The monsoon seems to be coming on now in little spurts and starts. Later than usual for sure. In the afternoon the sky turns gray and opens up slowly eventually increasing to a tight staccato of raindrops beating on the pavement in the courtyard of our guesthouse. We’re occasionally graced by long term power outs. We flee to restaurants where strange creatures drop from the ceiling and crawl down the walls, fleeing the moisture outside.

Jam sessions continue strong as ever. Joshua made some recordings last night and I think they’ll be on his blog soon.

I don’t have any more words but I did manage to finish the first installment in the sleeping things series. It’s sort of my Indian opus at this point. I also captured a picture of a man with his fist inside of a goat carcass… Enjoy!

So life in India goes on. As the days continue to fill with new friends and work the desire to use the Internet, something I was addicted to back in the U.S., fades into the background and becomes forgotten.

Ahh but I do see the need and do find pleasure in posting pictures here so once again I pledge to be more diligent.

Life in mountains moves at an easy slothful pace, little bits and pieces of days spread until they form weeks and now one month. Were moving along nicely with our project and at the same time are managing a pretty full social schedule.

Evenings are spent on the porch of our guesthouse listening to Israeli folk songs and accented renditions of familiar pop ballads. With the restaurant here now open food comes at a word and is usually delicious. There certainly are good things about this place.

Although we’ve found comfort I am looking forward to moving on. My next commitment is the Foundry Photojournalism workshop in Manali at the end of July. I’m excited to network with other more experienced shooters and see some new landscape.

Until then it’s Paul House and late night editing sessions as we continue to pull our slum circus project together.

Check out Joshua’s blog for some more insight and some ambient sound from the town.

For now here are some photos. I’m torn over the debate regarding excessive toning of images during postproduction. I’ve talked to photographers who are on both sides of the debate.

Typically I try to keep my corrections minimal but sometimes I just like the look of a “pushed” photo. These certainly are… Where do you stand on the issue? What do you think of today’s set of images? Anything that stands out for you?

I’ve been pretty busy lately, which is good but also means that I’ve been bad at keeping up with posts on this blog. Homesickness and physical sickness alike have receded and life here has started to find a rhythm.

It’s been a week since the last post and since then I’ve attended an orthodox Jewish wedding and a circus in the local slum tent village. I received a vodka shot from a rabbi, discovered that “Nagina” is a brand of lingerie in India and spent the better part of an evening listening to traditional Israeli folk songs played by the folks who live in my guest house. I finished my somewhat sketchy regiment of Indian amoebacide and picked up chess as a hobby… So it goes.

Joshua and I have started shooting and it fills the days. I’ve taken a couple hundred photos and a few hours of video. The editing process should start soon.

Adam headed back to Delhi to work on an assignment for the New York Times but we’re going to meet up with him again sometime next month and head into the more mountainous north. Kashmir and Ladakh here we come.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Here are a few photos from the past few days. Notice the sixe of the horn in the picture of the car. I think honking is the second most popular sport in India next to cricket. As always check out Joshua’s blog for more insight.

Took this photograph, I kind of like it for some reason or other. Maybe it’s the colors or the abstractness or something else… Who knows? What do you think?

Not much to say really. Still recuperating a bit. Adam is back from Delhi today and we pitched our idea to Chris so tomorrow may be an exciting day.

Highlights of today include playing with an Indian “Steady Cam” rig. Not really that steady but interesting none the less. If I can get the shop owner down on the price I may buy it just for fun. I also continued my sleeping things series; still don’t have enough things to make it into what I want yet but it’s coming soon I promise.

Ahh a yes a little friendly advice, if for some reason you are ever in a position to watch the film Two For the Money DON’T DO IT. Quite possibly the worst movie I have ever seen.

It appears that another horde of Indian children have descended on our guesthouse so I have another evening of Hindi screaming and chattering to look forward to. Woo hoo.

That’s it for now.

Today I juggled some pins and found a sort of Zen in it, at least more so than any of the hippy dippy chakra slinging energy talk that I’ve overheard lately.

When I say juggled I really mean that I tossed one pin back and forth from hand to hand as I got used to the weight and feel of the thing. I dropped it a lot but it was fun just the same.

Yesterday we met Chris or “Circus Chris” as his e-mail address and profession suggests. He was doing his act at the local Monday night open stage night. We got to talking and he said that we were welcome to come train with him if we liked. Today we took him up on the offer.

Chris has been traveling the world for the past 12 years entertaining people from continent to continent with his tight rope walking, juggling, acrobatics and general sunny outlook on life. He’ll be in McLeod for the next month teaching circus skills to kids in the local slum. His hope is that the kids will be able to use the skills to make some money and improve their quality of life. Interesting stuff for sure.

Things are looking up I think. I’m gradually getting over my illness, or at least getting used to having little creatures living in my guts. We’re starting to meet people and it looks like pretty soon we’ll be able to get some of these projects rolling.

I’m putting together a “sleeping things in India” series right now. I started it today and if things go like I imagine they will I may be done by tomorrow so look forward to that. People and creatures take a lot of naps here.

For now enjoy some pictures of the circus training we took part in today as well as a shot of a really creepy Indian hotel sign… As always check out Joshua’s blog for some more insight and some sweet pictures I took of him doing things.

Oh yeah, for the longest time I had the comment settings screwed up on wordpress, but they’re all better now soo… comment away?

Bye for now.

Yesterday was one of the toughest days I’ve had in India counting both this trip and last.

I woke up at 6 a.m. to the cacophonous sound of Indian children screaming and playing. Apparently a trekking group had come to town and decided to take up residence in our guesthouse. Laying in my bed listening to the horrible noise, I started to feel pretty awful and began making repeated trips to the bathroom… I’ll spare you the details.

By 10 a.m. I knew something had to be done. I texted Adam and he advised that I get to the hospital and quick. Joshua and I took one of the smoothest rickshaw rides to date to Delek, the local Tibetan hospital.
The line was long and it didn’t look like I would get treatment for quite a while. I was trying to endure but my guts felt like they were trying to escape my body any way the could.

Eventually I managed to skip the queue by launching a roaring stream of vomit into the squat toilet next to the general ward. A team of worried Tibetan nurses rushed in to my rescue.

The rest of the day was spent laid out in a hospital bed. Samples were taken, tests were done and about five hours later it was determined that I have amoebas in my guts and probably a case of food poisoning as well.

I feel a lot better today but still pretty weak. I have a ten-day course of amoebacide to get through and then supposedly the little bastards will be gone.

The whole experience was draining both physically and mentally. It’s tough out here, maybe tougher than I thought it would be. Second thoughts sneak in when my body starts to hurt and I wonder if I made the right decision coming out here.
I think I did and I think we’ll do well eventually. Joshua and I have a short-term plan to keep us busy. It pays in rupees but should prove to be at least sort of fun. Look out for that in the future. For the next couple of days I’m just taking it easy and trying to get my health back…

Not a whole lot to report, just some sort of pretty pictures to share mostly.

Adam left yesterday, back to Delhi to celebrate an anniversary with his girlfriend. Joshua and I are soldiering on up in the mountains trying to make connections and keep our days productive.

I took a lot of photographs yesterday. The weather was nice and warm and I kept catching little silly and pretty glimpses of things.

Check out my Flickr page for some neat panoramas (the last four are from India) and a series of images depicting Joshua’s love hate (maybe just hate) relationship with Indian Beer … Check out his blog to see a very triumphant picture of him…

Here are some you can look at right now:

Yesterday was a good day. I had my first Indian movie theater experience of this trip and it was truly a spectacle to behold.
I’ve been to official Indian movie theatres but never the type put together by a couple of entrepreneurial men with a stack of bootleg movies. This was a treat for sure. Adam, his friend Neil, Joshua and I all decided to watch Star Trek. I’d been looking forward to seeing it for a while after the fancy previews I’d seen back in the states.

We got our tickets and still had plenty of time to pick up snacks. We made a trip to the local popcorn wallah. He’s basically a guy with a stall on the street that has a sort of cast iron wok on top of an open flame that he uses to make popcorn for whoever wants it. At about $.80 it was completely worth it. After that we stopped off at a small grocery store to grab a liter of Musumbi juice (sweet lime).

Supplies in hand we headed back to the theatre. It’s sort of difficult to describe but I’ll give it a go. One wall is dominated buy a giant projector screen and the rest are covered with fabric that has been tacked up to dampen the sound. An array of audio equipment that looks like it came out of someone’s living room is stacked beneath the screen. The seating arrangements consist of a stadium style grid structure that must have been made by hand. Rows of office chairs act as seats.

After the Hindi pop music stopped the movie got going, abruptly starting about five minutes in. The color was a bit off but the sound was nice and loud it took me until the title screen to realize that we were only seeing about three quarters of the frame. The title screen read “tar Trek.”

Occasionally a subtitle would jump up in Russian proclaiming the name of the group who had pirated the movie. Towards the end during the dramatic closing dialogues the sound would cut out at key moments leaving us to laugh and guess what the characters were saying. The experience was hilariously bad at points, but still good enough to let me forget where I was for a few moments and slowly drift off to a place where no man has gone before…

Ahh India it never ceases to amaze me.

Above is a picture I took of the Temple near the bus stand in McLeod Ganj. I tried to take some of the movie theater but they didn’t really come out.