Facing the World: November 2016

30 November 2016

Getting Biblical in Rural Orissa

Christianity is India's third-largest religion, with approximately 30 million followers, constituting c. 2.5 percent of India's population. Christianity was introduced to India by Thomas the Apostle, who visited the ancient seaport of Muziris in Tamilakam in 52 CE. Christians are found all across India and in all walks of life, with major populations in parts of South India, the Konkan Coast, and Northeast India.

The Evangelical Church of India is a Christian denomination in India with more than 100,000 members and is very active amongst the tribal aka Adivasi communities in the rural areas of Odisha fka Orissa. They use the Bible in the Odia language, translated by William Carey and Amos Sutton.

There are many friendly and active Christian communities in the remote tribal villages in the Southwest of Odisha, e.g. the Kuvi Kondh tribe in Upper Bombu near Rayagada, who live the Christian values and attend regularly their little church (Pastor Pratap Jena) where they worship, pray and sing in the Christian tradition.

"Christianity's goal is not escape from this world.

It loves this world and seeks to change it for the better."

(Marcus J. Borg: Speaking Christian)

"Do all the good you can.

By all the means you can.

In all the ways you can.

In all the places you can.
At all the times you can.
To all the people you can.

As long as ever you can."

(John Wesley: A Plain Account of Christian Perfection)

double portrait; duo portrait; mother and baby; mother and child; tribal; Adivasi; Matt Hahnewald Photography; Facing the World; photography; photo; image; face perception; physiognomy; psychological; outstanding; favourite; superior; beautiful; Nikon D3100; Nikkor AF-S 50mm f/1.8G; prime lens; 50mm lens; 4 : 3 aspect ratio; horizontal format; street; portraiture; portrait; closeup; outdoor; colour; cultural; character; personality; real people; human head; human face; human eyes; nose; smiling eyes; mouth; smiling; teeth; facial expression; eye contact; bareheaded; consent; empathy; rapport; respect; encounter; relationship; ethnic portrait; Kuvi Kondh tribe; Upper Bombu; Orissa; East India; modern Adivasi; female; young adult; posing; happy; pretty; soulful; nose stud; earrings; villager; seven-eighths view; tribal Madonna; Christian

"Yes I am, I am also a Muslim, a Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew."

(Mahatma Gandhi)

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

Flickr Album 2011-04a Depicting Tamil Nadu's Sadhus

Flickr Album 2016-02a Facing Lively Tamil Nadu

Flickr Album 2015-11a Respecting Thai Buddhist Monks

Flickr Album 2011-06d Pacing Ladakhi Monks

Flickr Album 2013-08a Smiling at Attractive Hijabs

25 November 2016

Drying Fish in Sacred Puri

Puri is a coastal city in the state of Odisha fka Orissa in Eastern India. It is situated on the Bay of Bengal and also known as Jagannath Puri after the 12th-century Jagannath Temple located in the city. Away from pilgrims and tourists, tucked into the eastern corner of Puri, an interesting traditional fishing village thrives with a mixed Christian and Hindu community who both use the 3km-long beach as an open-air toilet and rubbish dump. Every morning, a small but lively dry-fish market springs to life here where fisherwomen and locals compare the quality of the dried fish, haggle for best prices, and exchange the latest village news over a glass of milk tea.

Fresh fish rapidly deteriorates unless some way can be found to preserve it. The oldest traditional way of preserving fish is to let the sun and wind dry it. Open-air drying has been practiced since ancient times to preserve food. Dried fish has a storage life of several years. The method is cheap and effective in suitable climates; the work can be done by the fishermen and their family, and the resulting product is easily transported to the market. Dried fish is a very rich source of proteins, containing 80 - 85 % protein. In Puri, dried fish fetches c. INR 60.- per kg (c. US$ 1.-) and dried squid up to INR 200.- per kg.

Puri; Orissa; India; Matt Hahnewald Photography; Facing the World; photography; photo; image; spectacular; outstanding; fantastic; favourite; superior; excellent; magnificent; interesting; inspirational; brilliant; breathtaking; Nikon D3100; Nikkor AF-S 50mm f/1.8G; prime lens; 50mm; 4 : 3 aspect ratio; horizontal format; closeup; portrait; portraiture; street; faceshot; tight crop; over-the-shoulder look; outdoor; morning sun; colour; character; personality; real people; human head; human face; human eyes; sadness; soulful; facial expression; lived-in face; wrinkles; eye contact; full beard; hair; dreadlocks; consent; empathy; rapport; respect; encounter; emotion; mood; dignity; mentally deranged; ethnic portrait; travel; baba; sadhu; Hinduism; religion; one person; male; old man; posing; attitude; authentic; possessed; incredible; awesome

Closeup street portraits of diverse people from interesting market places in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2015-11i Facing Chiang Dao's Tuesday Market

Flickr Album 2015-10a Plucking Bangkok's Flowers

Flickr Album 2013-11b Dating Mature Javanese Marketers

Flickr Album 2013-04a Savouring Thai Floating Markets

Flickr Album 2012-07a Munching at Donghuamen Market

Flickr Album 2012-04b Kissing Batak Betelnut Women

Matt Hahnewald, Street Portrait Photography:

I have always been fascinated by the human face. There are eight billion human faces on this planet which are changing every second in order to adjust their senses, optimize perception and communicate. Thereby, the human face creates an incredible diversity of expressions, offering a unique bouquet of information to other humans, animals, and machines. That's what I captured with the camera…

Feel free to check out my Flickr photo albums about cultural portrait photography at Facing the World. You can contact me via email.

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.

Copyright:

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.

Places

30 November 2016

Getting Biblical in Rural Orissa

25 November 2016

Drying Fish in Sacred Puri