Photographing Pushkar Camel Fair
Notes from the fairground
Sitting here in Hampshire, England on a cold and wet January day, I found some notes I'd jotted down on the old iPad while we were on our Pushkar Camel Fair photography tour back in October last year. Specifically, what's it like taking photographs at Pushkar Camel Fair? What are the main opportunities?
If you're in a real hurry to know the answer, go straight to the Pushkar Camel Fair tour photo gallery and scan through the thumbnails.
The opportunities
In general, Pushkar Camel Fair is a laid-back, uncontroversial, thought-provoking and often jaw-dropping photography experience. As you wander about the vast, chaotic shooting stage of the Fair, it'll probably occur to you that this kind of traditional spectacle (and this kind of photographic access generally) has all but vanished back home: I find it simply amazing to be able to walk around freely without high-visibility-jacketed 'officials' and storm-troopers with radios and silly roped-off areas and nanny-state signs telling me the obvious. Here the responsibility for public safety seems to rely directly with the public rather than petty officialdom.
The main shooting theatres are the ghats and temples around the lake (where there are restrictions on photography — and neat workarounds!); the town of Pushkar itself, surrounding the lake and crawling with pilgrims and holy men and grifters; the stadium where the touristic crowd-pleasers (shows, dances, races, tug-of-war games) take place; and the sprawling sandy environs where most of the shooting fun (and most of the camel-dealing) actually happens.
At first, you'll want to photograph everything: the campsites, the families sleeping under tarpaulins and trailers, the camels slurping from the water-troughs (and the kids gulping alongside), the horses being tended, the tents and the shanties, the stalls where they sell camel-fripperies and the food-stalls where the people come for a cuppa and a samosa; the dusty lanes criss-crossing the Fair where camels and horses vie with trucks, camel-buggies, motorbikes and tractors in a good-natured free-for-all. So go ahead and get that out of your system, then erase those camera cards because now you're ready to see, predict, interpret and choose your photographic moments!
The people
“In general you're less interesting to them than they are to you.”
Overall, the countryfolk are a happy, relaxed, open and tolerant people and in general you're less interesting to them than they are to you: they're here on business after all. They're used to tourists and they respect your right to take photographs — which you can repay them for by not getting out the big 400mm telescope while his wife is tending the baby, and by generally reading the degree of implicit welcome being extended to you and your camera.
The livestock
The average camel gives the appearance of being a languid, gum-chewing layabout that's happy to just hang with no real attitude or agenda. And there are so many of these beasts standing around at Pushkar that it's easy to take them for granted after a while and start thinking of them as mere photographic props.
Watch out though: like all large animals, their sheer size makes them a potential hazard and they can kick, spit, bite and generally behave in unpredictable ways. So approach with a measure of caution when you're trying to get in close for that leggy wide-angle shot.
Similarly with the horses. Rajasthani cowboys are hurling themselves astride those Marwari chargers all around you, then blasting up and down the dusty main drag at full throttle. Put your camera into predictive autofocus and blow a few hundred frames in a few seconds… but don't get run over!
Once again, by connecting (however marginally) with the subject, you get better shots. The first time a cowboy blew past me, I simply missed the shot. So I whistled appreciately and smiled at him, indicating respect for his prowess, and for the next ten minutes he was all mine, charging back and forth for me until my card filled up.
Show me the money
With all the hard bargaining and dealing going on around you, you'd think it wouldn't be too difficult to capture the actual moment of money changing hands for some prize specimen. Not so: partly it's because people tend to be a bit circumspect generally when handling cash in public places, and at Pushkar it's also because such transactions automatically attract a local levy. If you come to the Fair with 100 camels and leave with 10, you owe the local organisers some percentage on 90 camels. So a lot of dealing takes place outside the grounds and before the official opening of trading. Or it's on a deferred payment plan :-) — a deal is struck, but delivery of the goods occurs outside the gates after the event, so no apparent sale and no tax… "… Terrible trading this year, bhai-sahib!"
If you're really keen on the money-changing-hands bit though, no problem: have a word beforehand with your Travelshooters Shoot Director and he'll almost certainly make it happen. I mentioned it to Sridhar and he promptly trotted out numerous shots of huge wads of 1,000-rupee notes appearing from inside innocuous folds of white fabric.
Here's a photo showing how not to do it. The guy in the foreground is distinctly uncomfortable and there is no cooperation or consent, so I got what I deserved — a bad photo. I did smile and made deferential I'm-a-harmless-idiot gestures so they just ignored me most of the time, but when the big stash of notes came out I wasn't able to get the shot I wanted. Guess you've got to be tuned in to these issues and ready to walk away if you think you're going to be really unpopular. Or just talk to our Shoot Director: a few minutes of his friendly Hindi chit-chat (assisted by the fact that such tribespeople are one of his personal areas of study), and we just get waved in to photograph a group that seemed impenetrable only moments before.
And at the end of my notes, my iPad jottings read:
Sitting here in a fairground dhaba with a cup of masala tea, camera silent on the table before me, making notes… I get a few curious glances and I smile and bob my head and make a point of ordering more tea in Hindi… the proprietor comes back with my tea plus a big plateful of Indian fried delicacies, straight off the stove, free of charge, unasked for. That's Pushkar India for you.
