Saturday, 8 March 2014

Report IV: Till Another Year, Varanasi



Well, it's time for us to bid farewell to Varanasi; one of the two destinations on The Sacred Cities: Varanasi & Vrindavan Photo Expedition-Workshop.

After a long day of photographing dawn over the Ganges, then the pehlawan wrestlers of Varanasi and another long stretch of the ghats from Assi to Dashashwamedh and back...approximately 3-4 miles in length, we called it a day for the holiest city in India.

Along the way, some of us met a self-described Aghori sadhu sitting on one of the ghats, puffing at his chillum, with a nicely polished human skull alongside, who informed us in no uncertain terms that his name was "Black Mamba Cobra Boom-Boom".  We asked what he would charge us for a picture, he very confidently quoted Rupees 5,000 or around $80.

The photograph above shows the classroom module "Multimedia For Photographers". The participants (from the far left) are Ruben Vicente, Shane Green, Sandy Chandler, Charlotte Rush Bailey, Tony Pond, Bob Newman and myself. Not shown is Kaushik Ghosh who photographed us.

Vrindavan...brace yourself! We are coming tomorrow.


Call Me KIJU

Here are impromptu street portraits of Kiju on Crosby Street in Soho, NYC. Kiju is an alternative rock performer.