What’s on your walk?

Tower Bridge, first night here

Now in London and starting my master’s at LSE, I walk often to school.  It takes about a 35 minutes, from Borough on the south side of the Thames over to campus in the city center.  I pass a lot of famous places, like the Borough Market, the Globe Theatre, the Tate Modern, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Royal Courts of Justice…. and the bar that was used for Bridget Jones’ house, which is apparently one of the most popular tourist stop-offs in the area.

My flatmates and I were discussing our famous-place walk over a pint last night, one mentioning that he had been raving to friends back home about how interesting the route was.  He threw in the views as well: London Eye, Tower Bridge, Big Ben (which is sort of around the river bend, but I guess if you squint?).

It got me thinking about what I really look at when I’m walking.  First day, the big sights.  And my map.  Second day, I started noticing more.  The winding streets of the old neighborhoods offer innumerable sidewalk pubs and cafes, brick residences covered in ivy and potted plants on doorsteps.  Newer parts are a contemporary style, aluminum accents and trendy furniture.  Small colleges, like a school training accountants (whose population seems to be mostly South Asian), and design-oriented businesses occupy some of these newer buildings.  Many are also empty, and the most common sign I see is “To Let”.  Which I invariably skim and read as “toilet” at first.  In this one sense I do prefer the American “For Rent” as a more clear message.

I’m certainly not the first American to be amused by British signs and bulletins.  Signs are something I often notice when I’m traveling, but here — perhaps it’s the coming training in Anthropology — I’m noticing more.  The first is one of my favorites, on a narrow lane I cut through.

By whose definition?

Yeah, I get confused by the left and right here too.

Men's and Disabled. Ladies room?

But the real reason that all of this is here is not for my cheeky enjoyment, it’s for the people.  And the people make the city.

The Millennium Bridge, a footbridge that spans the river between the Tate and St. Paul’s Cathedral, is a particularly good place for people watching. And depending on what time of day I make my pilgrimage to the city center, I encounter any array of characters.  Early in the morning, it’s runners and walkers, a few teenage boys dressed in suits going to the City of London School on the north bank.  A bit later, more suits go to work, women in skirts and walking shoes, heels in handbags.  Mid-morning, are the school groups, the tourists, kids cutting class.  And everyone is just passing through: it’s a transit point.  At most, a quick stop on the bridge for a photo or a chat.  And later on, the runners come back around lunchtime, and the process reverses for the rest of the day.  Suits go back the other way, walkers come out to enjoy the sunset, and so on.

Busker's viewpoint

Like everyone else, I pass quickly over the bridge.  Really, I don’t see much of this movement on any one day.  For that, one would have to stop and observe.  The only folks I’ve seen so far who do this, are the panhandlers and buskers who set up on the entrance to the south side of the bridge.  What a vantage point, to watch the city rush by.

Evening on the Bridge, same (almost) point.

It’s interesting — it’s not necessarily the most famous or the biggest place that can be the most instructive.  And, while I actually don’t think this is the most photogenic place in London… at all… I might consider taking photos here regularly, just to see how this very busy place looks over time.

Picture Taking, Knit Hat Making

Photos are posted!

West of Saga, the towns are smaller, and begging is less.  It’s hard for me, seeing beggars, but I can’t blame them.  So much traffic is tourism, and many locals are only tangentially affected by the tourism business.

Locals take a turn at knitting my hat (her mask is for dust, cold, warmth, sun)

This area is poor — yet left alone, it does provide for its people a rough and tumble life.  Impossible beauty of landscape and tradition.  I wish I had time to compose, pontificate, write a poem.  At the last camp, some girls take interest in my knitting and take over for a few rows.  Their skill is unparalleled, yet they do not do for themselves.  Mostly, they buy clothes from the stores in town.  Wives and mothers do knit sweaters for the family while they are in the fields with the animals.  But if the family makes yarn from yak hair or sheep wool (most do), they sell it — for knitting sweaters, I only see store-bought acrylic yarn.  I never quite got a clear answer on why.  I suppose the wool just simply isn’t valued.  Still, they were excited to see this foreigner using it.

I don’t know what to call it, perhaps ‘cultural support’ for knitting a sweater is still there.  But for being self-sufficient, using one’s own produce, it is fading.  Young people don’t eat what their parents ate, or dress in the traditional clothing.  And the older generations are beginning to prefer store-bought to handmade.  The convenience and price of a manufactured product, and its fashion, seem to be outweighing the independence of using what is created locally.

A snowstorm closed one pass (June 12) that is often taken by walking pilgrims.  Some people following our trip were worried that we might have had problems with this weather, but so far it remains dry.

In evening, the light is a beautiful, Changthang, honey yellow.  Stunning time for photography.  Actually, the only time for photography.  Mid-day photography creates subjects that are white on top, completely in shadow below.  And it’s difficult to photograph a face without their eyes being in shadow from the an ever-present wide-brimmed hat.

Light angle needs to be at around 90 degrees to the subject so it creates some depth.  Light behind the photographer is too bright; backlit, too intense.  A photo of the girls knitting would never have worked in the middle of the day.  The evening is truly magic hour, though, and I’ve been finding myself wandering out with my camera after setting up camp.

“Today’s Tibet” cards

When I was in Kathmandu I printed a set of my favorite photos from Tibet and made them into beautiful greeting cards, with handmade Nepali paper and envelopes.  The stories behind these photos tell of my journey and local lives, each unique and changing rapidly with Tibet’s political, economic and cultural environment.

I’m selling these cards on my web site to raise money for future work in the Himalayan region.  See more information here.  With each card comes a description and/or stories of the photo.

Pictures from NYC

I spent the weekend in New York, mostly at workshops for my yoga teacher training, but I did take these pictures. Urban photography is so different from landscape, with an almost totally different set of challenges. I’m still not all that comfortable taking pictures of people, but I did get a few.

Soho street

in the West Village

my teacher’s loft windows

See more photos on my flickr page.

Walk with me

The first thing that a lot of photographers learn is that a photograph should tell a story. It should convey some feeling, sentiment, emotion. I’m beginning to think, though, that it’s not possible to have it any other way. Is this really an element to worry about, that an image captured will be storyless or devoid of meaning?

It was a bluebird morning today so I took my camera on my walk to work. I started photographing shadows — the ultimate negative space. Fleeting, silhouettes of nothing, of the movements of objects blocking the sun. And yet that is its own story, whether real, make believe or imaginitive. Par example:

So lonely, yet so present… and

some abandoned garbage that cast a shadow I thought looked like a pig. sweet.