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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Fifty Six: The bus-bound travel image > Wedding procession, Sawai Madhopur, India, 2008
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23-MAR-2008

Wedding procession, Sawai Madhopur, India, 2008

As we were driving through the city of Sawai Madhopur, traffic came to a halt as a wedding procession approached. I made this image through the front window of the bus as the groom approached on horseback, carrying a young child in his lap. There was no bride in sight. I was told that she was waiting for him to come and claim her. It was mid-morning, and the sun was very bright. It allowed me to use a fast shutter speed of 1/1000th of second, freezing the expressions of those in the crowd surrounding the turbaned groom. The bus was standing still, and I had high frontal vantage point allowing me to create a layered image. I was able to make sense of this crowd scene by drawing the eye of the viewer into the image, tying the woman carrying the child in the foreground layer to the groom carrying another child in the middle layer, and concluding the directional flow with the woman carrying the branches on her head in the background layer.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/1000s f/4.0 at 47.8mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis25-Apr-2008 19:30
I wish I knew what is up here. Our guide could not tell us the significance of the child. It could have been a member of his extended family, or perhaps just a lucky village child?
Tim May25-Apr-2008 17:44
I find myself wondering about the child with the groom. Is it his, is it theirs. What's up I wonder.
Phil Douglis22-Apr-2008 17:27
I think she is in the parade of friends, Alina. I think those sticks are a gift or offering of some kind. That's just a guess of course. We have no way of knowing, unless someone in that picture can tell us who she is and why she is there. (And that has happened to me a few times!)
Alina22-Apr-2008 07:52
First I noticed the groom with colorful turban, next the funny looking women in left corner with sticks on her head. She is probably onlooker but here she looks like a parade member.
Phil Douglis22-Apr-2008 01:07
Weddings are arranged in India. The bride comes to the groom's family with a dowry. Here, the groom is on his way to claim his bride. You are right -- weddings in India are quite different from those elsewhere. You are right -- the crowd seems relatively subdued. But they were playing music (note the trumpeter at lower right) and banging the drum, as they marched to the bride's house.
Guest 22-Apr-2008 01:01
They don't seem very happy. Had you not told me it was a wedding, I would have guessed a funeral. We have such set notions of what a wedding should look like...at least in our society. Here the groom seems to be the center of attention where I would have expected the bride.
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