This episode of The Monochrome Chronicles ventures deep into new territory for me, the ancient city of Bhaktapur, Nepal, specifically the old walled city. Bhaktapur provokes an array of images for me – images that extend far beyond the photographic images in this episode. This is difficult to explain in words. The walled city is so old as to be almost impossible to imagine its origin, and yet it is alive with the Newari people who live there.
My affair with Bhaktapur – and I do think of it as an affair – came over me gradually, unlike other places such as NYC, Havana or Bangkok that dazzled me from my first visit. Bhaktapur, or more specifically the old cultural heritage district of Bhaktapur, is a complex and ancient city. Stepping through the gates of the wall that surrounds the old city is like stepping backward into an earlier period of history. That sounds cliché but it is true. This feeling came to me not on my first visit but on my second and subsequent visits. It is a designated cultural heritage district, with buildings and temples and pagodas and statues dating back hundreds of years. Beyond and behind these structures is a maze of narrow streets and narrower alleys, where people still live. Stores and open-air markets provide the necessities of daily life. Therein lies the spirit of what I consider to be the true Bhaktapur. This is the focus of my photographic series.
Chanters. One feature of Bhaktapur haunts me: the singing of Hindu chants. These chants are haunting, especially in the evening when the public square is mostly dark. I first heard the chanting one evening while I was sitting at an outdoor cafe drinking an after-dinner glass of hot sweet tea. Each evening, two or three groups of chanters gather in Taumadhi Square on the steps of one of the main temples to chant ancient Sanskrit texts. They chant in a call-and-repeat style. Half of the group sings a few lines and then the other repeats the same lines, back and forth, back and forth. They accompany themselves with drums, bells and cymbals.
Chanters have become a sub-theme of my photography in Bhaktapur. I’m not sure why. Maybe these groups reflect the strong community spirit that pervades there. I have focused mainly on one group who meet every morning for a couple of hours of chanting and have been doing so for many years. They allowed me to join them on the veranda and also invited me to share their hot milk tea and biscuits. Mostly I just sat behind their semicircle, listening to their music and taking photographs. They were passing around a device, which I took to be a water pipe, from one member to the next, each one taking a few puffs before passing it to the next fellow. I assumed they were smoking tobacco… The members of this group are mainly older men but a couple of them are younger or middle-aged. The sounds of the chanting carry out into the neighborhood for several blocks away.
For me, the chanters have become a symbol of the Newari spirit of Bhaktapur. Their chanting has become integrated into the daily life of the neighborhood to the extent that they do not draw an audience. As for the point of view of the chanters themselves I can only guess, but maybe it is a form of socializing. Or maybe it has a religious or spiritual element.
Women at the well. Another feature of the community are the public wells. Houses in the old section of Bhaktapur do not have running water (and many do not have electricity). Each neighborhood then has a community well where residents can draw water – by hand. The well is more than just a source of water. Each well sits in the center of a small square and typically a small Hindu temple will sit on one side of the square and an open veranda on another side. Women in the neighborhood come to the well each morning to draw water for their households, and carry it home in big metal vessels. They also perform their morning toilette by the well, washing their hands, feet and face, and brushing their teeth. For this they use water from small brass pitchers. The well also is a social meeting place for the women, who stay to chat with their neighbors before returning home with their burden of the heavy water jugs carried against their hips. Drawing water from the well sometimes is a solitary task and even when women meet there they chat quietly. The well seems to be a solemn place, perhaps the influence of a small Hindu temple on one wall of the square.
The old section of Bhaktapur is a busy place in the morning. The morning market fills the main square and spills over onto the side streets.
Motorbike drivers beep their horns as they thread through the crowd. Worshipers at the temples ring the brass bells as part of their prayers. Neighbors stop to chat and share a glass of milk tea. Children, dogs, and sometimes goats run about and play in the streets.
One morning, seeking respite from all the cacophony, I ducked into an alcove in a building on one of the side streets. I could enjoy the quiet. Then I noticed these two women across the narrow street. It was an opportunity I could not ignore. I needed no help from my little voice this time. This image comes from deep down inside; I don’t know exactly where. The light and the shadows; the background and the foreground; the women’s clothing, their body language and, most importantly, the expressions on their faces; everything coalesced. This was their moment. The composition may look staged but it is not. Everything is as I found it. I was almost afraid to move lest I disturb them. This portrait belongs entirely to the two women.
Women at the windows. This image speaks volumes to me. To reveal what it says to me would be somehow inappropriate. It is too intimate. I will say that this is an “I almost missed it” moment. I had passed by, deep in conversation with my friend, when I stopped and went back. Read into that whatever you wish. One of the lessons learned from my mentors at ICP is that a successful photograph is 80% technique, 5% perspiration, 5% inspiration, 5% location, and 5% sheer luck. I know which element created this image.
Another woman looking out from the window of her home. No, let me amend that statement. A woman sitting at the window and looking out is a fairly common sight in Bhaktapur, but this image is different. The woman herself is a small, but arresting, element of the composition. The expression on her face is pensive. She was motionless. Other elements of the composition – the slanting line of shadow and light, the white cloth draped over the window frame, the repetition of windows and squares, the distance between her and my camera – add to the overall impression, but they also bring the eye back to the woman. Clearly, she is the focus of this image. It is her portrait.
This woman registered in my photographer’s eye before I was aware of her. I was walking along a narrow side alley when suddenly my little voice told me to turn around. There she was, leaning out of the second floor window of her house. She talked a while with my guide Amit and then granted my request to photograph her. After a few minutes, she disappeared from her window and reappeared from her front door. She continued telling her tale to the guide: She was a widow and lived alone. She had adult children but they rarely visited her. Back in Tokyo, when I saw and printed the negative, I wished I could have seen the interior of her home. An unfinished portrait.
Women often congregate on the front steps of their homes. Here the composition makes the image, more so than the subject. Static and dynamic at the same time. The style of dress for women is similar to the sari from India. By the way, married women in Nepal usually wear something red, a deep red, as part of their costume, as a symbol to show that they are married.
At the falla. Bhaktapur is a very social community. Indeed, many communities in Nepal are social. This is reflected in the architecture – or maybe the architecture is adapted to the socializing. Many buildings, especially the historic ones, have public spaces for socializing – known as pati, falcha and falla in the Nepalese language. A pati is a space built into the exterior wall of a building. It essentially is a veranda at street level with the front open to the street. In contrast a falla is a low ledge built on the side of a building at a height convenient for sitting. Finally, a falcha is a free standing building with a wrap-around veranda. Originally, falcha were built to accommodate travelers during the time before hotels existed. Travelers could sleep in a falcha for a night or two during their journey. Nowadays, travelers can stay in hotels or guesthouses and the falcha have become meeting places for people in the neighborhood. For me, these spaces have come to reflect the spirit of the neighborhoods.
Several men were sitting here in a pati but only this one man attracted my camera. And then I only needed to take a couple of frames. In other places, other situations, I sometimes take many frames, trying to find just the right one, but it doesn’t work. Maybe I try too hard. Expressive photography has to come from the heart, not from the brain. I have to listen to my little voice. And read the light. This image is the result. The subject himself tells his story. I don’t need to say more.
Five men sitting on a falcha. This is such a complex image, and I don’t know where to start. First, the architecture. The building, though it is old (probably 100 or more years old), has been remarkably well maintained. The heavily carved woodwork, painted shiny black, is especially remarkable. The brickwork also is in fine condition and clean. Next, the social situation. People sitting on a falla and socializing like this is a common sight in Bhaktapur. People just sitting and chatting. Finally, the men. All as one group and each an individual. Four in traditional clothing including the Nepalese cap and one in modern dress. Three together and two apart. Sandals and sneakers. And two are looking directly at me, but with different facial expressions. Two are sitting cross legged, with their sandals on the ground, and looking outside the frame. One group and five individuals.What was transpiring here? Should I admit that I was focusing on the situation and not on the interaction between these two men? I wonder. Sometimes I see elements on the negative that I hadn’t noticed through my view finder. This is, in part at least, an outcome of my shooting style: shoot quickly to catch the action. To shoot slowly would catch only the aftermath of the action, the one-second-too-late effect. One key to successful street photography is to anticipate the action.
A very different kind of socializing: a tea house. The time was early in the morning. The tea house was in a small room with a low ceiling, was dimly lit, and had only three or four small tables.
At the time, something about the place was foreboding. After seeing the negative and the image, I can feel this man’s pensive mood. He seems to be alone.
I had been walking along the narrow street, heading somewhere. Suddenly I stopped, turned around and walked back to find this scene. Apparently, it had registered subliminally in my photographer’s eye but I had overlooked it. Fortunately, my little voice was alert and advised me to retrace my steps to find it.
Street photography. Most of my street photography in other places has been at night. Not so in Bhaktapur. There, my day typically would begin early in the morning, before sunrise, with the intent to capture the early light. Before sunrise the neighborhoods are eerily quiet. Peaceful. The air is cool and refreshing. Durbar Square with its cluster of ancient monuments and historic buildings sits quietly, mostly in shadow; later in the day the square will be busy with crowds of people. Only pigeons and a few dogs are astir at that early hour. The exception, of course, would be the open-air market which would already be ongoing.
Then again I would return to the street in late afternoon to catch the special light that comes just before sundown. Some people would still be about but the activity would be winding down. Much of the neighborhood would be in shadow already but sometimes, with luck and heeding my inner voice, I could capture a moment or two on film.
Daily life. So many elements of Newari culture in Bhaktapur appear in this photograph.
For example, the ancient traditional architecture features elaborately carved stone, which has darkened with age. The water trickling out of a pipe in the wall suggests that during some period this was part of a water supply system, possibly a community well that has mostly gone dry.
The key element in the photograph, of course, is the woman. She was wearing traditional Newari clothing and performing her morning ablutions. Doing so in public is a fairly common practice, since the homes would have no running water. Women seem to perform this rite at the community wells whereas the men would go to a public reservoir. A captured moment of everyday life.
Another place for morning ablutions is a large fresh-water reservoir sitting at the intersection of two side streets. This is a quiet, solemn activity, each man seeming to occupy his own private space, squatting beside the water’s edge.
Probably this tradition has continued through many generations over the centuries of Bhaktapur’s existence.
To describe this woman or to explain the circumstances would only distract from the power of this image. There, have I written myself into a corner? I have some thoughts, some impressions about this portrait but, to write anything more would only violate the statement in the first sentence. This image illustrates the effect of the sunlight at dusk. Much of the image is in shadow but the woman’s face is bathed in a delicate warm glow. The soft focus adds to the overall mood of the photograph.
This woman was working in a rice-milling shop. Even while printing this image in the darkroom, I could feel that the result would be striking, from a purely photographic viewpoint. At my exhibit one viewer noted “It gives the feeling of a French impressionist painting.” The natural light from the garden behind the shop frames the image and reveals the design of her traditional clothing.
Capturing the late afternoon sunlight in Bhaktapur.
Earlier in the afternoon a scene such as this one would not have been nearly so dramatic. This vendor carried his goods with him as he walked through the streets.
This scene has no clues to historical time. It could be last year, or 50 years ago or long before that, probably. The camera never lies, but a photographer can alter the perception of reality. Another moment frozen in time.
Evenings are a time of contrast in the walled city. The historic monuments sit quietly in the main square, illuminated by street lights and flood lights. Taumadhi Square sits largely in darkness but is alive with chanters and other groups. Residential streets are mostly quiet and dimly lit. Traffic is scarce so the area is quiet.
Some of the shops in the back streets stay open in the evening. This image shows a pharmacy, which probably betrays my bias since I used to work in pharmaceutical industry.
The smaller shops open directly onto the sidewalk and may be simply a storefront shop. These are ordinary sights on an ordinary evening in Bhaktapur.
Portraits. Portraiture has become my forte as I have journeyed through Southeast Asia and beyond. Bhaktapur is different, though, to me. This difference is difficult to put into words. Portraiture is not my conscious goal when I’m in Bhaktapur. This trend becomes evident to me only as I begin to see the negatives, and start the process of printing and editing the images.
What, then, do I find in Bhaktapur that leads me and my camera in this direction? The simple answer would be that the Newari people draw me toward this direction. Something in the character of people allows them to accept, or to encourage, or even to be oblivious to, my camera. This is what enlivens the portraits: the subjects are responding to me, and not to my camera.
I encountered this man one afternoon in a small courtyard next to a Hindu temple. Every afternoon, a Hindu priest leads a worship service there, which is characterized by the ringing of bells. Initially, one bell rings, then a second and third bell answers. Next, two or three bells ring in unison, and are echoed by other groups of two or three bells. The progression of bells grows – more and more bells in unison and answering one another at shorter and shorter intervals. All sizes and tones, from small bells with high timbre through larger and larger bells with deeper, more mellow timbre. Ultimately, all the bells ring together creating a cacophony of sound that is, nonetheless, spiritually moving. Many people congregated in the courtyard for the ceremony, but this one man captured the attention of my camera. The quiet dignity on his face and the intensity of the look in his eyes permeate this image. When I went back the following year, I learned that this man had died.
This man is a member of the group of chanters who meet every morning to recite old Sanskrit mantras. His face has many strong features – especially his nose and cheekbones – but his eyes are what enliven the image. His eyes looked directly at me through my lens, and they seemed to say…what? I could give you my impression but I won’t. I don’t want to bias your perception as a viewer. To paraphrase Ansel Adams, there always are (or they should be) three people in a portrait: the subject, the photographer, and the viewer. As the photographer, I believe that I should stay in the background.
An older man in front of a Hindu temple. Older men typically wear this style of cap, called a dhaka topi, which is made from cotton woven in a geometric design with soft colors such as pink, tan and pale yellow. Also, he has a flower tucked into his cap above one ear – a sign that he has been to the Hindu temple to pray that morning. In this image, the background with its repeating geometric design in carved wood seems to provide a counterpoint that sets off the soft textures of the man’s face, his cap, and his clothing. And the design of the wood carving complements the woven pattern in his cap.
This man readily assented to my request to photograph him (as did all the subjects in this episode). The wrinkles on this man’s face and the hint of a smile set this image apart.
Many of my portrait subjects from Bhaktapur are older people, both men and women. This man I first noticed when he was still a block away, walking slowly with the aid of a walking stick, his body curved sharply forward. He was barely creeping along up the street. When he saw me and my camera, he smiled. He stopped to chat with my guide and gradually straightened up into a standing position. I don’t remember how old he was but I admired him for being out in the neighborhood and walking by himself. Maybe his grit and determination show in this photograph. The softer focus here is in character with this Newari man.
Another style of portraiture. This is street photography. A festival, in this case the Elephant Festival, is a hectic, rowdy event, which requires quick reflexes to capture it on film. I sort of go on auto-pilot and shoot without thinking. My little voice would be drowned out in the noise of the crowd. The Elephant Festival is an annual event in Bhaktapur when a large paper mache elephant, carried on the shoulders of six or eight men, takes to the streets to re-enact the mythical tale of an elephant searching for a deity who had gone missing. In the modern telling, the elephant runs madly through the streets, searching for the lost deity and chasing away any young boys who get in his way. Street musicians with tambourines, torches made with burning straw, and fireworks add to the general mayhem. Still in all, I was able to capture this image of an older man who was fleeing from the elephant. I had no time to think or consider, just shoot by instinct. Sometimes it is successful.
I encountered this man in one of the narrow, quiet back streets of Bhaktapur. He was alone, resting quietly on a pallet of blankets in a small niche in the outside wall of a house. The niche would have been large enough for only two people to lay there comfortably, I think. Apparently, Nepalese people believe that laying quietly in the fresh air aids patients in recovering from illness. When he heard the guide and me talking, this man slowly sat up and I recognized immediately that here was a portrait in the making. It is a haunting image, I believe.
In the calm and quiet atmosphere of a back street, I could easily listen to my little voice, who found this older man wrapped in a blanket and sitting in a doorway, with such a forlorn look on his face, indeed in his whole body language. Again, I cannot explain why I choose this man as a subject. I just knew that everything was right for a portrait. I wonder what was going on inside his mind at that moment? The front door of his home opened directly at street level, as do many homes in Bhaktapur, so at least he could sit there and watch the goings-on in his neighborhood.
This episode of The Monochrome Chronicles, the first of three episodes based in Nepal, has focused on Bhaktapur and the Newari people who live within the ancient walled city. What more can I say about this series? My experiences there have expanded the scope of my photography greatly. From early in the morning before sunrise until the evening well after sundown, my camera, my little voice and my guide Amit keep me going. This series is still evolving and I have a long road ahead of me. For now, I am focusing on three sub-themes: chanters, social life and daily life. Where the series will lead me in the future…I do not know. The series is a mix of portraiture, a brush with documentary, often influenced by street photography…an evolving portrait of a community. Bhaktapur is calling me.
The next episode of The Monochrome Chronicles will feature quite a different Newari community, who live in the village of Khokana out in the Kathmandu Valley.
