It is just past six and a hundred Pakistanis sit down to eat on the pavement, wedged in between bare mountains, tons of second-hand Toyota engines imported by the shipping container-load, motor oil, differentials and the flow of traffic through the warehouse dominated neighbourhood of Muscat’s Wadi Kabir. The 40-degree day is coming to an end, floodlights come on, and iftar, the breaking of the Ramadan fast, begins.
Classic example of too much subject matter. Reminds me of my first assignment, shooting Muharram off Bombay’s Muhammed Ali Road, where hundreds gather to whip themselves with knives. At first glance you think you’re in photographer’s paradise: a shot everywhere you look, like a fisherman with a swimming pool of fish around him. But if you have a line, not a net, if you have an SLR and not a camcorder, it’s just too much to take in. You have to narrow it down, to pick a subject and stick with it, rather than whip your line around, or try to shoot everything. You have to look for the one old man on Imamwada road who will represent the hundred. You have to look for the metaphor. That’s the secret.
I mucked up. Maybe it’s been too long a while. Or maybe it just didn’t work out. I should have got better shots. What I did get was a gift of about five kilos of mutton drowning in about five litres of oil. That mass of food is now in my fridge and I’m trying to forget about it by writing, and turning the music up loud. The bread I fed to the goats of my fishing village this morning. I think they enjoyed it. Made a nice change from the diet of plastic, thorn bushes and cardboard they grow up on. Pity I can’t try the mutton on them.
6 Comments
Hey! we have to do this a bit more often before we get rusted,old and full of excuses, even my shots didn’t really work out to my liking.
Love the text, the pic is not too bad so stop fishing for sympathy comments. (heee!!heee!! can you block my messages.???)
Sure I can block you. But I’ll be good to you and approve it, this one time. Don’t forget about the mutton party…
i love the part where you write about picking up a subject n sticking to it. I’ve gone all crazy taking pictures too, and then ofcourse deleting all of them as well ….
hmm mutton for you fish … haha you’ll be feeding them mutton all their life n still they will not finish more than 250 gms of it … try getting a dog :p
well, kate, i think you’re a fabulous photographer, and you of all people know how to focus on one point and let everything else blur into oblivion.
“At first glance you think you’re in photographer’s paradise: a shot everywhere you look, like a fisherman with a swimming pool of fish around him”
Over here, I’m looking. And I’m reeling it all in. Great going!
thanks, karma. more soon…