Just People – Still Shots

What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person is clinging to his piece of debris? What’s the proper salutation between people as they pass each other in this flood?
Buddha

I was talking a few weeks ago to a friend of mine from the states.  She asked me about the photographs I had taken of bodies being burned in cremation at the Bagmati River.  Her response was, “How sad!” I asked her why it was sad and told her it was just the custom in this country and was actually a custom in many cultures.

Ethnocentrism is judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one’s own culture.

We are all guilty of it.  Even when we think we are not doing it.  We all judge other people’s actions and attitudes based on our own “schema” or standards. It is all based on how we are raised and the values we are taught.

I am also guilty of it.  As I take the pictures I take, I sometimes laugh to myself and wonder what the people are thinking when I’m snapping their photos. Photo’s of them doing dishes, laundry or even bathing themselves in the street or their front yards.  It’s always interesting to me, but really it is just people being people.  I can’t imagine someone walking by my house and snapping a picture of me at my sink or worse, in my bathroom.

I try to be respectful and ask if I can take the photo or at the very least try to to be discreet when I am shooting.  I love pictures of people doing things in their natural environment.  I’m not fond of posed pictures.  The following pictures are all randomly shot but I like them because they are just people, being people.

I took Ailsa’s Travel theme “Still” this week and sort of changed it to fit my own idea.  It’s people who are already in a still and pondering pose, or people who are in complete action frozen still by my camera.  I hope you enjoy.

Just some people in Nepal

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