Juggernaut

20 Sep

What I’ve been working on: a feature of 3000 words + 40 accompanying photos (out of.. 3000??) about the Rath Yatra, festival of chariots in Puri, Orissa, India (turn out: 1 million). It’s done, but it’ll only be published in February 2008 (Asian Geo). Such is the nature of this industry. I must be the world’s slowest writer. Just three photos. All the best for print, of course.

Puri -- In the Thick of Things

Puri -- Haggling

Puri -- Before the Rath Yatra

I suffer from the occupational hazard of captioning every picture in my path, whether or not they are mine. I am in therapy, captioning marketing graphs.

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  • Awesome…especially love the second photo!

    Good work...
  • I kinda like the third one. Find the first one rather intriguing. You’re making large progress by writing for those mag.
  • very interesting photos.
  • @Michel, thanks for the link. I've had nothing but a wonderful working relationship with those people; I'm sure they'll get that sorted out. It took a more esteemed european Geo about 7 months from submission + 4 months from publication to pay me -- it seems to be the way of the industry we have chosen (plus another month for foreign checks to clear), which is why freelance writing/photography is so wonderful and scary all at the same time =) Luckily, I don't do this to feed myself.. yet.

    I think only a small excerpt will be accessible online in the month prior and during publication. Where do you live? It is available in many parts of the world.

    @w: yup. thanks for your input. that's certainly another way of looking at it and certainly valid. regarding the limit on the number of photos, it's entirely up to you + the publication/the person/organization you are working for. In this case I got free reign to show them as many pictures as I wanted, then they said to pick 30-40 out of those. big name publications with 'real' picture editors may want to do the picking themselves; others might leave it up to you. in any case, submitting 3000 pictures (the number i had originally) isn't a good idea =)
  • By the way, the photos are great! I'd like to read the story when it comes out in Feb. Will it be accessible online, do you know?
  • w.
    Not that I know James, but in his defense, I know people who often ask the question purely out of curiosity - not everyone who asks the question is immediately jumping to the (albeit very annoying) conclusion that the picture is only ever as good (or bad) as the camera used to take it.

    In fact, before I started using a dSLR, I used to ask my friends what dSLR they used whenever I saw pictures that I liked simply because I figured if the pictures were nice, that had to imply some measure of comfort in USING the camera, and after finding out more about the camera, perhaps I would be able to then decide for myself which features I liked too.

    It's not necessarily about blindly following, simply perhaps one could consider that while one has not yet purchased a camera to get to know over the 24 hours of a day that one spends with it, what better way to explore ones options than to talk to people who already have achieved that comfort level with the gear.


    On another note entirely, congrats on the article that will be published next year. I'm sure you've worked very hard for it. Also, out of bald curiosity, was there a limit to the number of photos you were to submit with your article, or did you impose this limit on your own? I don't have any experience with this field, so just wondering how these things work.
  • Wonderful pics ... the yellow looks divine ...
  • JamesTKJ
    yea thanks for the clarification, i get your point now.
  • James: Sorry! One of my pet peeves is the "what camera you use" question that photography enthusiasts tend to enjoy asking. Over time it's just become an automatic reflex for me to react in a negative way towards that question, so my apologies. (Ernest Hemingway once said to Irving Penn: "Good pictures.. what camera do you use?" And the photographer said "Good novels. What typewriter do you use?".... if you hang out enough among the photographers I guess you'll see that many don't get the distinction between their cameras and their photography.)
  • Mickjagger
    Congratulations for your upcoming publishing in Geo. I don't know if the asian edition is well-know, but here in France for example, the local edition is a kind of reference. And it's great to look at your photos which are "telling" something.
    I discovered your blog a few years ago (couldn't remember exactly when it was but it must have been shortly after you fell in love with Macs) and it has been very impressive to follow your adventures around asian countries, photography and writing.
  • JamesTKJ
    thanks TSB. i was just interested in what camera was being used.
  • biking nomad
    Love the 3rd shot. Very sagely and of course the colours in India are a photographer's dream!

    Wish you all the best for your career. Will be sure to pick up a copy. Any chance for a autograph then?
  • tsb
    James, if you go to her Flickr page, you'll see that it's a Canon EOS 350D Digital.
  • why does that matter?
  • JamesTKJ
    what camera did u use to take those 3 photos?
  • anonymous
    @tsb: Heh, good one... who said Chinese are the only ones who are yellow.
  • I kinda like the third one. Find the first one rather intriguing. You're making large progress by writing for those mag.
  • tsb
    It was all Yellow.
  • oooh brilliant...love the 2nd one too! heh. anyways, looking forward to feb 08!
  • Awesome...especially love the second photo!
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