Sometimes things just come together. A friend of mine hit me up back in May about this workshop he was going to attend, FPW, and he wanted to know if I’d go with him. It was a long shot considering I only get one week of vacation a year and that week was determined by the schedule of the businesses I work for. I asked my boss when my week was and it just so happened to be the right time. Synchronicity. I had a nine day window to get from Changwon, Korea to Manali, India. This would entail an hour drive to the airport, nine hour flight from Busan to New Delhi, a fourteen hour bus to Manali and a ten minute rickshaw ride to the hotel. Game on.

With a little schedule wrestling I managed to squeeze out another day and left Friday morning. I made it to India in the afternoon, met my friend at the bus station, bought three samosas, boarded the bus and woke up in the Himalayas in the morning.  Enter FPW

FPW’s structure breaks down like this- Students choose their class based on their own experience and specialty.  The classes ranged from beginner to advanced. The teachers are all working professionals who volunteered. The star teacher was Ron Haviv, of VII fame. Other notables: Michael Robinson Chavez, Andrea Bruce, Ami Vitale, Kael Alford, Adriana Zehbrauskas, Henrik Kastenskov, Tewific El-Sawy and the man I ended up with, Guy Calaf. I had never been in an environment like this before so I signed up for the ‘easiest’ class thinking I would gain the most from it and not look like a nob in the process.

As a future recommendation to anyone interested in this workshop, don’t sell yourself short. By that I mean if you have a fundamental understanding of your equipment, how it works and how to transfer files to a computer and save them, perhaps looking into a course more specifically angled toward your goals may be of greater service.

As it was, I began the From Vision to Life class with Calaf. I’m not going to spend much time discussing the actual class content only the format. The first two days were spent working on a twenty four hour project wherein my classmates and I roamed around Manali trying to find one area of the city to photograph.

After much wandering I made my way into the Manali Meat Market. It was the first place I found where people were receptive and comfortable enough to let me photograph them. It was a mix of Hindus and Sikhs-all men. I spent an evening and the following morning with them. It was a disgusting atmosphere, but offered up some sights I wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere else like the man at the front gate blow torching goat heads or the boys standing in heaps of chicken innards. The critique I received from these photos helped me establish some boundaries. Despite it’s similarity to a flower, there really is no reason to show the inside of a goat’s ribcage-to anyone.

Finding the topic for my second project was difficult. I had it in my head before I arrived in Manali that I would try to do a story about the drug scene, or about the isolated village of Malana and their world famous hash. These ideas were quickly shot down both for safety and logistical reasons. A week really isn’t enough time to meet enough drug users and or suppliers, whom feel comfortable opening up to a man with a camera. As for Malana, it’s a wicked multi-day hike to get up there. If I ever go back to to Manali I will definitely make that trip though. The place sounds unbelievable.

So, with my ideas shot down I roamed about the city for a day taking random pictures hoping something would inspire me for story two. Manali is not a big place and I frequently saw other photographers-there were 75 of us in total. I didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes or do a story that someone else was doing. I went back by the meat market to say hello and found another photographer making that her story. She was in a different class though, so no big deal. I walked back out onto the main street, down numerous alleys and up the mountainsides. There were many interesting places that I wanted to go in to but hesitated. This was the second lesson I learned. Fear will screw you. I don’t mean regular fear, like I was afraid for my well being-that’s never been my issue, I’m actually quite stupid in this regard. I’m referring to social fear-of being impolite and strolling like an ignorant tourist into places I don’t belong. This ended up being the most difficult hurdle to get over. People don’t seem to like it when you walk into their lives and start taking photos-go figure.

One interesting group of people I came across were the Rajastani nomads. They spend their winters in Rajastan and migrate to Manali in the summer. They set up a tent community in the backstreets. It was an amazing environment and their living arrangements were fantastic. They may have had a tarp overhead, but underneath were stereos, televisions and DVD players. I would have liked to have spent a few days with them but whenever I entered their community I was followed constantly by people asking for money. Pointing my camera at anything was immediately met by disapproving glares. I was invited into one tent whereupon I was met by three women holding babies. Two of them were asking for money. I motioned for a picture and they all refused except the one who didn’t want money. Her child was the most lowly of the bunch. He didn’t have any pants on, and actually peed on his mother while I was there. The other women and children looked much better off. I took the photo and then gave her a hundred rupees. Was it a bad idea? Maybe, but she was nice and extremely grateful. Seeing that the tent encampment was a dead end, I moved on. I saw her two days later and she had bought a blanket for her baby-the best two dollars I ever spent.

I happened to look up on my way back to main street and saw some men working six stories above me. I had no story ideas and was running out of time so I swallowed my social phobia, found the door to the building and walked in. The place was a work in progress. Bags of concrete lined the hallway into a central corridor. I could hear chanting and voices but didn’t see anyone. I made my way to a staircase and went up till the stairs ended. Standing there was a Tall man wearing the Sikh turban. He smiled and motioned toward a ladder that took me to the top of the structure. A crew of six men were busy mixing and pouring concrete. There was a fat man sitting in a chair-I assumed to be the foreman. When he saw me he jumped up and shook my hand. He spoke but knew immediately I had no idea what he was saying. I motioned with the camera and he gave me an approving nod. I spent an hour up there as the sun set. The fat man didn’t sit back down, opting to join in with the work as I snapped photos. As I said my goodbyes they motioned for me to wait. A young boy came up the ladder and asked me if I would be back tomorrow. I said yes and told him that I would bring them photos. This brings up another valuable lesson I learned at FPW-get a fixer.

I read about fixers on the FPW website and heard my friend talk about his, but I didn’t really grasp the concept until it was to late. The fixer is your in, your go to guy, your liaison, your middleman, your link to a world you don’t understand-I went to Manali without one. This Sikh boy I met on a rooftop on the third day of the course proved to be the closest I came to finding one.

The idea for the second project was to come up with a theme that expressed Manali. As I looked over my pictures from the day one thing seemed to be in every shot-construction. Everywhere I went in this small city, things were being built. As India’s economy has grown so has the number of tourists, both national and international. The intense natural beauty of the place has made it a top honeymoon destination. Just outside the hotel I was staying in there were numerous works in progress. The city itself was expanding outward and upward. This became the focus of my second story.

The next day I woke up at five am and walked the five kilometers into town. I had a new found mission-find construction sites. One of the fundamental rules of photography is to take advantage of the two golden hours of the day. Unfortunately, not much was being built at six am in Manali. I crossed the river to hoping to find some activity over there and was lucky enough to catch some women working on a future hotel. It was odd to see both men and women at the site, but only the women doing the hard work. They were lifting and carrying heavy stones from where the truck dumped them to the foundation area to be mortared into place by the men. Maybe men work better later in the day. A few hours later I stumbled upon a couple of kids playing a game while a man was bending rebar in the background. These people lived on the site of the structure they were building. It makes you wonder how motivated they were to finish.

In the afternoon I went towards the Gurdwara I had previously visited. I wandered into another construction site on the way. To my surprise, this site was dominated by children. The youngest no more than five and the oldest maybe sixteen. The younger boys were carrying metal sheets up to the second floor where they were aligned for a concrete molding. Other boys were busy balancing wooden support poles. It wondered who was in charge and where were the plans? Finally I made it back to the Sikhs and there temple project. I was lucky enough to arrive in time for a late lunch. Both men and women were seated on long white cloths in the courtyard. They gave me a chair, which made me feel a little uncomfortable, being the only person in a chair, and handed me a bowl. My little fixer friend was also present. After lunch I gave the foreman some prints I had made for him. He was thrilled and they pretty much gave me free access after that. He actually walked me down to main street that night. It turns out that on top of his directorial capacity, he also ran a shoe shop in town. Through the young semi English speaking Sikh I learned that morning prayers began at 6am and that I could come watch if I wanted to. Herein lies yet another lesson I learned at FPW-keep your focus on your project.

Although I felt like I had my best ‘in’ with the Sikhs and their Gurdwara, I had already pitched my story concept to my instructor and he was adamant that I follow through. Fair enough. While I liked them, spending too much time on the Sikhs didn’t have much to do with construction in Manali as a whole. They weren’t indicative of what was happening across the city. Their construction effort was more out of religious obligation than for the booming tourism industry.

Back to workshop. We had class everyday, usually in the early afternoon in an effort to avoid losing the good light of morning and evening. My class was fortunate enough to also have a co-teacher, Adrian Fisk. It seemed like my group spent more time in class than other groups, but I can’t say for sure. There were nightly events scheduled, but I missed most of them because I was out shooting or trying to sleep to get up early. From what I heard Andrea Bruce showed a very good documentary about West Virginia coal miners and there was a sneak peek at a new documentary on the war in Afghanistan. Ron Haviv also spoke about his work and there was a discussion about working in conflict zones. I regret missing these sessions.

On the final day there was a big slide show displaying everyone’s work. That was a bit nerve racking thinking all these people would see your best ten to twelve photos, even if it was only for a few seconds a pic. The highlight of the night was the multimedia work of Dhirja Singh. Everybody stood for this one. Check it out. www.dhirajsingh.com/11.htm. After that there was a bonfire and beer.

The next morning at four am after two hours of sleep my friend and I headed back to our lives in Korea.

Final thoughts on the workshop: great experience, great people and a great environment. I’m hoping I can swing it again next year. It’ll be in either Constantinople or Sarajevo.

That’s it for now. Stay tuned for more Korea related portfolios as I try and put some of the things I learned into action.