21-MAR-2008
Bus stop, Jaipur, India, 2008
Travelers of every age crowd the dilapidated buses that form the backbone of India inter-city transportation system. I made this image in the old city, just outside of the City palace. The palace represents the historic and touristic India. Yet the real India is represented by the reality of dependence on a decaying intercity bus system such as this one. These adults are resigned to it. For the children, riding the bus, no matter how decrepit and tardy it might be, is a great adventure. This image tells both of those stories.
18-DEC-2007
Multitasking, Hanoi, Vietnam, 2007
A fast-food worker chats on her cell phone while cleaning her restaurant's front door. She is squeezed between reminders of her job -- a huge hamburger -- and the holiday enticement that stands just beyond the glass. The image tells the story of how people juggle their priorities. We can be sure she is not talking to someone about the job she is doing – she wipes that door with the practiced hand of an automaton, and her back is turned to the juicy hamburger on the wall. Since relatively few Vietnamese celebrate Christmas (the holiday is promoted here largely for western tourists) we can assume that she is not particularly enamored with Santa, either. My hunch is that she is talking to her boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, or significant other. Ultimately, each viewer will decide where her priorities rest.
04-JAN-2008
Duck pen, near Can Tho, Vietnam, 2008
These ducks are being raised, no doubt, to feed someone. But at this point, it is the duck that gets the meal. I layer this image, just as I would prepare chapters in a story. The first layer is the duck pen itself, filled with relatively complacent ducks, unmindful of their ultimate fate. A tree overlaps the duck pen, representing nature and growth and magically linking this layer to the last one. The second layer offers us two tubs and a bag, letting us know that these ducks are being well fed so that they will eventually make someone an appropriate feast. The last layer extends the scene as a fantasy – there is a lush landscape painted on the wall in the background, a painting that links directly to the tree that looms over the ducks in the pen. It offers an idyllic context to the image, an implied "Duck Paradise," sanitizing the inevitable ending of the story.
08-JAN-2008
Rural rush hour, Tan Chau, Vietnam, 2008
Tan Chau is a suburb of Chau Doc, a city not far from the Cambodian border. We were touring its dirt roads during our final evening in Vietnam and witnessed this rush hour exodus by motorbike. This tells the story of a community on the move, largely in one direction. The last light of the day warms the scene, and the dusty haze adds a healthy dose of atmosphere. The focal point of the picture is the masked lady in red, a phantom figure of authority. She wears a hat and rides a traditional bike. She follows a group of school children in uniform, also on bikes. Behind her are still more bikes, as well as a group of helmeted motorbike riders, most of them carrying passengers with legs flung out for balance. The line continues as far back as the eye can see, and carries us to the second most significant detail – a man riding a bike in the opposite direction. He moves against the flow, the lone dissenter. It is, in effect, the story of rural Vietnam – where life does not revolve around the automobile, and everyone rides a bicycle or motorbike to work or school. And most people seem content to follow the leader.
13-SEP-2007
Breakfast coming, Pingyao, China, 2007
Breakfast is a family event in this Pingyao household. All four members are playing a part. Even the father is here – an abstracted figure at the back of the image. I watched as the young girl in red, accompanied by her younger brother, gently carried the hot pot out the door and down a neighboring street. As she vanished around a corner she looked back at me and smiled. And that is how my story begins. Where to from here? What is in that little pot, and who gets to enjoy it? How do the family dynamics in this culture differ from our own? Such questions generate their own stories, all of them in the minds of my viewers.
18-SEP-2007
Conversation, Beijing, China, 2007
I thought that I had already made my last shot on this trip as our taxi crawled through Beijing's rush hour traffic on our final evening in China. I was wrong. We were stalled opposite a bus, and we saw in its window this conversation taking place between a young child and an older man, perhaps his grandfather. I can imagine the conversation – the little boy has asked a question about something he has just seen from this window, and the older man responds with thought, care, and love. The child listens – he is awestruck by what he hears. He may long remember this moment. It is a story based on the interplay of body language and expressions. I hope it brings back memories of similar conversations my viewers had with their elders when they were this child’s age. I know it does for me.
(My friend Tim May, shooting along side of me, made an image of this scene an instant later. It offers a
07-SEP-2007
Card game, Feng Jing, China, 2007
Feng Jing is an ancient Chinese city about an hours drive from Shanghai. Playing cards in the village square is a community event. Who is winning here? This question is at the heart of the story here. Read the expressions: the man reaching for the cards dominates the image – he brims with confidence, and the grinning fellow just behind him echoes his attitude. The three ladies, on the other hand, play it closer to the vest. The two eldest are the most incongruous players – they seem to come from another era, yet here they are, in the thick of things. The entire group accepts the presence of my camera on their table – they don’t speak a word of English, yet welcome it as just another player. Through my camera’s vantage point, all of you can share in this game.
14-SEP-2007
Eating dust, Pingayo, China, 2007
The streets of Pingyao contain as much dirt as brick. When a truck roars up one of its main streets, pedestrians and cyclists are covered with choking dust. The woman’s costume plays a big part in this story. Her white pants are, for the moment anyway, still pristine. Her bright red shirt is the focal point of the image. Yet all around her, the dust flies and everything but her seems dirty. Eyes shut, lips pursed, she makes the best of a bad morning. She seems used to it. Why else would she wear white pants while riding a bike here? Pingyao’s City Tower in the background lends context – we know this is Old China. Dust and dirt and time itself are all characters in this story of street life in Pingyao.
15-SEP-2007
Electrical hell, Beijing, China, 2007
Beijing is a city of striking contrasts. It now offers some of the world's most advanced architecture and technology. Its booming economy paces the world marketplace. Yet in its older neighborhoods, makeshift, tangled patchworks of electrical wires such as these symbolize just how far Beijing and China itself have yet to go. A closer look reveals satellite dishes and television antennas on the roof of the building in the background. I blend the tangled wires into them, and illuminate this paradox with a setting sun. All the elements of the story are in place. High technology, aging infrastructure, and a setting sun are incongruously juxtaposed in the heart of Beijing.
08-SEP-2007
Fruit stand, Shanghai, China, 2007
On a quiet, tree-lined street in Shanghai's 19th Century French Concession, fruit vendors wait for customers on a long summer evening. In this image, mood and atmosphere carry the story forward. Light and color draw the eye to the stand, an oasis of nature incongruously sailing upon a sea of concrete. The man at left displays the perks of ownership – he sits in a comfortable chair, while the other vendor forgoes a stool, and uses a tree for support. The story line is set, framing the question “where are the customers?” Yet one gets the feeling that they may be just around the corner. The stand has a permanent storefront, indicating longevity and prosperity.
14-SEP-2007
Gridlock, Pingyao, China, 2007
Cars are permitted to drive on only a few of Pingyao's ancient streets. The result is often gridlock. In this case, traffic, which included two horse-drawn carts full of collected sewage, was backed up for nearly a mile. Today meets yesterday here, and the results can be unpleasant. I use a 28mm wideangle lens here to punctuate the story – by stretching the traffic as much as I can, I make it seem even worse. The incongruity of the old carts, euphemistically known as honey-wagons, contrasted to cars and motorbikes, speaks the loudest here – much of provincial China is very much still caught between past and present. Just the fact that they still collect sewage here, called “night soil,” which is used as fertilizer, is telling. The story blends urban chaos with rural crudities, giving us a sense of ordinary life in much of China. (Ironically, such chaos had a direct effect on our own travel there – our van from Pingayo to a regional airport was caught in a similar traffic snarl, and we missed our flight to Beijing.)
17-SEP-2007
Guide, Great Wall of China, Mutianyu, China, 2007
Some travelers, such as this couple, feel more comfortable when accompanied by a guide. Yet looking at this image, I get the feeling that these people probably wish they were somewhere else at this moment. The Great Wall of China is a series of continual steep climbs and descents, climbed slowly and carefully. Their body language tells me they are trying to do just that, yet their guide strides ahead as if they were invisible, leaving them to struggle up the steep grade by leaning sideways and climbing upwards at the same time. The hills and towers in the background provide important context for this story, expressed as “street photography,” even if the street in question was built in 1368. As I say in the introduction to my street photography gallery (
http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/street_photography ) “street photography means telling stories, showing how people spontaneously react and interact in public places.” And that is exactly what is happening here. The couple reacts to the stress of traveling the Great Wall of China in one way. Their guide reacts in quite another. There is a gulf between this guide and his clients, aside from the distance he strays from them. His attire is very much in keeping with rural China -- an undershirt, baggy trousers, old hat. He may also be carrying the woman’s backpack in his hand, so he is acting as porter as well as guide. His gaze is steadfast. He has done this before and he will do it again. His clients, however, pay him no heed – they seem zoned out, struggling mightily to keep pace as they zigzag their way along the unforgiving humps of the Great Wall of China on a steamy, misty afternoon.