May I Take Your Picture?

I love my new Canon G11 so much that I find myself spending a good amount of time playing around with it on land. I've never really been much of a photographer at all, but now, after venturing into underwater photography and having this great little camera on my hands, I feel inspired.

Maybe it's sort of a natural transition from liking to take macro close ups of fish and such, but I'm starting to get into portraits. There were two events on our recent trip to Bali that set me on this path. The first was one early morning on Nusa Lembongan when Jackie and I went for a walk along the beach. We headed off with the intention of taking some pictures of the Agung volcano looming in the distance but we soon found ourselves talking to two friendly little girls who were making mini Agung volcanos in the sand. We chatted with them in very basic Indonesian and I took several photos. After each photo, I would show them my LCD screen and they would shout, "Lagi, lagi!" (Again, again!). And then I'd take another photo. This one of 7 year-old Dila was my favorite one of the series:

When I showed the picture on my camera to Megan, Noreen and Michaela later they all commented on what a nice shot it was. But I still didn't think too much of it. When we got to Ubud, our next destination, I strolled down Monkey Forest Rd taking pictures of statues and flowers and other non-human things. Looking through the photos later I felt like something was missing but I couldn't figure out what. Then the second big event happened. One day later I wondered into a bookstore and bought a Lonely Planet guide to travel photography. As it happened to be raining that afternoon, I took the book back to the hotel and basically read it cover to cover. I found myself drawn to the chapters about portrait photography and realized what I needed to do to make my travel photos really come alive.

I've always thought that local people make very interesting subjects for travel photography but the whole notion of asking a complete stranger for permission to take their picture has always been super intimidating to me. My general approach for most of my life has been to try to sneakily take photos of people when they're not looking or to stand from a safe enough distance away so that if they got suspicious I could always just pretend I was taking a picture of the tree/statue/storefront next to them. However, living as a quasi-celebrity in Gorontalo last year, I got really uncomfortable and annoyed by all the random people constantly taking my picture, sometimes right up in my face, without even so much as a hello or a nod to their camera phone to ask for permission. Asking for permission is definitely the way to go.

This aspect of photography gets especially tricky in developing countries when many of the interesting subjects you want to shoot are living in such poverty that you feel guilty for wanting to take a few pictures of their daily existence only to wander back to your nice hotel later to play with the pics on your fancy laptop. But I guess the bottom line is it doesn't hurt to ask. Sometimes people will say no and they have every right to do so. But for those who say yes, you might be rewarded with some great photos.

The day after reading the chapters on portraits in my book, I headed off to a market in Ubud to challenge myself to interact with people and see if I could get their permission to take a few photos. I felt like I could at least say "Boleh?" (May I?) in Indonesian while holding up my camera. The first woman I encountered was busy sorting chili peppers. Ah ha, I thought. I can practice taking what my book called 'environmental portraits' or, in other words, portraits that make the picture more interesting by placing the subject in a specific context. I held up my camera and asked, "Boleh?" and then took a few snapshots of this woman at work:

At first glance, this photo might not look much different from your typical photo surreptitiously taken in a market, but because I asked for permission first I was able to stand closer than I normally would and take multiple shots. As a side note here, I like how the camera captured the movement in her right hand.

For my next subject, I employed the time honored technique of buying something first and then asking permission to take a photo. This technique works well because you feel you have established some sort of relationship with your subject before you take their picture. It also decreases the likelihood that they will say no to your request. However, the big drawback to this technique is that it can get expensive when you go around buying things you don't need just to get people's pictures.

Finally, one of my favorite shots of the day was of this sweet 90 year-old woman selling woven boxes. I thought her face was very photogenic but when I first asked to take her picture she said I had to buy a box first. Hmm...I thought. She's been around enough tourists to know how to up her sales! So I thanked her, told her that I didn't really need a woven box and started to walk away. But then she called me back, laughed and said it was fine if I took her picture. She kept saying "Tapi saya tua! Saya sudah 90 tahun" (But I'm old! I'm already 90 years old.) To which I responded, "Mungkin Anda sudah tua, tapi Anda masih cantik!" (Maybe you are old, but you are still beautiful!). She laughed again.

These brief exchanges with the women in the Ubud market were rewarding enough to make me think I might be on to something here. Stay tuned for more portrait photos this year!

A Traditional Balinese Healer

Happy New Year! It’s been a while since my last post and one of my New Year’s resolutions is to blog more often. December was a whirlwind of travel and finishing up the end of the semester and, as a result, not much blogging got done. And to be honest, I haven’t exactly finished up the semester either, since I still have a huge pile of essays to read and final grades to report. But never mind that. I think for my first post of the New Year it’s fitting to write about my trip to Ubud, Bali last month where I visited a traditional Balinese healer.

Ubud is the artistic and cultural capital of Bali, known for its traditional dances, shadow puppet shows, local artisans and now also for its prominent role in the bestselling memoir Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (which is, incidentally, being turned into a feature film starring Julia Roberts). On her tri-country search for personal fulfillment following a divorce, Gilbert ends up in Bali where she befriends Wayan Nuriyasih, a traditional Balinese Healer. In the book, Wayan is described as a “strikingly attractive Balinese woman with a wide smile and shiny black hair down to her waist”. She is also unabashedly upfront about all issues related to the body, health and sex. Gilbert consults her for a number of ailments including a wounded knee, how to make her hair grow faster and a bladder infection. Along the way, the two become close, spending many hours laughing and sharing together so that by the end of the book, Gilbert eventually helps raise enough money to help buy Wayan a new house with a permanent address so that her healing center can finally be listed in Lonely Planet.

So, when Courtney and I arrived in Ubud last month, we consulted our Lonely Planet to find Wayan’s healing center on Jl Jembawan, just a couple streets away from our pension. Courtney is a strong believer in alternative medicine and had been looking forward to visiting Wayan for months. She was also battling the lingering effects of dengue fever and was eager to get Wayan’s help. I didn’t really have any pressing issues that I needed healing for but I was interested to go along anyway to meet this real life “character” from a book I had read.

We found Wayan in her shop and she looked just like Gilbert described – long shiny black hair and a welcoming smile. The entrance to the shop was hidden behind an array of potted medicinal plants and a soothing fountain. Wayan was in the middle of helping another client but she ushered us in, asked us to sit down and had a helper whip up a couple of glasses of freshly grated turmeric juice to strengthen and cleanse our bodies while we waited. It’s the Balinese way to treat everyone as equally important so instead of having to wait for Wayan to be completely finished with her other clients, we were sort of rotated in as Wayan jumped around from person to person.

After giving Courtney some herbal tea and rhinoceros water to help flush out the dengue, Wayan did full body energy readings for both of us. We stood up while she moved her hands over our energy fields, looking for any deficiencies or imbalances in our bodies. She also read our palms. I was fascinated by the results of this reading, although a bit suspicious that Courtney and I had so much in common. Regardless, I pleased to hear that I have a long lifeline and good luck. My energy fluctuates (no kidding!) and I have an easy time finding jobs (so far this has been true!). She sees me having two part-time jobs in the future, which makes a lot of sense if I end up teaching ESL back in the States. She declared me “smart, but not brilliant”, which Courtney and I both laughed about. And my memory is not so good. This is true, especially when I compare myself with my sister, who has an AMAZING ability to recall the smallest details about events that happened years ago. As for friendship, love, and marriage, I have four close friends in life. It’s unclear if these 4 friends are already in my life or if she means I will have four close friends over the span of my lifetime. But she was pretty clear about the fact that four men fell in love with me but I brushed them off. I wonder who they were… She also said I have had two serious boyfriends, which is true. She then predicted that I will marry later in life but it will be a “big and deep” love. I will only marry once. I wonder how late “later in life” is. I’m already 32… We asked about children and she said that I have 3 eggs – 2 good eggs and one weak egg. I interpret this to mean one miscarriage and two children but my friends have offered up other suggestions as well, including two healthy children and one handicapped child or two well-behaved children and one wild child. I guess time will tell. As for my health, I need more vitamin E and A in my diet, I need to drink more water and I need to stop worrying so much.

Following the readings, we were sent upstairs to have full body massages that were designed to treat our specific needs. I’m not exactly sure what needs I was being treated for, but I will say that I quite like being massaged by three young Balinese men simultaneously!