Busted...

It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by revealing the core of their humanness.
~Paul Strand



They caught me.
Busted...
I was zooming in on them and they saw me.

We had just arrived at the Karol Bagh Metro Station in Delhi and raced down the stairs to catch an auto back to the hotel.

Out of the corner of my eye I spotted these two incredibly tiny, raggedly dressed and filthy dirty street urchins hiding behind a cement pillar watching us. As we walked past them, they both zoomed across to the next pillar, fantastically comic-like, like you would see on an episode of Bugs Bunny. And each time I looked over at them, they laughingly hid behind the pillar and all I could see was their huge eyes peering out from behind the yellow painted column of cement.

That was when I pulled out my camera and began clicking them.

When they got over their initial shyness, I offered them each 10 rupees to photograph them and Henna offered them her can of Diet Coke. They were more happy with the Coke than anything else and hung around for about 30 seconds before racing off in search of another adventure.

The Rice Planter...

I'm looking for the unexpected. I'm looking for things I've never seen before.
~Robert Mapplethorpe


This photo was taken on the afternoon of 13 August 2005, on the island of Bali in Indonesia. We were just coming down from visiting a Hindu Temple on the side of one of the Island's two volcanoes when the driver quickly rounded us up and into the van.

A storm was brewing above the volcano's peaks and it appeared he was in a rush to get down off the mountain side before the rains began. The road was narrow and treacherous, winding back and forth the entire way down, and our driver was driving far too fast for the road conditions. All of us sat wide-eyed and white-knuckled in the back of the van praying we weren't going to hurl off into space and crash down into the steamy jungle below.

On two wheels, we screeched around one curve when, through the side window, I caught a fleeting glimpse of the rice paddy below. Faint with fear and more terrified then I ever remember being, I yelled at the driver to stop. I explained to him that I wanted to take a photo of the vista just off to our left. Since there was no place to pull off the side of the road, he told me I had only 30 seconds to shoot as there were cars coming quickly behind us. I jumped out and shot 3 quick photos before climbing back in the van.
This is one of them.

From Between The Stone Feet Of Shiva

I just think it's important to be direct and honest with people about why you're photographing them and what you're doing. After all, you are taking some of their soul.
~Mary Ellen Mark


This one I stole.

I must confess that I stole her soul without asking in this shot. Normally I always ask people when I'm traveling if it's OK to photograph them.
But for this particular shot, I didn't have the chance.

Her father had asked her to stand between the feet of the massive statue above her and helped her climb up. I was off to one side photographing the big statue on the other side of roughly carved door to her left and didn't even notice her until her father called for her to step down.
It was at that precise moment, as she was a split second away from climbing down off the stone plinth, that she shot a gaze towards me. It was then that I clicked her image.
This is the only image I took of her.

Elephanta Caves, near Mumbai, India, May 8 2008