India and Nepal: Varanasi and Kathmandu Photo Workshop

A special, deep 8 days India Varanasi Photo workshop with a 4 days optional extension to Nepal. Maximum 8 participants, With an intensive stay in Varanasi and the Kathmandu Valley.

Varanasi is the city that represents all the spiritual and boiling India. This is where I took in 2012 the picture that got the World National Geographic first in the "places" category and later was disqualified, (see post) .

We will get to know a different Varanasi to the one other tourists see. With time to enjoy our stay in contrast to the hustle and bustle of Shamans, boatmen, pilgrims, cows, tourists, barbers, and fake Sadhus.

On this photo tour we will work on how to tell the story we see in front of our eyes, and how to convey an emotion through our pictures. We all need stories in order to understand the world, and travel photographers more than anybody else. Empathy and emotional connection are imperative in a good picture; we need both to bring to life a main character to who the viewers will attach to.

We will cross to the other side of the river where no one normally goes, to admire the city from another perspective and witness the daily coming and going of pilgrims. We will stroll through the back streets of the ghats, the alleys, and discover temples outside the normal tourist route. We will meet people there, and wait for the certainty of the unexpected to happen.

Deeper than a photo tour, less academic than a workshop.

This Varanasi Photo Tour will be about offering the maximum photographic opportunities and with the approach of a Photographic Workshop in India. We will conduct daily photographic reviews and discussions, but it will be mostly about experiencing personal contact with people. A laptop and processing software (Photoshop, Lightroom, etc..) are highly recommended.

What are the photographic opportunities in Varanasi

We often start in Varanasi at the very first hour of dawn in the moment called 'the blue light' at around 5 a.m., just before dawn. The priests meet with the worshippers for the Arati rite, the morning prayers. 

Our days will be really busy reaching the Ghats to photograph, amongst remains of wreaths and cremation ashes, Brahmins offering ritual shaving, dressed bathing women. Bearded, hirsute Holy Men, bare feet, watching stunned families bathing dressed in bright Indian saris. Groups of pilgrims down the huge wooden barges.

Then the calm of our hotel, close to the Ganges, attending dinner before the night ceremony. In the calm of "our" Ganges. We will go down the sacred river in our boat and visit an “akhara”, a gymnasium where Kusty fighters train and compete. If we are lucky, we will be able to make a photo coverage of their workouts.

Early in the mornings is about true low-light photography, where the tripod becomes an almost indispensable tool. You want to use every glowing object as much as you can. But for sure, you've got to have both interest and patience as well as a keen eye and you will get great results.

We remain, taking pictures of the river until the sun sets out from the horizon and lights up the landscape. And in this instant, we photograph, immutable, women and men both half-naked and immersed in both the water and the ritual of their bathing.

A rowboat comes close to the bank and drifts along the line of observing devotees and tourists who are contemplating the scene from the terra firma.

The occasional goat or sacred cow, distracted by its appetite, joins the scene of eating the flowers left by the devotees on the small altars as offerings. No one, though, stops the animals from eating them.

And what about the Kathmandu extension?

Some days later (for those who join the extension) we fly to the World Heritage site of the Valley of Kathmandu where an ethnic, cultural, and architectural variety will be seen which is unique for photography. In Nepal, we will stay overnight not in Kathmandu itself but in Bakhtapur an extraordinary, quiet and calm zone of the city, and will enjoy sunset and sunrise in the best photographic locations possible, taking advantage of the special light. We will witness the prayers of the faithful and appreciate the city and its fascinating streets. A place of monuments without precedents and the unique amalgam of Hinduism, Buddhism and Tantrism that marks the rich religious and cultural inheritance of the city.

From there we will visit the valley, the temples. The place where the Sadhus sleep before their daily activity. We will see the Himalayas and meet in our daily wanderings the Sherpa, Chettris, and Newaris tribes, as well as the Rais, Limbus, Tamangs, and Magars.

Bakhtapur belongs to the UNESCO Universal Heritage, and most of the city is pedestrian. We will reach Bodnath, the center of Tibetan culture in Kathmandu, which has a thriving Buddhist community and the largest stupa in Nepal, the holiest Tibetan Buddhist temple outside Tibet. We will be at dusk and dawn in the best photographic location and will take advantage of the best light, the moments in which the faithful conduct their prayers while we make close contact with people, and the great intimacy of the ceremonies, the city, and its fascinating streets.

In the mornings we will usually start at dawn in order to be at the place when the first prayers begin. It will nearly be night photography, with candle lights. In the afternoon, again depending on the day, we will explore hidden places of the old city before dinner. Depending on the day and the photographic opportunities, it will be time for a break, some organization of our pictures, and eventually a photographic analysis and discussion of the work done. Later, when the light is appropriate, we will walk in the old city with its narrow alleys. Only then the sun enters and transforms everything.

What kind of photographic skills are we going to nurture

• How to approach the subject, the preparation, the photographic vision, analysis of the situation. We will have the chance to shoot spontaneous and also formal portraits with proper preparation.
• We will be concerned, above all, with the “making off” itself: a mix of practical and theoretical knowledge and practical advice in order to attain a better understanding of what draws the eye and how to enhance the element that attires our attention allowing us to converse on a daily basis about technical problems, doubts or personal matters as they arise.
• Deciding the story
• Set a script of what we want to show and decide which are the important images that will support the story.

• Learn how to train the vision and express it through a personal style.