TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY

My Photo scholarship 2010 entry

India | Sunday, October 17, 2010 | 5 photos

Still lying on one ear, I think about the places I want to go to, escaping the images planted in my mind and capturing real ones to replace them. You really don't have to go to the moon to get some perspective, the other side of the world will do. Earlier this year I went to India for the first time, very curious about the most celebrated democracy. Bollywood stars selling the dream to the people living on the streets, western facades staring down on huge slums. Can a country ever be really democratic when it consists of more than one billion people?

India was the most gorgeous and confronting experience I ever had. When I walked her streets I questioned what we consider culture and what's just pure capitalist games. Often the answer is right there in your face, more often you can hardly see it. To capture these images, is to get a chance to really see and discover different dimensions to life and freedom. For instance how democracy doesn't ensure real freedom and how living in the West, much of the choices I thought I made, were already made for me.

In India, it seemed, freedom is expressed in different ways. It has more to do with wanting to live an independent life rather than having a lot of options to choose from. A way of living life I gladly took back home with me. I still keep thinking about all of those places where you can escape the madness. Traveling back by in time economy class and seeing the influence of the west changing a country in a positive as well as a negative way. It's still only five in the morning 'Bhutan would be a total blast' I think and start dreaming again, first class.