For PART I of this post, click HERE.
For PART II of this post, click HERE.
For PART III of this post, click HERE.

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For a photographer who spends all of his time photographing foreign places, its a pretty interesting experience to go take pictures in the town you grew up in.

For me, that town is Shelburne, Vermont. Its a small town in Northern Vermont that resembles something out of a fairy tale. Historic barns, covered bridges, rolling green hills and immaculately mowed lawns are in every direction. In the town center, kids and parents eat ice cream peacefully in front of the Shelburne Country Store.

This would be my second time “home” in the past three years. However, I hadn’t taken a picture there in many more years than that. And one day I thought I would go take some pictures for a couple minutes — to see what it felt like to take a picture at home.

And boy … did it feel uncomfortable.

I used to take pictures here during my college years as well as post-university while working for the Burlington Free Press. However, years later after photographing in America’s West, North Africa and throughout Asia, it felt odd.

While I live in China, I don’t know if I really consider it home. However, after looking at this place through my lens, I was pretty sure, this didn’t feel like home either.

By looking at Shelburne through a camera, it gave me the opportunity to frame my home town both photographically and mentally. Looking at these pictures compared to where I live now, is so different, it made Shelburne seem almost fake.

People weren’t poor. The biggest problem seemed to be caused by the police in their endless pursuit to create income via speeding tickets. There was no desert, no pollution, no threatened or marginalized population. Everyone’s lawns were so well mowed and manicured, I could have mistaken them for astroturf. These are things I’ve become so used to being surrounded by, without them I felt very odd.

These more dark parts of life, I feel very comfortable photographing. Crimes, fires, funerals, riots, environmental problems, social issues — no problem. But a nice peaceful town, that is tricky. One thing I noticed was how invasive the camera seemed to be, which normally I’m just used to and it doesn’t phase me anymore.

However, the feeling may be more about photographing home, than photography itself. And although the town itself seems to resemble something from a children’s book, some parts of home will always feel home.

My parents still live in the house I grew up in. I attended a wedding of old friends. I spent a weekend with my nieces. These things will always feel like home, even if the physical space they exist in doesn’t. But if this place didn’t feel like home, and my residents in China doesn’t exactly feel like home either, it brings up a question I often get — Where is home?

For expatriates who travel a lot this becomes confusing. If you take a look at this page, you’ll see I’ve lived in quite a few places. But, none of them are home. China isn’t home and my home town, doesn’t seem like home either.

For people that travel, at a certain point I think you have to sacrifice the feeling of home and I’d guess the longer away form your home country you spend and the more time you spend traveling, it probably becomes even more of a far off notion. By leaving your home the world opens up. Doors open as does your view of the world you exist in. I believe everyone should get out of their own country, at least for awhile. However, for those of us who continue to do it we do sacrifice things, regardless of how much fun it might look from the outside.

My niece above, who is now 3 years, 10 months, 23 days old (my brother conveniently keeps this information readily available), has probably seen me in person less than a dozen times in her life. My family and best friends in the world, see me once a year if I’m lucky.

The path we take in life will always have pros and cons. And as much as its a bit sad to really realize how far away you are from your friends and family (mentally and physically), and that you’ve become a stranger in your own home town, this dream is too good to give up. For now we’ll just hope all of these things will be re-obtainable later in life.

For PART I of this post, click HERE.
For PART II of this post, click HERE.
For PART III of this post, click HERE.

For Part I of this post, click here.

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The sweet is never as sweet, without the sour.

After driving 2,200 miles (3500 km) in California, Oregon and Washington I ended up at my former home at Lake Tahoe. Perhaps it was the juxtaposition of San Francisco’s relatively crazy population to a waterfall lit by a full moon over Lake Tahoe’s Emerald Bay, or perhaps it was the ease of simply traveling 2,200 miles with no road blocks, police questionings, landslides or other unavoidable catastrophe that would be inevitable if traveling that distance in Asia — the West Coast of the United States is simply a beautiful place.

And those that are looking beyond America’s economic woes and broken political system seem to still be living the good life, with or without money.

After leaving San Francisco, I dropped in to see old old friend Jeremy Leffert now making wine in Paso Robles, California (B on the map). We walked through his vineyard, examined wine blends in a celler full of oak barrels and ate cheese that probably cost more than some people’s annual income in Asia.

While Jeremy’s fingernails are stained from the juice of the grapes he grows and his hands reflect those of someone who works the land, the people tasting his wines don’t share the same physical characteristics. I wondered if the people tasting the wines around me thought about the largely migrant populations picking the grapes. I wondered if the couple arguing about wine and cheese pairings thought about the winemakers regular 14-hour work day.

These people were about the opposite of those who I saw on Mission Street. While I can make a guess if the wine drinkers surrounding me thought about how their wine got to their glass, in an attempt to not judge anyone too much — I’ll leave my conclusion out. However, the real revelation here was seeing the sweet balance the sour — a tough life, balancing a good life.

Balance is something I don’t necessarily see very often. The world’s growing interest in China’s nouveau riche puts me in many situations where I’m photographing symbols of growth or Asia’s cremé de la cremé. On the contrary, I find myself in places with great social, environmental or economic problems. So for the most part, I find myself photographing the extremes. And due to deadlines, timelines and logistics I often miss points between A and C.

However, in the land of the car — its normal to drive 20 hours just to go camping. Taking a road trip in America allowed me to see America’s rich, America’s poor and in general, a high degree of diversity — culturally, economically and in the physical landscape.

I very rarely have the opportunity to take long road trips in Asia. I find myself on planes, trains and cabs daily. And when I am in a car, I am never the driver. The great American road trip had become a foreign concept to me. And traveling like this, allowed me to see point B, in between A and C. Perhaps these are often the points between the extremes. The points that don’t make the news.

Weeks later I found myself climbing a rock high above Lake Tahoe. The deep blue of Lake Tahoe almost reflected the color of the sky above. While this was once my home, the view to me now was foreign.

Minutes away from my old home at lake level (6200 feet) I sat on an enormous granite slab I used to frequent. I dont think any body of water in all of Asia is this clean. I think I actually avoid going into the water in most of Asia simply out of mistrust of the cleanliness. You can only read so many “bag of dead babies found in river stories” out of China, before you make the decision that a lot of water might not be good to swim in.

Sitting on the rock I thought about my time at this lake. I covered local news here for three years — and the lake was consistently the biggest news maker. While it made sense at the time, having spent time at some of the world’s most polluted waterways since my time here, it makes the lake even more special now.

This lake is a symbol of the great beauty that exists on America’s West Coast.

As I traveled up the West Coast and through the Sierra Nevada the amount of friends I saw and reconnected with grew like a snowball, as did the many differences I saw between the East and the West — both physically and metaphorically. The sky here is blue (you can actually see it). The water here is clean. People obsess over wine and not beer. People drive cars long distances, they don’t take trains. Tacos aren’t in hard, stale yellow shells. A red pepper could cost ¥35, not ¥0.35. People don’t smoke in elevators and throwing your trash in a lake or out of a moving car would be taboo. The list goes on forever …

However, for an expat there’s no better way to see the differences in where you currently reside and your former home — than by actually visiting the place where you grew up. For me, that’s Vermont — which might be the complete opposite place of Beijing. That’s where I headed next and where Part III picks up next.

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In the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, people sleep on the streets. The steep street is lined with taquerîas, drug addicts, empty shopping carts and dodgy motels. My home used to be not too far from here.

However, now I live in China. I’ve been based in Beijing for the past 2.5 years. Previously, I had a small stint in Algeria — but for the most part, in recent years, all of my time has been spent in Asia. And now that I’m freelance and more in control of my destiny and geographic location — I took the chance to visit my own country for a change.

Although my purpose and goal of this trip was not to photograph, from a photographer’s standpoint, its very interesting to take pictures of the Western world after years of photographing the developing world. For me, I always found it easier to photograph foreign places and things than my own home. Just by the mere fact everything is different from what I grew up with, seeing interesting frames in the developing world seems easy.

However, after a long time away from this country — these frames seem a bit unusual to me. A worker walking in front of a store that conveniently sells amo and booze or even a non polluted sky are fairly strange to me.

This blog post is not about reverse culture shock but more some general observations about America from the perspective of an American living in China.

Traveling by bus, train and car with stops in San Francisco, Central California’s wine country and a long drive through Oregon and Washington followed by a week at my former home at lake Tahoe I’ve had a good chance to check out what’s going on over here in the U.S. and ample time to ask myself the question “what am i missing?”

For me, I’m missing my friends and family; but what’s going on in the world around them I dont think I miss too much.

On Mission Street in San Francisco, the amount of blatant drug use and crazy people is astonishing. Homeless populations certainly exist in Asia (certainly South Asia) but in a “first world” country like the united states, we haven’t even figured out how to house people.

While China’s infrastructure at this level is super impressive, it’s hard to believe we can’t allocate our money in a way to keep people off the streets. One step above the homeless population I’ve been seeing, is Americas lower class scattered around the west coast, still seemingly in a state of depression. The ironic thing is this depression seems to be surrounded by a lot of natural beauty. A beautiful foggy city, a clear blue sky, or a snow covered mountain on the side of a highway — the landscape is stunning.

However, even though the landscape is stunning, one thing I can confidently say — a poor person in the developing world seems infinitely happier than a poor person in America, even though they most likely face much greater and basic hardships. To counter that, the physical environment of a poor person in the developing world is visually the opposite.

While we call ourselves a first world country and we have some nice highways, restrooms and soaps, its visually obvious to me we’re behind in some of life’s basic assets.

Happiness should not be a foreign concept.

However, with the bad — there is always good. Picking up with the good, next post.

NOTE FROM JONAH: This is the continuation of a photo series from India. If you’re just joining us, here’s what you’ve missed:

1. I’m not alone here
2. People ‘like’ my diarrhea
3. Dancing In(dia) the Streets
4. Indian trains: Contemptibly cozy, crammed and claustrophobic
5. Feeding a City Part II: From Macro to Micro
6. Confusing realities of child labor
7. Enlightined in Bodh Gaya बोधगया
8. Kathmandu — You’ve met your match: Varanasi वाराणसी
9. Varanasi वाराणसी: Full Photographic Spectrum
10. From sea to sand: Welcome to Rajasthan
11. Holy cow!
12. Gender inequality in a Blue City
13. Indian Failwhale Tiger Tracking
14. Good Light and Good Luck: The Taj Mahal
15. India in a row
16. A Barefoot Metaphor: China vs. India

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While shoes aren’t completely necessary in life and I generally prefer not to wear them, in places like India — you’d think it would be a good idea to wear them given the general state of cleanliness in the massive subcontinent. This cleanliness factor and some crazy super bacterias floating around combined with the various animals that share space with the human population, it would seem like shoes are a good idea.

However, the Indian population certainly doesn’t think so.

While traveling across India, I was constantly amazed about how many people weren’t wearing shoes. In both rural and urban areas tons of people seemed to think the ground was enough shoe for them. As someone who has lived and traveled in the South Pacific, I’m quite used to the barefoot way of life. I’ve seen people walk across fire or develop calluses on their feet so strong they could walk on coral reef that would tear my feet to shreds. However, I’ve not seen so many people in urban environments develop calluses like the people of India.

So what do barefeet have to do with China?

I think some of this behavior can certainly be attributed to poverty. People aren’t wearing shoes, because they can’t afford them. This is not the only reason, but I think its safe to say when you see a barefoot child collecting trash of the train tracks, he doesn’t have any shoes.

This is a bit strange because any day of the week you can read a story about India’s booming economy. However, unlike in China the impact of this boom doesn’t seem to trickle down to the impoverished population’s feet.

I’ve mentioned earlier, my natural inclination to compare India and China. What do they have in common? They are enormous countries both in population and in physical size. They both have rapidly developing economies which would leed one to believe “things are better there” now then in previous times. And in fact, they are.

Although I wasn’t in China or India twenty or thirty years ago, the impact of China’s growing economy is very visual. While the income distribution is certainly not equal, from rural areas of Anhui to small cities in TIbet to desertified lands in Inner Mongolia or even the state of public bathrooms in Beijing, you can really see China has created massive infrastructure improvements and increased living standards for an enormous population.

I’m sure there are many in China walking around barefoot; however, walking around Beijing or any other major city I don’t really see that. In Delhi and beyond, you continually do.

Although this is a small metaphor that refers to the general living conditions of people from both of these “booming” countries the hint of truth in it might shed light on governmental and social constructions of both countries.

China’s transformation from pre-cultural revolution days to now has not necessarily been a smooth one, and certainly there are many issues that still need to be ironed out, including many human rights issues. However, the China’s communist model vs. India’s democratic model combined with the caste system certainly produced different results.

I certainly don’t claim to be an expert on Indian or Chinese history, politics or sociology but from the visual perspective, these countries and their developmental states couldn’t be more different, with or without shoes. Beyond policy obviously many other societal behaviors and practices (religion, environment, physical space, history) are key indicators when comparing these two countries, the governmental building blocks of democratic India don’t seem to be as strong as in China.

NOTE FROM JONAH: This is the continuation of a photo series from India. If you’re just joining us, here’s what you’ve missed:

1. I’m not alone here
2. People ‘like’ my diarrhea
3. Dancing In(dia) the Streets
4. Indian trains: Contemptibly cozy, crammed and claustrophobic
5. Feeding a City Part II: From Macro to Micro
6. Confusing realities of child labor
7. Enlightined in Bodh Gaya बोधगया
8. Kathmandu — You’ve met your match: Varanasi वाराणसी
9. Varanasi वाराणसी: Full Photographic Spectrum
10. From sea to sand: Welcome to Rajasthan
11. Holy cow!
12. Gender inequality in a Blue City
13. Indian Failwhale Tiger Tracking
14. Good Light and Good Luck: The Taj Mahal
15. India in a row

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While looking back from the thousands of pictures I took in India, I began to notice some patterns in unrelated images. This pattern came in the form of the row or a line. People, structures, shadows – even animals making geometric shapes across my frames. I find this happens frequently with travel images and while most of it is coincidence, when you put the images together you can make some fun sequences. However, some of the images actually reveal some behaviors in culture that actually show something about a culture and place — even on a wide scale.

This might be seen in the way a person rests while on a job. It might be the distance in which people walk apart from each other. In other cases, just two squirrels passing food together creates a line across an image.

While in India I was focused on video production for a story (that’s still in the works), the stills that came out of the trip revealed some fun rows or lines. While these images don’t have much of any other purpose (both thematically or financially) I can give them a home here. So — without any further need for words, I give you India in a Row.

Varanasi in a Row

Monkeys in a Row

Turban in a Row

Squirrels in a Row

Workers in a Row

Reflection in a Row

Ladies in a Row

A View, In a Row

Shadows in a Row

Taking a Picture, In a Row

Students in a Row

Wedding, In a Row

Boarding a Train, In a Row

Sitting in a Row

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Do video journalists need showreels? While I don’t know the answer to this question, for the past two years I’ve gone with —yes. However, the science of creating a (show)reel is seemingly far more complicated than one might believe.

Showreels have traditionally been made by cameraman, DP’s and those of us in the photography industry that find themselves on the film side of things. However, as I explained recently, video journalists, cinematic news photographers and documentary makers are certainly in a gray area between film and traditional video journalism.

When DP’s, directors and producers need cameramen its normal for them to request to see a reel. Since going freelance, I’ve had weekly requests for these from various people around China. However, it would not be so normal for a newspaper or magazine to ask to see a reel. So if you work in news photography, why would you make one and what are the challenges?

WHY: With converging media, its certainly becoming easier for photographers to jump from one industry to another. If you can film a news clip, chances are you might be useful as a cameraman in motion picture or documentary. So having this tool together is useful when someone is in your office asking for it.

WHAT: Now comes the tricky part — what do you put in your reel? I’ve found this tricky because it really depends on who you are showing it to. In many ways, this creates the possible need for more than one reel. You might have one to show documentary makers and another for a commercial client. Further more, you might need another one to show your ability with motion graphics or post production work. If your video has too much post production, it might reflect negatively if the inquiry is for documentary where the look is supposed to be more natural.

While last year I was doing much more still photography, the product became more of a photography show with small video clips embedded. This year I’ve been much more focused in video production and created the entire film with just video. If you notice, the footage kind of shows a cultural and developing world theme. I tried to add some clips of people from different countries to show a larger demographic of who I work with (westerners, developing world peoples and indigenous peoples). However, does this peg me or ‘type cast’ me? And if it does, am I ok with that since this is the type of work I want to be doing? I’ll ponder those questions and get back to you …

SEQUENCE: If you’ve figured out which content you want to include in your reel, you next need to decide how to order it. Since its mixed footage and in many ways simply eye candy — putting the images in an order that logically makes sense might be different for everyone. I’ve been trying to make mini sequences that flow together from one to the next. However, the logic behind these sequences and the order in which they appear is quite subjective. Trying to find logic in this can be difficult.

SOUND: Music is another tricky part. The song I used this year from Hanggai I personally love. However, its pretty distinct and different than what most chose.

Most of my friends’ reels and reels I see online use relatively ambient electronic music. By doing this you certainly push the focus to your images. For me however, I’m involved in production and photography. So I wanted the music and images to compliment each other in making a self contained visual demo of what type of imagery and films I’m interested in producing.

If one does chose this route, you become a bit a risk of offending someone (musically). While I like Hanggai, I can certainly imagine someone not liking it. So by choosing something more subtle, you might be a little more safe of not offending anyone.

I however, aren’t really trying to be subtile with my images. I prefer high impact images. But, this is certainly a style thing as well as a time-and-place thing.

NEVER ENDING FOOTAGE: Perhaps the most difficult thing is trying to figure out when it is done. I’m always creating new images and therefor, feel like I can always replace images with better images. In many ways, this means — you are never done. The images keep coming. So I think its always a work in progress. The version above is a third draft and I have a fourth draft in the works already.

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If you’re interested — comparing last years reel to this years I think it shows a larger change in my visual direction and a bigger push towards video production. But for a quick look at 2010 – check out this video in still photography form.

NOTE FROM JONAH: This is the continuation of a photo series from India. If you’re just joining us, here’s what you’ve missed:

1. I’m not alone here
2. People ‘like’ my diarrhea
3. Dancing In(dia) the Streets
4. Indian trains: Contemptibly cozy, crammed and claustrophobic
5. Feeding a City Part II: From Macro to Micro
6. Confusing realities of child labor
7. Enlightined in Bodh Gaya बोधगया
8. Kathmandu — You’ve met your match: Varanasi वाराणसी
9. Varanasi वाराणसी: Full Photographic Spectrum
10. From sea to sand: Welcome to Rajasthan
11. Holy cow!
12. Gender inequality in a Blue City
13. Indian Failwhale Tiger Tracking
14. Good Light and Good Luck: The Taj Mahal

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There’s some things in life you are supposed to see. One of these places is India’s Taj Mahal. While working on a story last month, I was in the neighborhood of the mighty Taj and although I hate massive tourist attractions, lines, groups of tourists and the rif-raf that goes along with said ingredients — I thought it best to put my negativisms asside and go see the iconic mausoleum.

And while over 11,000 people visit the marble palace every day — I decided to attempt to avoid the crowds and woke up before the sun did. I thought avoiding the crowds at the Taj would be impossible — however, I was actually presently surprised with my luck this March 5th of 2011.

When you leave your hotel in Agra (home of the Taj) its hard to believe a place could be that special. Agra itself is far from exciting. Tourism has overrun the city and marble workers, rug makers and fake jewelers seem to be a dime a dozen. Streets are crowded and lines for the Taj are said to be a kin to Disneyland.

However, on this day of March 5th, I beat the lines and was greeted with some fantastic light. In this shot above, I actually managed to pull a frame of the entire East side of the Taj – sans people.

In case you are wondering which lenses to pack while visiting the Taj — this was shot with a Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II USM (f/4, 1/1000, unexposed .3 stops, ISO 100) which coincidently will frame almost the entire width of the Taj from the side (without too much distortion).

Although I’m partial to the “golden hour” sunset light, the pink hue of sunrise light combined with the white marble of the Taj Mahal makes for some pretty fantastic hues, that kind of reach pink on the color spectrum. As the sun rose and the marble structure illuminated, colors around the structure, property and waters began to light up with some fantastic variation.

Light blue reflections off the still pools of the mausoleum, pink hues from the dome of the Taj and the never get’s old “golden backed silhouette” trick, toward the rising sun. While this is an easy trick (f/2.8, 1/3200, underexposed -0.7, ISO 100), arriving at the Taj Mahal early will allow you to get some pretty cool shaped silhouettes.

While getting good light involves a bit of luck and avoiding crowds requires basic logic, finding unusual frames is a bit trickier when it comes to photographing international symbols. The Taj Mahal is considered one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, and thus has been photographed probably from every angle with every lens possible. While its possible to create some more unusual frames, it was hard for me to not get drawn toward the iconic images of this building (i.e. the top photo).

On an annoying level, photographers are not allowed to bring in tripods or even big bags to the site. This makes video possibilities tricky if not impossible. I shot some video off the marbled grounds that came out pretty neat; however, in general you can count as your hands being your tripod. While this is annoying, it would probably be more annoying to be next to 11,000 people who all also had tripods taking picture of the same thing at the same time.

So — One more sight crossed off the always expanding global “to see” list. A couple more posts on the way from India before the photo blog returns to the Philippines. And with that I wish you “Good Light and Good Luck.”

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NOTE FROM JONAH: This is the continuation of a photo series from India. If you’re just joining us, here’s what you’ve missed:

1. I’m not alone here
2. People ‘like’ my diarrhea
3. Dancing In(dia) the Streets
4. Indian trains: Contemptibly cozy, crammed and claustrophobic
5. Feeding a City Part II: From Macro to Micro
6. Confusing realities of child labor
7. Enlightined in Bodh Gaya बोधगया
8. Kathmandu — You’ve met your match: Varanasi वाराणसी
9. Varanasi वाराणसी: Full Photographic Spectrum
10. From sea to sand: Welcome to Rajasthan
11. Holy cow!
12. Gender inequality in a Blue City
13. Indian Failwhale Tiger Tracking

And just like that — your back in India (at least in the digitally vicarious sense).

After leaving the sandy deserts of Jodhpur, Rajasthan I figured since I was in the neighborhood, I should probably stop and see the Taj Mahal. However, on my way I decided to split my trip up and stop in Ranthambore National Park — to once again, attempt to track a (alleged) Bengal Tiger.

And once again, I was thwarted by nature. Or perhaps, it’s just harder to find a wild tiger than one would believe based upon the tourist literature to Ranthambore National Park. While in Nepal, I searched for the enormous cats by elephant and by foot, in India, I searched by open air jeep.

As a method of searching for wildlife, the jeep seems highly ineffective to me. I was up at sunrise driving through the Rajisthani park, and its hard to believe that tigers would want to go toward a noisy car.

Hence today’s title “Indian Failwhale Tiger Tracking.” If you are unfamiliar with the Failwhale, you apparently don’t use Twitter. And while its hard for me to admit that everyone doesn’t use Twitter, I will briefly explain the Failwhale with a little help from our good friends at the Urban Dictionary. The Failwhale is:

DEFINITION: The image of a whale being carried by a number of birds that appears when the Twitter website is overloaded or has failed. Failwhale appears to now have his/her own fanclub.

WORD ORIGIN: From fail + whale (probably for rhyming purposes).
i.e.: Sad that Twitter had failed just when he needed it most, he was somewhat consoled by the appearance of his beloved Failwhale.

After this quick lesson in nascent Twitter vocabulary that has moved past the Twittersphere and into the global vernacular, hopefully we are all on the same page now. And although I didn’t see any tigers and I saw no real whales in Ranthambore National Park — I did see some wildlife along the way, including myriad monkeys, bird life, deers and some boars with very human like eyes.

While I didn’t see any big game, the park is known for its leopard, nilgai, dhole, wild boar, sambar, hyena, sloth bear and chital. I’m not sure if it requires some type of skill set or just simply more time and patience to see this stuff but its certainly not easy. In Nepal’s Chitwan National Park I hired a guide and we spent eight hours walking through three meter high grass (in the rain) following an infinite number of paw prints that seemed to simply go in circles.

When the amazonian grass got annoying to the point where there could have been a tiger two feet away from me and I would have had no idea, I rented an elephant (as you do … ) and road around high above the grass looking down for the elusive tiger.

From what I know about cats, be them big ones or small ones they are certainly much quicker than most animals and don’t seem to have the need for attention, unless of course they want it. So tracking these animals seems more like dumb luck than skill, but I’d gladly here the opinion of anyone who actually knows what they are talking about, rather than my circumstantial evidence.

So after my second failure this year to track a tiger, I moved on to the Taj Mahal as buildings seemed much easier to track than wild cats. The India photo series picks up at this magnificent building with some gorgeous light next.

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NOTE FROM JONAH: This is the continuation of a photo series from India. If you’re just joining us, here’s what you’ve missed:

1. I’m not alone here
2. People ‘like’ my diarrhea
3. Dancing In(dia) the Streets
4. Indian trains: Contemptibly cozy, crammed and claustrophobic
5. Feeding a City Part II: From Macro to Micro
6. Confusing realities of child labor
7. Enlightined in Bodh Gaya बोधगया
8. Kathmandu — You’ve met your match: Varanasi वाराणसी
9. Varanasi वाराणसी: Full Photographic Spectrum

Along the banks of the Ganges sits ancient Varanasi. While the focus of the city is certainly on the river, the city is connected by an intricate system of alleys small enough to make Beijing’s hutongs look like highways.

The city structure reminded me a little bit of the UNESCO World Heritage area Casbah in old city of Algiers, Algeria. However, the enormous Indian population makes these alleys seem even smaller.

The alleys don’t form a grid. Dead ends seem plentiful. And just like in Kathmandu, temples, residences and commerce are all found in the same place — often in the same structure.

Photographically this place is pretty amazing. Pilgrims come to the holy waters, wander the ancient alleys and pray at some of India’s oldest temples. Some of the world’s most colorful brides (and some of the most obviously unhappy brides) come to Varanasi to fulfil their prearranged marriage.

Poverty in Varanasi is rampant. With poverty always comes interesting faces. With these interesting faces also comes some pretty big annoyances and dangers.

Its hard to walk 10 feet along the Ghats without running into a beggar. They come in all forms: from mothers to children, infants to old man. People are lined up looking for handouts from foreigners and Indian tourists.

This has been a problem throughout India for me. Everywhere I go people (especially children) are asking for money. With the massive Indian populaiton this can become a bit overwhelming. For photographers this can be a bigger problem.

Many people are demanding money for photographs. However, the Indian method of this is to approach you and ask if you will photograph them, followed by demanding money. People certianly approach you in friendly ways, however 90% of them are looking for money.

Beyond the beggars, Varanasi also seems to be full of various scam artists. “From which country do you come from?” Is the question often asked as you pass by strangers on the street. While the question is innocent in nature, 99% of these people have an agenda. Maybe they want to be your tour guide, maybe they want to coheres you into their shops or maybe they have something else to sell — but inevitably almost all of this friendlyness has a backstory — and usually not one you want to hear.

This puts tourists in an aqward position. People say ‘hi’ to you or ‘from which country do you come from’ and you have the choice to answer them or not. If you ignore them, you don’t have to deal with their scam. However, I feel like I am being rude as a visitor by not entertaining them a little bit. If you do respond, you open the door to having someone follow you around and pester you for long periods of time.

My method and approach to this common Asian occurrence is to respond to them with a little sarcasm. Let them know, you know their scam but chat them up a bit. Normally, when they see you are hip to their plan — they will bugger off. And in the slight chance someone is just being friendly and actually wants to know “from which country do you come from” — perhaps you’ve made a friend.

While I am on an assignment and therefor have a timeline and agenda here in India, I could only spend three days in this city. There seem to be so many hidden jewels of this place and so many interesting cultural happenings — you could spend months here. But this would not be my fate — as I would have to board a 27 hour train ride across the country to the deserts of Rajasthan.

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NOTE FROM JONAH: This is a follow up post from ealier “How do you feed a city of 22 million people?” mentioned here at the Atlantic Monthly.

Having recently visited one of the biggest wholesale food markets in the world in Beijing, I thought it would be interesting to see the process in India. While I didn’t make it to an enormous food market like the Xinfadi Agri-Food Wholesale Market, I did make it to a market which supplies one smaller city its food.

In the state of Bihar, you’ll be hard up to find a foreigner in the city of Bhaglapur — yet, unlike in China when you get to a tier 3 (or less) city no one is surprised to see a foreign face. Perhaps this is the leftover stench of colonialism …

Beyond the obvious difference in scale, these marketplaces are simply incomparably different — yet, perhaps equally as interesting.

The first observation I made was the general cleanliness of the market. All food is being sold off the ground (not out of trucks or stalls). There might be a cardboard box or a basket underneath the food — but clearly the ground is the area where business is done and goods are stored.

Most vegetables are covered with flies and other insects while meat sits under the hot sun, with vendors attempting to fan off bugs from their goods.

This market operates almost in the middle of a street. Rickshaws, tuk-tuks and the occasional car attempt to pass through, but really its just a grid-lock of constant honking, ramming and yelling. The market spills off the street and underneath a larger road’s underpass.

People are living underneath this highway in the same spot where they are selling food. This spot also functions as a place to throw trash as well as a bathroom. Thinking about the food I eat at restaurants and hotels while I am here its hard not to connect what I am eating to the cleanliness of this market.

The vendors themselves take a much different shape. While child labor is clearly a problem in China I don’t necessarily see it in my daily life. You’d have to go and seek it.

In India, its been much more obvious. I walked around this market for a couple hours but also passed it a couple times going in and out of my hotel and continued to see many children selling goods throughout the day and late at night.

Another big difference is the way which goods are taken away. While China has gone ‘car’ crazy, and goods at markets there are taken away by cars and trucks — at this market almost all goods were taken away by hand, head, wheel barrel or bike.

While I’ve seen how you feed a Chinese city of 22 million, I’ve now seen how you feed a smaller Indian City of 350,000.

Thinking about Western supermarkets and grocery stores, the difference is as big as the physical space which separates these two worlds.