Saturday, October 8, 2011

Kolkata's Cult of Durga: The Puja Is Over...

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy- All Rights Reserved

As per the planned schedule, the Kolkata's Cult of Durga Photo Expedition/Workshop completed the coverage of the Durga Puja yesterday night. Whilst there still are some immersions taking place in the Hooghly river at various ghats, the main immersion event was last night. The local media, in all its manifestations, was out in force and included a large number of accredited photojournalists, as well as amateur photographers wanting to document this important religious and social event.

With the completion of the Durga Puja, our group has started to edit the images made during the past week, shaping them into individual multimedia projects on the event as seen and recorded by each member. To make matters slightly more difficult, I requested that the still images be all in black & white. Perhaps counter-intuitive for such a colorful festival, but black & white forces the photographer to visualize the composition rather than being seduced by the colors.

We are in search of other projects in Kolkata; one of which will be to document the rickshaw pullers. Also in black & white, the group is photographing these hard working individuals as we move along the streets of Kolkata.

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