Modern Sadhu Photo

Photographer’s Note

He was perhaps a modern age sadhu at Kumbha festival in 2001. When I was hunting for pictures I found this sadhu playing arelegious song on his flute with a battery operated piano in his lap. Actually he was seeking people to donate money to him. Though a person once becomes a naga sadhu, is not supposed to keep any thing with him in his life. He was also completely naked but seeking money from me also when I took his picture. I took this trident ( weapon of Lord Shiva) in the fore ground to get some deapth. Light was not good there. But I did not use flash. I used 16 mm lense over my F5 Nikon film camera.

sohrab, verge has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

rich (1199) 2004-11-10 3:26

Interesting subject well framed by the trishul and the posters and lines of marigolds in the background. Some pictures you can almost hear the sound of and this is one of them. One complaint - the colours aren't too vivid but I'll put this down to a bad scan. I'd like to see this in b/w also - the naga sadhu subject and use of the 16mm lens suggests some of Sohrab's recent postings. Nice one.

retesh_gondal (173) 2004-11-10 3:27

well India has a history of variety of sashus one more addition of their legacy...very nice shot..and note

kinginexile (2440) 2004-11-10 3:28

It's a great subject, but yes, the light destroys a lot of its power by washing out the whole image. usually, a little editing can help a lot on such overall problem.

sohrab (7423) 2004-11-10 4:15

hey arvind,
dont worry there's nothing wrong with your scan. ive given you a workshop. this hazy film over the photograph comes due to the scanning but can be removed very easily. infact if you see steve mccurry's photographs on both the magnum site and his own site, you'll notice that the photographs on his own site are much better where as the same photographs on the magnum site have this haze over htem ( well.. most of them)

as for the photograph. i like the angle, though i feel you shout try to stick to 17 mm or maybe 18. while the 17 mm woul have got just a tilt in the trident, this one has got a curve. so it's like using something which is somewhere between a 17mm wide lens and a fisheye. you're neither here nor there. i like your composition on the whole, though would have loved to see the full frame, ( im not very fond of square crops)
yup i love black and white, but it's nice to see some of these hsots in colour as well
though this one seems so much more placid than your last upload. i don't know whether it's a compliment or not, i just noticed thie difference.
i'm looking forward to seeing mor eof the kumbh mela photographs form you :)
take care

[2] [workshop] [compare] +

jayita (191) 2004-11-10 4:22

Background specially the pictures of GOD, pillow, commondul, 10 rupee note.. everything makes it a detail shot. his body color, flute and the musical instrument explains the situation properly.
well composed Arvind.

verge (1239) 2004-11-11 7:17

good composition. i just hate the scrap wood background. but overall its a nice capture...rgds

christina (2040) 2004-11-12 19:33

Quite an interesting image, especially with his modern keyboard on his lap. The workshop definitely helped- it just needed a little more contrast. Well composed and captured! Thanks for sharing!