Hello again! Here’s the next instalment of images from my travels in Bihar a few months ago. For Part 1 from this series, click HERE.
So I was wondering, what value does experiences make? Those of us who grew up in India know the number of times that we’ve been tutored about us being an agrarian country. But for a person living in an A-Level city what does that even mean? Enter Bihar. How does a farmer live? How is the culture in a state where 90% of the population (about 100 million) live in rural areas? What role does religion and tradition play? What about caste in relation to societal hierarchy? How important of an assent is cow dung for everyday life? These are some of the experiences I tackled in my travels through the state. Modern India has a tendency to emphasise on urban-focused technology and development but there is a rural and agrarian side which though sometimes uncomfortable to many, cannot be ignored. On the frontline of that discussion, is Bihar.
On the tech side, i’m glad the X-Pro2 performed so well. My shooting style often involves being very quick and perhaps even brash in my approach to my subjects. This involves running onto a scene, composing and releasing the shutter all within a few seconds. The 23mm’s focussing capabilities is handy as compared to the older lenses by Fuji which don’t have an internal focusing motor. A good example is the image of the boy running past the old man walking on the street. But leaving technicalities aside, probably the most important aspect of documentary image making is being comfortable with a focal length. Getting to a point where you know exactly how the composition is going to turn out before you look through the viewfinder. For me the 23mm (or equiv. of 35mm on a full frame sensor) does that. Familiarity and even a sense of oneness with the focal length is what enables a photographer to ‘jump in’ and instantly translate a scene into a photograph that he would have visualised a few seconds ago. When
the camera moves out of the way and does what you ask it to. Now only if my XT-1 would magically get a performance boost to do this 😉
For the full set of images from my Bihar series please check the embedded video below:
Catch the third and final part of this series HERE
#GoMakePhotos
Abhishek