Letter from Seoul - 5
Portraits of India
During my 18-day trip to India from November 13 to November 30, I captured over 40 unposed portraits that may not necessarily qualify as street photography. I never asked for anyone's permission to photograph them because I was carrying a camera. While a few people waved me away, nobody seemed to be uncomfortable with my presence. Anil Sharma, my guide, was always there to help me, and we never had any issues with people being photographed.
One day, Anil took me to a small farmer's market outside Varanasi, where locals were curious about me being a white man. However, the real issue was that they wanted to take photographs with me and their colleagues. I jokingly told Anil that we could make some money if we charged for me being photographed.
Kolkata - November 2023
New Delhi- November 2023
It appeared that the man and woman were a married couple, although we didn't actually have a conversation. Nevertheless, they gestured for me to take a photo of them together, so I obliged. After showing them the photo and receiving what seemed to be a positive reaction, they continued on their walk without asking for a copy of the photo. It struck me as strange, but that was the end of the encounter.
I came across a portrait of a man while walking in the Turkman Gate District of Old Delhi. The man was sitting in a way that seemed both posed and natural. Despite the language barrier, I felt drawn to him and his resemblance to Laurence Fishburne's character in the John Wick movies, the Bowery King. The location was run-down with a wall to the left covered in vomit, debris, and a trashed-out wooden pallet to the right. But the light was just right, so I couldn't resist taking three photographs of him. We had no form of communication, so I left after taking the photos.
Varanasi- November 2023
Kathmandu- November 2023
In that bygone era of grade school, when a collection of students was together in the same room with the same teacher for an academic year, my sixth-grade teacher bought us all a smart looking paperback copy of Roget’s Thesaurus. If he had handed me a bag of gold, it would not have been as valuable as that 50-cent thesaurus. It changed my life.
For high school graduation, my mother presented me with a portable manual typewriter and a hardbound copy of Roget’s Thesaurus. I’ve had a half-century relationship with that edition – longer than my connection with any one person, and it has accompanied me from St. Louis-to-Seoul, and all points in between. That edition from 1970 remains an integral part of my book collection.
Allegedly, Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011), an immensely talented wit and writer, could imbibe liberal quantities of alcoholic refreshments throughout the day, hold forth with ease and intellectual dexterity on literary, political and religious issues at both formal lectures and lively parties - then sit before a keyboard at 1 a.m. and produce a stunning essay for Vanity Fair that marked him as the rightful heir to Gore Vidal in his prime.
I’m still waiting for lightning to strike, to know what I want to be when I grow up, to be enraptured by a muse who will inspire me as much as June Mansfield (1902-1979) shaped the life of Henry Miller (1891-1980), her husband, who went unaccompanied to Paris in 1930 and during this down-and-out period wrote countless letters to his wife and friends in New York City that became the material for the scandalous Tropic of Cancer – banned as obscene for 30-years, edited by his mistress and benefactor, Anais Nin (1903-1977). Perhaps the best we can do is to be an interesting collection of contradictions.
Call me Kennedy. Ahab had his whale. William Burroughs (1914-1997) had his heroin. Bruce Chatwin (1940-1989) had his Patagonia. As for me, I have a camera and a passport.
The play’s the thing.
Michael Kennedy