Consciously lost for a whole morning at Mandalay, just walking and moving away from the city centre, always a good idea!
After the close and intimate portraits of young monks of Burma, and some not so young, where we sat and were allowed to share a space, interacted and played around, where what was sought was eye contact, a kind of complicity between the photographer and the camera, after all this proximity it feels right to go all the opposite way: to be distant and capture people living their lives, people too deep in their thoughts and their routine to care for a nosy photographer.
The streets are a great place to capture people’s daily activity, specially in a big cities like Yangon or Mandalay where the tourist is less noticeable and can move more unnoticed between all the traffic and street vendors, even two western guys with cameras like us. All I have to do is walk, look and stop, to let people go back to whatever keeps them occupied and to let me slowly absorb the pulse of the street, which most of the times is so different from the previous street or alley.
You can take a photo anytime and everywhere. Even from the hotel window
This girl was lost with her thoughts, only came back to reality from a few seconds when I showed her this picture
Mandalay has more bicycles and motorcycles than Yangon, and people on bikes are always fun to shoot!
Commuting, people on the move, a another great theme: buses, bikes, the colorful small “blue taxis” or even people hurrying down the street, all the things I couldn’t avoid to shoot. I was writing about the catching people living their lives and you can hardly find a better place than public transportation. Everywhere people seem to pause their mind and relax, waiting for the next bus and reorganizing their thoughts and that’s just delicious!
But trains are my personal favorite, have always been. I love to shoot trains, to ride trains or just to look at them. I love the transport cathedrals that train stations are, like the Yangon central station with it’s several lines and platforms, vendors and boxes of groceries waiting to be carried to one of the many old, bright, orange and brown Burmese train (the eyes and the camera immediately feel attracted by such colorful trains). We ended up spending a few hours at the plaform, waiting for more people and more trains to arrive or leave (like the girl in the top photo), enjoying with the locals, before finally leaving for our round trip to Greater Yangon.
Another bright orange train arriving at Yangon’s station.
One of the most curious jobs at Myanmar: the guy at the bus calling for customers, This one’s at Yangon downtown.
Stay tuned for more Myanmar posts!
NIKON D300S (24mm, f/7.1, 1/500 sec, ISO200)
NIKON D300S (24mm, f/4, 1/50 sec, ISO450)
NIKON D300S (24mm, f/6.3, 1/125 sec, ISO200)
NIKON D300S (24mm, f/3.5, 1/15 sec, ISO200)
NIKON D300S (12mm, f/5.6, 1/50 sec, ISO1250)
DMC-LX3 (6.3000001907349mm, f/5, 1/80 sec, ISO80)
DMC-LX3 (12.800000190735mm, f/2.8, 1/320 sec, ISO80)
NIKON D300S (24mm, f/8, 1/30 sec, ISO400)
NIKON D90 (50mm, f/2.8, 1/400 sec, ISO250)
NIKON D300S (24mm, f/8, 1/160 sec, ISO200)
NIKON D300S (24mm, f/22, 1/30 sec, ISO400)
NIKON D300S (24mm, f/9, 1/100 sec, ISO200)
NIKON D90 (50mm, f/5.6, 1/2500 sec, ISO500)
Browse all Myanmar photos here!