Facing the World: Donning the Ladakhi Goncha

12 June 2011

Donning the Ladakhi Goncha

The Ladakhi goncha, a voluminous robe of thick woollen cloth with a colourful cummerbund tied at the waist, is the most common dress in Ladakh, Northern India; loose pyjamas, a distinctive top hat and long felt boots complete the ensemble. It is very effective to protect the people from the harsh and extreme cold weather of this region which belongs to the Himalayas. For ceremonial purposes, colourful robes in silk and brocade are worn.

people, portrait, street portrait, Northern India, Ladakh, Ladakhi woman, traditional costume, goncha, Facing the World, © Matt Hahnewald

people, portrait, double portrait, street portrait, Northern India, Ladakh, Ladakhi women, traditional costume, goncha, Facing the World, © Matt Hahnewald

people, portrait, double portrait, street portrait, Northern India, Ladakh, Ladakhi women, traditional costume, silk costume, Facing the World, © Matt Hahnewald

people, portrait, street portrait, triple portrait, groupshot, Ladakh, Ladakhi women, traditional costume, silk costume, traditional Ladakhi hats, Facing the World, © Matt Hahnewald

people, portrait, double portrait, back portrait, street portrait, Northern India, Ladakh, Ladakhi women, traditional costume, goncha, traditional Ladakhi hats, Facing the World, © Matt Hahnewald

people, portrait, double portrait, street portrait, Northern India, Ladakh, Leh, Ladakhi women, traditional costume, silk costume, goncha, Facing the World, © Matt Hahnewald

people, portrait, street portrait, Northern India, Ladakh, Leh, Ladakhi woman, traditional costume, silk costume, goncha, Facing the World, © Matt Hahnewald

High-res portrait photographs with full exif data, precise geotags and technical details in Matt Hahnewald's
Flickr Album 2011-06c Chasing Ladakhi Traditions

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What's a Portrait?

About Street Portraiture:

(i) The Street Photographer’s State of Mind

Get yourself into a resourceful, open-minded and relaxed state of mind, leave your hide-out and interact with the world. Use any silly hat, have a drink, or apply any of those fancy “think-positive” techniques. Your own state of mind will spread to and infect your portrait subject...

(ii) The Street Photographer’s Intention

Release the shutter with the deliberate intention of “Right now, I'm producing a distinctive portrait photograph”. Find your individual style by applying self-imposed technical constraints (e.g. of the theme, of the aspect ratio, of the techniques, of the lenses, of the composition); less is more...

(iii) The Street Photographer’s Waiver

Decide if it’s better to give it a miss instead of taking a bad photo. In the field, if there is a shred of doubt, don’t take this snap. It’s probably better to take a cerebral snapshot and to enjoy the situation. At your computer, if there is a shred of doubt, delete the image; it’s probably better to download a good image from the internet and to learn from it...

(iv) The Street Photographer’s Attitude

Trust the viewer's active mind. Your photo is just a small trigger for the bigger and better internal picture inside the viewer’s mind. Allow the viewer’s mind to create interesting internal pictures (and movies) by offering images of (a) parts and details, (b) symbols and logos, (c) contrasts and contradictions. Co-operate with the viewer’s creative mind, keep the viewer’s mind busy and seduce your viewer to complete your photo, to improve your photo, to add (her or his) sense to your photo, to fantasize about your photo, and to mentally exceed your own photo...

(v) The Street Photographer’s Tools

Remember the meaning of the word photography and master the light with your eye, with your camera and with your computer: (a) see the light, (b) harness the light and (c) bend the light. But, bear in mind, your shoes are your most important piece of equipment. Use them liberally to get closer (or further away, sometimes), to play with angles and to find your unique point of view...

About Portrait Lenses:

The first thing to consider is focal length. If you're using a camera with a (cropped) APS-C format image sensor (e.g. the Nikon D3100), a 50mm lens will give an effective focal length of around 75mm to 80mm. This is very close to the 85mm focal length for a full-frame camera (e.g. the Nikon D610) that's considered ideal for portraiture. Both enable headshots and half-length portraits to be taken from a comfortable distance of around 3 m, so you can direct your subject without crowding in and making them feel awkward.
One particular advantage of using an 85mm lens on a full-frame camera (or a 50mm lens on a cropped-sensor camera) for portraiture is that the short telephoto focal length has the effect of slightly compressing any prominent facial features (think noses and chins) for a bit of added flattery.
Generally, prime lenses offer superior image quality to zoom lenses, which makes the optics on test instantly appealing. Their killer feature, however, is a wide maximum aperture that's usually between f/1.4 and f/1.8 (e.g. the AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G and the AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.8G both from Nikon). This enables a tight depth of field, so you can blur fussy backgrounds and make the person you're shooting really stand out in an image.

Whereas most texts are Wikipedia-based, all the photographs used in this photo blog are copyrighted by © Matt Hahnewald (Facing the World) and cannot be copied, saved, re-produced, blogged, edited, cropped or printed without my written permission. Most of my portraits are available as high-res images (without any watermarks). Just ask and send an email specifying exactly your planned usage of this photo, or license/buy my photos directly from Alamy.

Thank you for respecting intellectual property.

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12 June 2011

Donning the Ladakhi Goncha

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