Jason Vinson
Holi
India is a hard place to shoot. Not because there is nothing to shoot, but because there is so much to shoot. The country is filled to the brim with colorful buildings and interesting people. It can almost feel like shooting fish in a barrel. Go during the Holi festival and things get easier. The country is now engulfed with colored powder and dyed water. People fill the streets in celebration of good over evil and the coming of spring. Going into a situation like this, it can be easy to shoot at anything and everything, but I really wanted to shoot something different.
I went to India with the idea to shoot one camera with a single prime lens. This allowed me to concentrate only on the moments that fit my focal length and also saved me from chasing images that were never going to work. I didn’t have a specific story in mind while shooting, but knew I wanted the images to work in a series as well as be able to stand alone. To do this, I considered the light to be king. If there wasn’t interesting light on the subject, it didn’t make the cut. What I was left with are a set of images that are held together by the light they share.
Bio
Jason Vinson is rated as one of the top 100 wedding photographers in the US and Canada. Based in Northwest Arkansas, him and his wife run the photography company Vinson Images. They specialize in Creative and documentary photography and are inspired by light and moments.
I like every thing about this. Doesn’t pretend to be anything its not. Wonderful flavour. I think the one camera one lens way works really well for work like this.
Given my love of India, I violated my normal rule of never trying to look at a Burn essay on my iPhone while traveling and tried real hard to give this a good study but the images were jumping all over the place, changing sizes and could not be controlled. I gave up. But I do agree with your opening statement. I believe a blind photographer could get many stunning images in India every day be shot. I will give it a good look when I get home in three, four, five or so weeks from now.
Simple rules but, even after having seen many picture of Holi, spectacular results.