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The photo of a street child in Pushkar, India.
Behind the lens of a photo
In this blog post the photographer Kristian Bertel tells us what lies behind his photo of a street child. Kristian is a photographer who grew up in Denmark. Originally he is trained as a graphic designer but he took up photography in 2006. On a field trip of cultural documentation in 2008, he was shooting photos in India. He came across this child in Pushkar, India.
Definition of a street child
Street child is a term for a homeless child residing primarily in the streets of a city typically in a developing country. The exact definition of a street child is debatable due to the lack of precise categories. The term has largely been used in reference to children who live entirely in the streets, without adult supervision or care.
Engage with your subject
As a photographer it’s really easy to get preoccupied with the technical details of a shoot and disconnect from your subject. Unfortunately, this disconnection between photographer and subject shows up like a red flag in photos. With this subject, the boy, I instantly got contact with him when I saw him in the street. His eyes had a feeling of sorrow in that melacholic way, which I found interesting. It was like that he had some kind of story, a life story, which the world could be interested knowing about. I took some frames, while he just stood there on the street in Pushkar.
The composition
Generally a bad background can ruin a good shot. Trees growing out of subject’s heads, shrubbery poking out of ears, messy piles of things poking from chins, and clashing colours will distract from your subject. When you are setting up your shoot make sure your background is clean and simple. I used a low apeture seting to blur out the background, because I think that makes his face stand out more. After this session, I was looking on my camera display, as I usally do. When I noticed this frame I just knew I had something great.
Photographer's website
You can see more work by the photographer on his website with more than 400 images from India. His work is divided into twelve different slideshows.
See the website | press here
