Walking the Camera in Jagdalpur

Jagdalpur is a sprawling jerkwater town in the Bastar District, which possesses a unique blend of tribal and Odia culture, and constitutes the 3rd largest city of the relatively new Indian state of Chhattisgarh. It was earlier the capital of the erstwhile princely state of Bastar during the British Raj. The Bastar state rulers traced their ancestry not just to the moon, but also to Prithviraj Chauhan, the last Hindu king to rule from Delhi in the 12th century CE. The Bastar District is currently an active part of the Red Corridor which experiences considerable Naxalite/Maoist insurgency.

Local markets aka haat bazaars are one of the quintessential, authentic Indian experiences. Jagdalpur’s famous Sanjay Market is the town’s lively heart and a typical Indian fresh-produce and vegetable wholesale weekend market: incredibly friendly, incredibly crowded, and incredibly dirty. Saturday and Sunday are the main market days (haat days) when this amazing ethnic market is served by hundreds of hawkers. Many tribal people (Adivasi people) from the surrounding countryside come to barter with the town people. It’s a wonderful microcosm of unique characters, interesting faces and expressions of all shades...

High-res portrait photographs with full exif data, precise geotags and technical details in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2016-12d Stopping at Jeypore's Tribal Market

Flickr Album 2016-12c Browsing Koraput's Tribal Market

Flickr Album 2016-12a Redefining Headwork in Asia
Flickr Album 2015-11i Facing Chiang Dao's Tuesday Market
Flickr Album 2015-10a Plucking Bangkok's Flowers
Flickr Album 2013-04a Savouring Thai Floating Markets
Flickr Album 2012-07a Munching at Donghuamen Market

Post-processing Street Portraits

The Pareto principle (aka the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few, or the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events and processes, roughly 80 % of the effects come from 20 % of the causes. Applied to the post-processing of street portraits, it means that c. 80 % or more of the raw images can be edited with c. 20 % or less of the available tools in any post-processing software, e.g. Adobe Photoshop Elements. The following simple workflow procedure for Adobe Photoshop Elements is a practical and straightforward application of the above-mentioned Pareto principle.

Step 1:
Check and decide whether to keep or delete the image (criteria: e.g. the subject’s pose/expression, the image’s sharpness and composition).

Unprocessed image.

Step 2:
Straighten the image horizontally (...if necessary).

Straightened image.

Step 3:
Crop the image into the desired/standardized aspect ratio and format (e.g. 4 : 3 aspect ratio, horizontal format).

Cropped image (e.g. 4x3 aspect ratio).

Step 4:
Apply a subliminal, almost invisible rectangular black vignette.

Black vignette applied.

Step 5:
Use the quick selection tool for selecting the face, refine the selection's edge (feather with 12 ... 20 px, smoothen, improve contrast), and sharpen the subject's face.

Face sharpened.

Step 6:
Use the quick selection tool for selecting the face, refine the selection's edge (feather with 12 ... 20 px, smoothen, improve contrast), and enhance the subject's face by adjusting the colour of the face, by using colour curves in order to lighten shadows, by removing any colour cast, by de/saturating and/or improving the vibrance of the face, and by lightening the eyes.

Face enhanced/improved.

Step 7:
Use the quick selection tool for selecting the subject, refine the edge (feather with 8 ...12 px, smoothen, improve contrast, and inverse), and enhance the subject's background by adjusting colour and lighting of the background (e.g. desaturate and darken).

Background enhanced/improved; done.

Examples:

High-res street portraits with full exif data, geotags and technical details in Matt Hahnewald's
Flickr Albums: Facing the World

Stopping at Jeypore's Tribal Market

Jeypore, meaning “City of Victory”, is the second largest city of southern Odisha fka Orissa in East India, an important business hub and a busy marketplace for southern Odisha as well as the bordering towns of Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. It is encompassed by the hills, forests and picturesque waterfalls of the Eastern Ghats and Araku Hills on three sides like a horse shoe with the western side opening up to Chhattisgarh in Central India. Jeypore belongs to the Koraput District which is peopled by many interesting scheduled tribal groups (Adivasi or adivāsi) and an interesting part of the tribal belt in southern Odisha.

Everyday one can see both Orissan Adivasi people and mainstream people of the Odia ethnicity selling their products (e.g. field crops, vegetables, roots, fruits, handicraft items) on the busy daily tribal market, located on Jeypore's main road, around Bidyadhar Market, and almost everywhere in between the ancient forts, palaces and temples in the old part of town. Odia, Hindi, Telugu, and a blend of different indigenous languages are spoken and interlaced with manual communication and body language...

Although terms such as atavika, vanavāsi ("forest dwellers"), or girijan ("hill people") are also used for the tribes of India, Adivasi carries the specific meaning of being the original and autochthonous inhabitants of a given region in India.

"The most colorful thing in the world is black and white,
it contains all colors and at the same time excludes all."

(Vikram Verma)

High-res portrait photographs with full exif data, geotags and other specs in Matt Hahnewald's
Flickr Album 2016-12d Stopping at Jeypore's Tribal Market

Flickr Album 2016-12c Browsing Koraput's Tribal Market

Flickr Album 2016-12a Redefining Headwork in Asia

Flickr Album 2016-11c Getting Biblical in Rural Orissa

Flickr Album 2016-11b Absorbing Orissa's Ethnic Mosaic
Flickr Album 2014-01a Having Fun with Cheerful Women

Browsing Koraput’s Sunday Market

Koraput is a one-horse town and busy marketplace in the Koraput District in the southwest of the East Indian state of Odisha fka Orissa, surrounded by mountains, thick forests and waterfalls, and peopled by many interesting scheduled tribal groups (Adivasi). The district is an interesting part of the tribal belt in southern Odisha.

Every Sunday one can see various Orissan Adivasi people selling their products (e.g. field crops, vegetables, roots, fruits, handicraft items) on the busy weekly tribal market aka haat poda which plays an important role in maintaining the distinctive Adivasi identity. Most Adivasi people at the market belong to the Kondh, Paroja, Mali and Gadaba tribes. Their unique facial tattoos and sometimes rather unconventional accessories (e.g. the number, shape and location of the tribal women’s nose rings and ear rings) denote the particular tribe and sub-tribe to which they belong. Many tribal people calculate the difference in time between two dates or social events with the help of the number of weekly markets that have passed: marriages are arranged, communications to other villages are sent through, and gossip is shared (e.g. about abducted photographers)...

Portrait photographs of Orissans from all walks of life in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2016-12c Browsing Koraput's Tribal Market

Flickr Album 2016-12a Redefining Headwork in Asia

Flickr Album 2016-11c Getting Biblical in Rural Orissa

Flickr Album 2016-11b Absorbing Orissa's Ethnic Mosaic
Flickr Album 2014-01a Having Fun with Cheerful Women