The death of western death
I did not like any of the photographers particularly much. As I watched the death guy I thought he was a bit comical for his ignorantly hypocritical comments throughout and his superficiality of his journey. I stopped taking him seriously when he said that to be a good documentary photographer you have to blend in while he was in completely western attire shoving his camera in the faces of people passing by. I also couldn't connect with the guy or any of them for that matter because the series focuses mainly on exotic, documentary photographers and I don't see myself in that realm. Saying all of that I couldn't help but gain some respect for his ability to admire such different cultures and places. The childish glisten in his eye as he interacted with photographer on the Ganges or his excitement to take photos from the drone in the namibian desert. I enjoyed the Namibian desert a lot just because of the vastness of it and the powerful images you could create there but the color and grit of India I think is more important. I would love to document the religion in India and the poverty and the contrast of beliefs and understandings between the west and India. I learnt more about the passion that is necessary to really pursue photography but also what not to do when going on a trip to document a foreign land. The way he had shallow conversation with indigenous people and documented death but in a more casual sense to find the true meaning of death and low and behold he found it at the end of the episodes is just kind of cheesy and diminishes the idea of finding truth in diverse human connections. I was shocked to see that the untouchables in India sift through the ashes of the dead for jewlery to survive and that Hindu's burn there dead out in the open like they do. I was shocked at the ghost town in Namibia that served as a mining town and when there was a bust it was abandoned. I was most shocked at the blindness of the photographer, how could he brush past the untouchables, he found a enlightened atitude about death not being only war while going to a place where children die hungry every day, the lack of perspective was the most shocking. He went from a war zone to something almost worse, a state where society allows large portions of the population to die as inferior beings. I assure you coach D I didn't mean to be this dark but as I wrote it just came out. On the subject of his photos, they had bold composition which explained his success but I would never aspire to be him as a photographer.
