What does it feel like? India, part one.

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This post is, very naturally, different from the last one. When you go visit India, you can be prepared to see all the magnificent temples and forts, but along the way you run into the real India, which is made up of people. So, my next two or three posts will feature a lot of people, for they are what India "feels like." In photo number 1 we are in the giant mosque in old Delhi, and it's hard not to feel like an intruder. Picture number 2 is a street scene, but it is the man, who appears to be enjoying a moment of reverie, and again we feel like intruders. In photo number 3, we have a colorful market, and here we don't feel that same intrusiveness, rather we want to stop and sample some fruit. In photos 4 - 6 we are whisking through the busy streets, enjoying the bustle and little dramas that unfold before us. In picture number 7, we are the action, as a gifted salesman convinces us that here, at last is that oriental masterpiece to grace our living quarters. And photo number 8, is one of my own favorites. It shows us the street life with which India teems. The look on the man's face, who rides by in absolute dignity, with his one leg, caring for his two children in back, says that he is there, full of sorrow, pain and life itself. And such is India.

But what did it feel like?

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When we go on trips to exotic places, we're often asked, "what was it like?" Well, without my photos, I'm usually at a loss to explain. And I think I know why. What the people are asking is actually, "what did it feel like?" And even though I can be rather descriptive, I can never quite explain just how it felt without sharing "what did it look like?" These pictures are a case in point. They are all from our second trip to Alaska/Yukon, and are all taken with my "second" camera. Picture number 1 is from our boat, as we sailed the peaceful waters toward Alaska. Picture number 2 is from Ketchikan, almost deserted at 6:00 AM (you'll notice it's quite light out). Picture number 3 is a late evening shot of the waters of the Inside Passage. Pictures 4, 5 and 6 are from our excursion inland to Yukon, as is picture number 7 (one of my favorites). And picture number 8 is something of a summary of just what it felt like to be right there, next to one of the glaciers in College Fjord.

Places I've been (sort of)

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Now, it may seem odd that an amateur photographer would be showing some of the places he's been, not with photographs, but with paintings. But in reality, the experience of being somewhere often cannot be captured adequately with photography, and that's where painting sometimes can simply "get it" in ways that photographs just cannot.
Pictures number 1 and 2 are a couple of my reminiscences of Costa Rica. You may notice some of the similarities to photographs I have taken, but there is just something more (I think) in the brush strokes, and the layers of paint that oil painting produces. Picture number three is from our first trip to Alaska, and while the photographs from there are wonderful, there was something more that I wanted to say, which I could only say in a painting. Picture number 4 is of a walk that I took in Michigan, and I had no camera with me, so it's purely from memory. Picture number 5 is the oldest one here, and again I had no camera with me, and represents my impressions of a scene from Coshockten, Ohio. Likewise picture number 6 was from a briefly glimpsed scene in West Virginia, which I carried around in my little brain for years before putting in down on canvas. And finally, picture number 7 actually represents three separate scenes that I remember, which I incorporated into one painting (Tennessee, Michigan and Arkansas).