Local Girl + Village Near Advaita Garden, Alwar, Rajasthan, India, 2017

This past trip to India was a revelation photographically, bringing me closer to the children than in previous years. Thanks to my dear brothers Mukesh and Tejpal, we walked through the villages near Advaita Garden with camera in hand. 

Without such guidance, it is nearly impossible to walk through rural India and make meaningful portraits. We met this young girl when we searched for her cousin one day, a girl with incredibly clear eyes. It turned out that this young girl was a natural in front of the camera.

On this day she walked over to us as her cousin walked away to collect water for the family. Her hair was as seen in this photograph, and she was about to pull it back when we asked her to leave it alone. She was pleasantly surprised at the request, smiling along the way to this wall. We tried to find a spot with subdued sunlight, and chose this space. She positioned herself so that the sunlight touched her face as we released the shutter.

I look forward to printing this negative in the darkroom soon!

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Note: This image was made with a Hasselblad 555 ELD/100 mm combination onto Ilford Delta film.

Two Students + Teacher + Photographer, Rajasthan, India, Spring of 2015

One month after Cuba and four months to India this image comes to mind, taken from a video made earlier this year. The scene happens to be the room in which our classes are held. The young girl closest to me is the teacher's daughter, and the other lives across the path from this room.

They offered previously to paint my arm and this was the moment it happened. We were finished with the photography, and I put the small camera down to record their art. Every single second was cherished, and their features studied as they placed their creativity onto my skin.

In portraiture there is a physical distance between photographer and subject, the complete opposite of the moment in this image. This is our chance to exchange laughs, to put aside the societal norms and just enjoy each other in the purest sense of the verb.

I will see these two exquisite spirits in less than four months, and hope to be painted once again! Now this school is under the leadership of my dear friend Nirvana Bodhisattva and his good team at Nirvanavan Foundation.

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PS The wonderful woman to the left in the image is the teacher!

Note: This image is a still from the short video made with a Sony RX100M2.