Faces of India

Model releases for our photo shoots in India were finally approved by iStockphoto and these photos are now in my portfolio. Two of the photo shoots were of Kalbelia entertainers. Traditionally the men are snake charmers and musicians. The women are folk dancers dressed in flowing costumes and large amounts of jewelry. Bright colors are preferred and all colors and patterns go together.

The Indian people are amazingly friendly by American standards and the smaller the community the friendlier the people. Not once in three weeks did anyone we stopped on the street refuse to let us take his or her photo and talk awhile. Often people crowded around us asking us where we were from, what we were doing and asking for us to take their photo. We couldn’t give them prints, although we could show them the photos on the digital camera screen, but they were happy just to be able to say they had had their photo taken. Getting model releases signed was sometimes complicated because some of the people didn’t read or write.

One of the highlights of the trip for me was photographing classical Indian dancers. In these dances there are specific hand movements, body positions, and facial expressions that tell a traditional story. The costumes are beautifully crafted and high quality. We photographers broke up into small groups with each group photographing a different dancer/dance style. Visit my enlarged and improved India lightbox at iStockphoto to see my new Faces of India photos.