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Girish Menon
India
Nominee
"An Indian couple"
I patiently listened to the advice that my hotel owner was giving me me. I had just told him that photography was the purpose of my visit to Rajasthan. I did not want to interrupt the kind man but at the end of it, I told him that I wasn't interested in lakes or palaces or sunsets. "I want to shoot people on the streets doing things. Where's the nearest vegetable market?"
He thought for a minute and said, "The sarpanch (head-man) of a village will be here this evening, he might have some suggestions for you."
I expected an old crippled man wearing a turban and dhoti (a cloth wrapped around the legs and craftily knotted around the back) to crawl in with a walking stick.
Instead, this sarpanch marched in wearing trendy denims and a blazer! "You can go and explore my village, an hour away from here. I will send my son with you tomorrow morning!", he said in English.
The next morning, his son showed up on time along with his car and driver! It was a wonderful experience involving tasty traditional home-cooked Rajasthani food made over firewood and conversations with kind hearted individuals.
Biography: Girish Menon has been an editorial fine art photographer since 2002.
A solo-backpacking trip from Mumbai across the Southern tip of India way back in 2003, turned life around for Menon. Having set off with a camera and 30 rolls of film, this I.T. programmer discovered a world he didn�t know existed; an organic world � simple, pristine and beautiful.
As an explorer, Menon �saw strange places and met stranger people�. Life was never the same again. Formal training in photography immediately followed. The young lens man travelled through Maharashtra, publishing numerous photo essays...
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