My contribution to Life Framers Photography Contest comes from my travels in India: Colors – The colour red
I love this photo. It’s ok to say that since I’m putting it up here on my website, and have submitted it to Life Framers photography contest “Colors”. I love the look on the boys face, I love that my camera caught the faces and expressions of the crowd around the boy, I love the fact that there’s so much red in the photo. Royal Enfields are the most beautiful motorbikes and I love them too. I love the photo because it reminds me of all the times I’ve traveled in India too.
I love India, I’ve travelled in India enough times to be able to say it. I love traveling on long train rides from the Indian states of Goa to Kerala looking at the ever changing landscape outside the train window, sitting in an open train door having a cigarette while the train passes on a bridge with no railings. Of course, non of that is considered safe but it’s very nice and since I come from a country where there are so many restrictions it gives me an enormous sense of freedom.
Many people I’ve met have told me to book a cheap ticket while traveling by train in India. But those seats are almost always uncomfortable and the trains are crowded. They’ve said that otherwise I wouldn’t get the “proper indian train experience”. I’ve never chosen the cheaper seats. My Indian train rides have usually been almost 24 hours. When I travel such long distances I find it important to travel in some sort of comfort.
The Rajdhani Express, which goes from New Delhi to Kolkata, is super comfortable if you travel in 2-tier AC. You get great food, and one time I somehow managed to book a bed with proper cotton sheets and lots of food all through the train ride. It was 22 hours of eat and sleep. It was great. I’ve also had good conversations with the other passengers on the train. A tip I got before my first train journey is to buy a dog chain, a bike chain works too, then you can fasten you bag underneath your bunk bed and move freely on the train. Which is important for me since I usually travel by myself.
I got a bit side tracked when I was telling you why I love India. There is so much to love about the country. India is a big country, I’ve only travelled is a small part of India, the country has 56 states and all are very different from each other. Most Indian states even have different languages and English is still the unifying language. This is also an advantage for me as an English speaking tourist, since there is so much information in English, you get newspaper in English and so many people speak English. Travel in India is easy in that way, there’s hardly a language barrier.
I’ve never travelled to the north of India, but you can even ski in some parts, and I’ve spent so much time in Kerala and Goa swimming in the sea. I’ve been living and practicing yoga in Mysore, Karnataka, and visiting the most beautiful temples there, and traveling through the hill countries on my holidays. Of course, Indian food is delicious both North and South Indian cuisine with amazing sweet sweets. My favorite drink comes from india, badam milk which is hot milk with almonds, saffron and honey. The people I’ve met are of course nice too, otherwise I wouldn’t have returned so many times.
There are certain things about India I don’t like at all. That’s also why I can say that I love the country; I can see the good and the bad. I’ve had apartments in India. I’ve lived through power cuts, when you had to do everything that needed electricity before the power cut and the food in my fridge went a little bit bad. I’ve lived trough draught when there were no water in my apartment and government trucks were coming in with water, it hadn’t rained for a couple of years at that time. Then, when the rains came, it didn’t stop. I’ve walked lost through the streets of Bangalore when the streets were covered in 2 decimeters of water. That’s why I can say that I love India, sometimes during my travels and time spent there, I’ve hated India too.
I took this photo a very long time ago. I took it during Shigmo, which is a spring festival celebrated in Goa. Another thing I love about India is all the grand festivals and celebrations I’ve experienced during my travels, festivals like Holi and the new year celebrations at Diwali. When I took the photo I was new to photography with professional cameras and new to cameras made by Canon. I hardly knew how to edit photos. My photographs often became very over edited because I used presets back then. A note about using presets; you always have to adjust the edit even if you’re using a preset since every photo is different. The preset is just a set edit that does not consider the exposure, color or other parts of a photo.
All camera brands have their own quirks. Canon makes red really red, which I noticed when I started photographing. iPhone cameras really have a problem with yellow. I always have to edit my iPhone photos and make the yellow more green if it’s something green I’ve been photographing, if it’s something that’s yellow I have to make it more yellow. Usually I adjust the color of my iPhone photos by adjusting the hue, amount of color and the luminicence. But that goes for almost all my photos.
So. I love this photo, and I love India. And, India is also a great country for photography. The country has influenced my photography a lot. And India also have great photographers.
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