India
INDIA
I went to India for three weeks in 1997, and I promised myself I’d go back. Ten years later I returned—this time, for three months in the spring and another three months in the fall. I was on a dream assignment for the Indian tourist board, and they let me set the agenda for what I photographed and where I went. I did a lot of research and I organized several notebooks of potential itineraries, but once I arrived in New Delhi in the spring of 2007 I reacted to what I saw. In India there is always something going on—a ceremony, a festival— and I would get up before dawn every day and walk the streets until my feet gave out.
India is a country that dazzles you with color and shadow and light; and it is filled with tradition, mystery, ceremony, elegance, and an overwhelming beauty. Most of all, the people were enchanting and enchanted, singing to themselves and their gods as they played and prayed, worked and sang in the fields, and bathed in the Ganges. Often they asked me to photograph them and, of course, I obliged.