Tuesday 6 January 2015

Northwest India | Tewfic El-Sawy



I've recently published Northwest India on the Exposure platform, with some of the photographs I made during one of my photo expeditions-workshops in a corner of northwest India; a region that is rife with tribal communities.

The Dungarpur-Poshina- Baneshwar-Bhuj region of Southern Rajasthan and of Gujarat‘s Rann of Kutch is sufficiently distant from the mainstream tourist circuit that compelling photographs and great photo-opportunities can be made in the small rural villages scattered in that geographical quadrangle.

I've chosen to feature portraits more than anything else in this gallery; portraits of members of tribal communities such as the Bhils, Banjara,  Gowdia and Garacia, and Rabaris.

I've also chosen to process the digital images using Nik Collection's Analog Efex Pro 2 filters, which gave them an analog look.

The photographs I made in the tiny village of Madhwa (midway between Bhuj and Bhachau) are those that stayed with me the most. The village is home to charcoal makers, living in abject poverty and were rather reclusive... however, when seeing cameras the women of the village quickly changed into their finest and cleanest, and stood with the poise of experienced models the minute when lenses were pointed their way.  Handsome people, with beautiful dark eyes...and yet dealt the harshest of cards in the desolate shrubs of the Kutch.

REI | De Las Flores

REI by Tewfic El-Sawy on on Exposure