My initial plan was to sleep in today but after going to bed at about 130am I woke up at 7am and could not sleep, my head and heart needed to make photos, so I got up showered and went outside by 8am. For my first day it was pretty good, I found several subjects to photograph. My 4 main subjects today in the 2 hours 30 minutes of shooting (7 rolls of film) were:
1) an injured man walking with cane on small back alley near hotel.
2) street graffiti and ripped posters (thanks Jim G)
3) street, homeless, drug boys, family
4) construction workers building a hotel
The best photos by far were the street kids who were wired and smoking glue out of bags. The group was partially woken up and partially sleeping when I met up with them. I saw a fire on a public street and approached them, I received lots of interest at first but later things calmed down a bit and I was able to make some documentary images of their lives. There were lots of requests for money, much more than by the Burmese at the Mae Sot dump.They were more difficult to photograph and deal with than anything I faced in Thailand.
These kids-men-women are damaged. One man who spoke English, I spoke to quite a bit. When I asked him his age he told me to guess, out of politeness I said 35, I thought he might be around 40-45, it turns out he was only 28. Many of the boys, all from 14 up, most in their late teens had body scars they seemed to wear them with honor, showing them off to me. I did not do many glue sniffing photos only a couple, maybe over the next few days I will get more. I need to spend as much time as possible with this group, I prefer to spend more time with one group and learn about their lives than to jump around from subject to subject. I might have to forgo other photo projects here to continue working with this group.
I took around 40 digi shots of the group, I will get them developed and hand them out tomorrow. I also gave out 50 Nepalese rupees today tomorrow I do not plan on giving out money. The 28 year old man (Bal Krisha) advised me to give out rice not money, he said the money was not shared but the rice was. If you give out money to the boys they just keep it for themselves and probably use it to buy drugs (glue?). Supposedly rice given to the group is handed out and shared, I hope its not resold for drugs. I was advised to buy a large $15 USD bag of rice for the group but I think instead I will buy 1 or 2 smaller bags to give out. I plan on shooting these boys (also some girls and a older couple staying with them) over the next 2 mornings, hopefully each day will bring new understanding and strong photos. I think I am building up some trust with these people, hopefully they will let me into their their lives and give me the freedom to tell their stories for at least a while.
I will spend 3 days in Kathmandu maybe 4 days and then move on to somewhere else in Nepal for the remainder of the time (8 days). I have 33-35 films left to shoot. I might also buy a 16GB extreme SD card here (expensive at $30 USD) and do some vids for the blog.
1) an injured man walking with cane on small back alley near hotel.
2) street graffiti and ripped posters (thanks Jim G)
3) street, homeless, drug boys, family
4) construction workers building a hotel
The best photos by far were the street kids who were wired and smoking glue out of bags. The group was partially woken up and partially sleeping when I met up with them. I saw a fire on a public street and approached them, I received lots of interest at first but later things calmed down a bit and I was able to make some documentary images of their lives. There were lots of requests for money, much more than by the Burmese at the Mae Sot dump.They were more difficult to photograph and deal with than anything I faced in Thailand.
These kids-men-women are damaged. One man who spoke English, I spoke to quite a bit. When I asked him his age he told me to guess, out of politeness I said 35, I thought he might be around 40-45, it turns out he was only 28. Many of the boys, all from 14 up, most in their late teens had body scars they seemed to wear them with honor, showing them off to me. I did not do many glue sniffing photos only a couple, maybe over the next few days I will get more. I need to spend as much time as possible with this group, I prefer to spend more time with one group and learn about their lives than to jump around from subject to subject. I might have to forgo other photo projects here to continue working with this group.
I took around 40 digi shots of the group, I will get them developed and hand them out tomorrow. I also gave out 50 Nepalese rupees today tomorrow I do not plan on giving out money. The 28 year old man (Bal Krisha) advised me to give out rice not money, he said the money was not shared but the rice was. If you give out money to the boys they just keep it for themselves and probably use it to buy drugs (glue?). Supposedly rice given to the group is handed out and shared, I hope its not resold for drugs. I was advised to buy a large $15 USD bag of rice for the group but I think instead I will buy 1 or 2 smaller bags to give out. I plan on shooting these boys (also some girls and a older couple staying with them) over the next 2 mornings, hopefully each day will bring new understanding and strong photos. I think I am building up some trust with these people, hopefully they will let me into their their lives and give me the freedom to tell their stories for at least a while.
I will spend 3 days in Kathmandu maybe 4 days and then move on to somewhere else in Nepal for the remainder of the time (8 days). I have 33-35 films left to shoot. I might also buy a 16GB extreme SD card here (expensive at $30 USD) and do some vids for the blog.
