Inspiring India
American photojournalist Eddie Adams once quipped that if he were dropped like a Google Maps pin in Varanasi, India’s holiest city, and spun around until he stopped, he could take a good picture with his eyes closed. He wasn’t being entirely facetious. The sprawling nation of India has a cultural and geographical abundance unlike any other place on earth. That visual richness is why many well-known Western photographers, from Henri Cartier-Bresson to Steve McCurry, have spent so much time there.
A few years ago, I traveled to India with my old friend John Isaac, the United Nations’ longtime chief photographer, who himself hails from South India. We went there to give keynote talks at the first Indian Photography Festival in Hyderabad. I came away from that experience in awe of the talent of young Indian photographers and was heartened to see that so many of them are working in black-and-white—because I myself planned to shoot black-and-white in a land that photographers routinely praise for the bounty of its color.
After talks, workshops, school visits and local adventures with our hosts and students, John and I flew north and made our way
