A Whisper from the Heart

Awakening the Photojournalist… (Sort of)

At breakfast, I spoke with Arabella about my story ideas and how I was worried that they weren’t very interesting… She got me to talk out my interests and we came up with a great story idea! It’s about charities and charity schools that are set up by locals for the locals… My focus will be on the individuals who set up these organizations and why they did it… It’s a break from the common misconception that charity work is only done by foreigners and NGOs… We pitched our story ideas to the local newspaper New Age and the editor liked my story idea! I even got some contacts… So the story is on its way! Such a relief….

The workshop is starting tomorrow…I’m quite worried cos I dropped my camera and the filter cracked and got jammed into the lens housing… The lens itself doesn’t look chipped in any way… The filter broke the fall of the lens… Thank God! It does mean that I won’t be able to use my own lens for my morning workshop assignments… Good thing I have the telephoto lens from Abir to use… So I just have to stand very far away from my subjects until Moti helps me get my lens fixed… Not a great way to start a photography workshop… But it isn’t the worst way either… At least the lens is safe…

I said it once and I’m gonna say it again… I’m glad I made frens with the Pathshala students… With their help, I can go to all the the places I didn’t and couldn’t go on my own…

After the trip down to the newspaper… I went shopping! I know I’m supposed to work on the story… But the Hartal is coming on Thursday and I didn’t want to waste the precious days when the shops were open… I hired Topu as my tour guide and we went down to New Elephant Road to take a look at the things there… I didn’t spend much time there because I was overwhelmed by the large number of shops in the shopping centres… It happens to me a lot… We ended going into individual shops… I bought two new tops! One is dark green and the other is purple… Now I’m two tops closer to assimilating into the culture…

Topu also invited us to a wedding dinner that he had to attend... We were all terribly underdressed... But it was quite nostalgic... Cos it was held in a Chinese restaurant.. Just like back home! I was just worried about was stealing the limelight from the Bride.. Everyone was staring at our Asian faces... sheesh...

Before the end of tomorrow, I’m going to do some more shopping… Maybe at New Market, where I’ve never been before… I won’t be just shopping for clothes… (Although that is high up on the agenda…) But I’d also be looking for the lovely handmade jewellery and bags, and for the local musical instruments as well… So what if I already own a bracelet, a nice pendant and a flute? A girl can always use more accessories… =)

posted by thebemusedphotog @ 11:50 PM