.  This was one of the first pictures as I stepped on the sand. 

As I photographed this colorful beach scene, Sebastian approached me and smilingly asked who I was shooting for.  Always nice when somebody is interested in your work and your equipment.  It turns out he is an actor in Chile and on being asked if he would like a picture, agreed to pose for me.  I had him jump next to one of the numerous colorful umbrellas along the beach. 

Walking along the beach, I met Latrisha with a dazzling smile.  Her bikini matched the clear green waters nearer to the beach and I wanted to take a portrait of her.

While photographing her, my cell phone rang and after answering my phone, I put it away in the side pocket of my long shorts.  Little did I realize as the waves came onto the shore that my phone was getting drenched in sea water as I sat along the beach to get a better angle.  My moto Q died a watery death that evening. 

There are very colorful life-guard stations along the south beach.  Each life-guard station is painted different.  While photographing one of these stations, I saw Kiwi with a cute smile, big innocent eyes and dreadlocks with silvery beads.  As I approached her dad for a photo, she became shy and would not smile at all.  She had just come out of the water and water dripped out of the beads onto her face.  All I wanted was a smile from this cute lil’ kid. 

Somehow, she took a liking to the flash on my camera with its’ big diffuser and looked at it with curiosity and dead serious eyes.  So, I showed her how one could trigger the flash by pressing the test button.   From then on, it was a child’s play for her and she took an immense delight in pressing the test button, time and again.   I like this portrait that shows her delight in having fired the flash by pressing the button yet again.

It was a good day for people-watching and meeting beautiful strangers on the Miami beach.  I vowed to return earlier in the day another time…

I saw this solitary swimmer floating in a pool surrounded by ripples in the water.

It reminded of the countless hours spent swimming in the Beldih club pool in Jamshedpur, India. When it rained, other folks would go inside the club building. Most of the times, I would be the solitary swimmer in the pool.

Have you ever had a swim when it is raining? Imagine yourself in a pool as raindrops fall, one after the other, on your face, as the body floats in the blue waters. I always felt a strange exhilaration, calm, at peace with myself.

I love dance photography.

In Dec 2004, I was in Bangalore on an assignment. It was the last evening of Bangalore Habba ‘04 at the Palace grounds. A grand stage was set in front of the majestic Bangalore Palace. Thanks to Inayat, I was able to photograph a spirited dance performance by Nirupama-Rajendra and Abhinava Ensemble. All the photos in this post are from that performance.

I have been thinking of putting up a portfolio of dance photography on my website. Over the past two years, I’ve photographed quite many dance performances but I have just not been able to share the pictures on the web. Slowly, I am gleaning pictures from those performances.

Have you seen the studio photography of RJ Muna? About two and a half years back, I saw his dance photography. Even though those were studio images, my heart yearned to shoot dance performances. His images inspired me to shoot dance.

Photographing dance performances is fun and challenging as well. One has to shoot without flash, have fast film speed, an arsenal of fast lenses and like everything, you learn to anticipate movements and shoot on instinct.

Long back, I read somewhere -
“Work like You don’t need the money.
Love like You’ve never been hurt.
Dance like nobody’s watching.”

Maybe, I should add to this -
“Photograph something like you’ve never seen it before.”

Not keeping well the past couple of days, it was not very pleasant to be in bed all the time. I usually keep fit so the sudden fever, cold and cough totally caught me unawares. I utilized the time by reading when I had the strength. I just finished the “Memoirs of a Geisha” by Arthur Golden. It is a totally engrossing novel and very well researched. Being set in Gion district in Kyoto, it brought back memories of my visit to this part of Kyoto in August 2005.

I had a long day walking and shooting pictures as usual and since all the beautiful temples closed around 4:30 pm, I decided to see if I would be lucky to see a Geisha or an apprentice-Geisha. I had heard of the famous Geisha district of Gion and about how one might see a Geisha rushing to an engagement in Gion. When I reached this street called Hanami-koji, I felt as if I had been transported to another world altogether, devoid of flashy neon signs with beautiful traditional Japanese architecture of teahouses with paper screens and wood. I walked up and down carrying my heavy camera bag but it didn’t seem that I would be lucky to see a Geisha that night.

About Hanami-koji…Shimogama-san told me - “koji means street,hana is flower,mi is seeing”. Among the interesting people I met in Hanami-koji were Shimogama-san and his steady, Sukada-san who were visiting from Kobe. They were taking pictures of each other using a cell phone and seeing them in traditional yukata, I wanted to photograph them too. Both of them loved the pictures I sent them. In the picture, Sukada-san looks lovely in the light of a paper lamp hanging outside a teahouse.

I also met Yurika-san and Yuka-san who I photographed with their camera. Then, I asked if I could also take their photograph. It turned out that they were friends of Sukada-san. As I was changing to a wide-angle lens to take a picture of them, suddenly the screen-door to the teahouse opened and there stood a lovely Geisha, looking flustered to find me sitting on the door, changing a lens. I was stunned too and by the time I recovered to ask her permission to take a picture, she was gone. Uhhh….I missed it!

Anyways, I walked quite a bit more and then, I saw a Geisha and a Maiko (apprentice-Geisha) walking with a patron of theirs. Lot of young girls were excitedly trying to take a picture of them with small cell-phones and ofcourse, they missed it. The patron saw those girls and asked the Geishas to stop for a picture for them. They stopped since the patron had asked them but now, their beautiful smiles were not visible for the camera. I also took a couple of pictures of them before they walked away. As they walked, their smiles were back. One day, I’ll get to photograph a smiling Geisha too.

If you have a chance, read - “Memoirs of a Geisha” - you might like it. And, if reading does not interest you, see the movie based on the novel which is out in the theaters.

Talking of theaters, let’s see when I get to post the pics of the dance troupe from Osaka that I took at National Theater of Japan in Tokyo.

I love experiencing different cultures and must say, I loved Japan!