Faces 1

I had the chance to attend a public Festival in the town of Leh, Ladakh which celebrated Losar (Tibetian New Year). It hosted various cultural performances showcasing the traditional as well as modern art forms around singing, dancing, music, poetry etc.. This festival was organised on the main Mall Road, which is basically the main market area, and attended by a few thousand people. I walked in with my camera. The randomness and chaos inherent to such public gathering of strangers was confusing and intimidating as a photographer. For a few hours, I barely got any courage and strength to point my camera to capture anything or anyone. Not only that, I couldn't figure out any frame, composition or background setting which would reflect back the essence of energy and vibe within the place. All I knew was that the place was bursting out with interesting people, stories and their fashion sense.

As time went by, more and more people gathered. I was forced to just stand at my spot and barely had any space to move around. I also realised, that the people were always coming and going back from the very front and there was a constant flow of this movement. Still searching for the concept for my frame, it suddenly occurred to me the people around were more comfortable with a camera person around them. I started experimenting with the idea of just standing at my fixed spot, constantly holding my camera to the eye, as if pointing it out to the empty space and capture everything and everyone that happened to pass by within that frame. I did this for more than 3 hours and this photo series is the outcome of this exercise.