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The Challenges and Rewards of Photographing a People and Their Culture
By David Duchemin
Having just returned from leading the Lumen Dei Photo Workshop and Tour in India with fellow Lexar photographer Matt Brandon, the issues that are associated with photographing other cultures is fresh in my mind.
We spent two weeks introducing workshop participants to the mughal influence in northern India. We shot in Old Delhi, Agra, and then flew to Kashmir where we lived on a houseboat, shot in the back alleys of the old city, and did a three-day trek into the Himalayas. There we met, spent time with, and photographed the transhumant Gujjar shepherds that make that area their seasonal home.
The thrust of the Lumen Dei Photo workshop was to not merely teach participants how to handle a camera but also how to photograph within a culture other than your own. To capture images with sensitivity and produce better, truer, more compelling images that honour that culture was the ultimate goal.
I believe that when you interact within a culture, and you do so with intentionality, humility, and respect, you not only find those qualities reciprocated, but you emerge with better images, and you leave the place having made your photography an act of giving, not just taking. To that end, here are a few ways we encouraged our participants to engage the people and the culture in which we were working.
The first step is research. We regularly discussed the history and culture of the places we were photographing because a better, deeper understanding of the locations and people you are shooting will lead to better images that more fully reflect the uniqueness of the culture.
If you know that a certain piece of clothing is unique to Kashmir alone, then images created with a subject in those clothes will more uniquely capture the spirit of the place. I'm not recommending you resort to asking your subjects to dress up, but rather you should keep your eyes open for unique opportunities - the more you know the more readily you will be able to identify them.
If, for example, you know the history of the Taj Mahal, you will be more able to shoot it as the icon that it is - a testimony to the love of a man for his woman. Or, you might choose to represent it as a labour that emptied the coffers of a nation, increased the divide between rich and poor, and ended in the imprisonment of the king by his son. More research gives more perspective for the photographer, which can lead to images with more depth and texture to them.
While you are researching a place, look into the values of the people that live there. Rarely are cultures completely homogenous, but they often share a core value system, especially those cultures based on a common faith. On the Lumen Dei tour, our interactions were almost entirely with Muslims. Knowing how to exchange greetings with Muslims, how to dress without giving offence, how to eat, and how to accept hospitality are all things that show you respect them enough to learn about and honour them. More often than not, this respect is returned and opens the way for a relationship of trust - even a brief one. It's in those kinds of relationships that compelling images are created.
It's unreasonable (not to mention impossible) to think that for every assignment I am sent on I will learn the local language. But taking the time to learn the basics - greetings, please, thank you, yes, no, my name is..., I come from... - is time well-spent. It shows, again, that you respect them enough to try. In all likelihood, they'll laugh at your efforts and correct you - but you'll be making in-roads to relationships that will form the foundation on which better images can be created. Learn the language and don't be afraid of making mistakes; it's the effort that matters to them.
I realize I'm a bit of a one-sermon kind of guy. Ultimately I believe this all comes down to caring enough to take time to show respect to the people you want to photograph. This means avoiding shoot-and-run tactics. It means slowing down, drinking a cup of chai, asking questions, fumbling through awkwardness and the imposing language barrier. When we were in Kashmir, we would spend 30 minutes in the Gujjars' huts, talking and sipping salt tea, exchanging greetings, and laughing. Only after we did this did we ask if we could take some time to photograph them. And by then we'd laid some foundations and they liked us and respected us. In most cases we came out of opportunities we'd never have experienced otherwise, with images that we'll cherish for a lifetime.
This isn't theoretical artsy-fartsy stuff - it's as important as knowing how to handle your camera. In fact, it's more important. Take your time. Slow down. Have a cup of tea. And in doing so you'll find, as Steve McCurry has said, that your subjects relax and "their soul drifts up into view." And when the barriers drop and you can see the true self behind their eyes, that's when true images are created. A turban alone doesn't make a person interesting, it's the character of that person - the smile, the emotion, the glint in the eye, the implied relationship between those qualities and the viewer are what makes compelling images. You'll only find they happen if you take the time.
Lastly, I believe that our photographic approach and the time spent within other cultures, should be an act of giving - taking the opportunity to make lives richer - even if all we leave them with is a moment, a laugh, or a memory. In Kashmir, we made arrangements to have the next trekking group drop prints off at a trading post so the families we met could have copies.
It's so easy to allow our photography to be an act of taking - we walk in, raise the camera, take the shot, and walk out as if they were objects and not people. It's so easy to approach photography as a mechanical task more associated with shutters, apertures, and glass. But photography is only a means to an end, and when used correctly, it can open doors to profound human encounters, even brief ones, that result in something good. So do your research, learn some of the language, take your time, and leave something behind. In the end, this approach will allow you the opportunity to create better, stronger images.
The Lumen Dei Workshop and Tour sponsored by Lexar and we're grateful for its kind participation.
More information on Lumen Dei can be found online at www.lumen-dei.com. David's selected images from the Lumen Dei workshop can be seen on David's portfolio
at www.pixelatedimage.com/fluid2 - follow the Kashmir gallery link.
David duChemin welcomes your input and questions. You can reach him by email at: info@pixelatedimage.com.
David Duchemin Bio
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