click me, mister!

some day in 2009, i watched a tv documentation about kumbh mela, the most important hindu festival and the largest religious gathering in the world that is celebrated every three years in india. what i saw was just amazing, and so i decided that i wanted to go there and see this by myself.

luckily, the the next kumbh mela was just approaching - it took place six months later in harridwar, about 200km north of delhi and only 20km away from rishikesh - for those, who listened to the beatles during the 1960s, this might ring a bell.

so i did the same as 40 million hindus from all over india: i travelled to harridwar to experience the kumbh mela for three weeks.

of course, so many people at one place - this is a photographers' paradise - if you are not afraid of huge crowds and of taking pictures of people. but even if i had been... several times each day, some person stopped me and asked the same question: "mister, can you please take a photo of me?" well, of course why not?

very often, some other people spontaneously jumped into the picture. in most cases the photographed people thanked me very politely and usually - after a short chat - just continued their way. sometimes, after taking a picture of a person or a small group of people, others who passed by stoppped and asked, if i could photograph them as well.

surprisingly after taking these pictures, almost nobody asked, if they could have a look at it - something that i am used to from many other places. this left me quite puzzled.

usually it is me, the photographer, who asks if i could photograph somebody. but the other way round and many times every day? this was something new for me. and why did they ask to be photographed, if they where not interested in seeing the picture?

one day, there was even one man whom i did not notice asking to be photographed. so he followed me some minutes, finally stopped me and told me that he had seen me taking pictures of other people. he asked why i didn't want to photograph him. of course i appologized and explained that i had not noticed him asking because of this huge crowd. so i took his picture, he smiled, thanked me and went away... strange...

luckily, i met this nice guy who ran a tailor shop in harridwar. from time to time i visted him in his shop to have a chat and some tea. he explained to me what this was about: "you know. most of these people who asked to be photographed are quite poor. they know that they never will have a chance to travel to some other country. but now, when you take their picture back to your country, for them it is like a part of them is travelling with you."

p.s.: while watching the pictures, if you think, that this one woman, who can be seen in some of the pictures, looks familiar to you. yepp, you are right. quite often when i took pictures of women they insisted to be photographed together with nina.