One Early Morning in Dehradun, India

One early morning in Dehradun, my guide and friend, Abhay, took me for a wander...this is what I saw. The images in this post were all edited with the lightroom presets from Visual Supply Co....which I think are pretty sweet. Just thought I'd share a wee bit of India today.

~ Dana

Why I Went To India

I feel like I went to India just to take this picture.

Has an image ever struck you like that?

While in India, I attended a Momenta workshop--a workshop that uses working for NGO's as a classroom. I had the opportunity to work with two NGO's while there, but...it is this project that truly made my heart happy. Through my second NGO, I met a family who lives in a slum and is working very hard to educate their three children. They allowed me to document their life over the course of a couple of days. The morning this photo was taken, it had rained all night long and it was COLD...really cold. Their little yard was a wee bit flooded and they had lost their power. They welcomed me in none the less...offered me a cup of chai as they tried to get ready for the day. With no heat...and no power.

The lessons I learned over those couple of days are to much to share in a blog post. Somehow, too, a blog post seems too trivial. So, I am compiling my favourites and creating a presentation to share them with you properly. I'm not sure what that is going to mean--I'm still working that out, but I know that I will bring the collection to WPPI and share them at my talk that I am having with Ashley Skjaveland. If you would like to learn more about my experience, there are still a few seats left.

And, if you are not a photographer, I am considering the possibility of touring through school classrooms in Calgary and area. Plus, possibly, an adult function...I am just working through the idea in my mind though. For now, I wanted to share this image with you and introduce you to my friend, 12 year old Kartick.

Agra

When one goes to a place that has been photographed as many times as the Taj Mahal...well...it is hard to erase those photographs from your mind and find your own. Seeing the Taj emerge through the gate(the very first image) is a breathtaking experience though...and it shocked me. That I would be so moved after having seen so many images of this 'wonder of the world'. But, India is a world of it's own and it is a never-ending sensory onslaught. Seeing the Taj is like taking a calm, peaceful breath in a world when there isn't many of those to be had. I drove to Agra...or, I should say, I hired a driver. It was about a 200 km trip from my hotel and it took 4 hours to get there and 5 and a half to get back. I saw camels pulling carts, horses, monkeys, cows(of course), donkeys....pedestrians--sometimes carrying large bundles on their heads...sometimes running between rickshaws. Cyclists. Buses. Big tucks that were highly decorated with 'blow horn' on their bumper...horn blowing is the means of communicating between vehicles and they actually have quite a complex system of getting their point across. It was a two lane highway the whole way, but there were often times four vehicles across. For this girl who doesn't do well with too much sensory overload, it was mentally exhausting. I was happy to be home eating my favourite Paneer and Naan bread at the end of the day.

So, here are some of my images from the Taj :) I had a 'Taj boyfriend'...a little Indian man who so admired me he literally followed me around taking my picture and watching me. This is quite common here, but it was a tad bit annoying as I was trying to well...'work'...for as much as what I do is 'work'. The last few pictures are from the Fort in Agra.

Just a wee giggle for you all--I rented an audio tour(of which I listened to 4 stops out of 16...Bob is now shaking his head at me but that is TOTALLY how I roll) and whenever the fellow who was speaking said 'Mughal' it sounded like 'Muggle' and I could not stop thinking about Harry Potter and if J.K. Rowling had heard the audio tour and got the term from it. I couldn't stop giggling :)

Namaste

Dana :)

Delhi Day 2

Today, I spent a good part of the morning arranging to go to Agra tomorrow to see the Taj Mahal...I left it a bit late and there were no train tickets to be had :( I did, however, manage to find a driver who agreed to take me, so tomorrow the Taj Mahal :) Then, I hired a rickshaw driver for the day for 500 rupees(about $10 Canadian). He took me to all his favourite places and argued over whether or not I should be allowed(as a lone woman) to go to Old Delhi. In the end, I humoured him only because I plan on trying to coerce a male classmate to accompany me to Old Delhi on the last day :)...These are all of my favourite pictures from the day. If anyone out there can tell me where each image was taken, I will send them a $10 iTunes gift card.

Namaste,

Dana