LIFE ON WATER

2011 UJWALA PRABHU

I first heard about SoFoBoMo from Anil Advani back in2008. He was working on his first book, 1 month, 6 artists and abook where I was one of the artists. Seeing that I was keen onlearning more about it he involved me with the selection,processing and design while working on this book. It wasinteresting, exciting and a great learning experience. I couldn’twait to have a go independently. By then I had already startedtaking photographs with the aim of building up a collection ofreferences for my paintings. Digital media and incessant clickinghelped me get a few good photographs. Well at least they lookedgood to me and the next year I jumped in with a book of mine,East or West, Bengal is the best!.

Having missed participating last year I was very keenon being back this year. And while this is not the idea I had inmind when I signed up nor the photographs as exciting anddramatic as I'd like them to be, I'm back with a book! Ever theoptimist I believe that there's always next year to bring in all thoseother missing elements!

These photographs were taken during a recentholiday to Bangkok, Siem Reap and Hong Kong. At our first stopwe visited the Floating Market a little outside Bangkok. Thatplanted the seed of a theme relating to water. Discovered that atour next stop I would have access to a Floating Village about anhours drive from Siem Reap. Then there was no stopping me anda supportive husband ensured that I visited Sai Kung in HongKong for more water related pics.I hope you enjoy the photographs as much as I did while taking,selecting and processing them.UjwalaAugust 2011

This selection leans more towards photographs taken in theFloating Market due to the brighter colors that appeal to me.We were also lucky to have visited the Floating Village at atime when some parts of it were not "floating". The pathwhere the water normally flows was being used as a regularroad and we even got to see one of the house on stilts underconstruction! There were children lurking in the water withcatapults to catch rats. And in the village we even got to seea pig sty on stilts!Much to my dismay, I've had to leave out the temple,rickshaw pullers, fish, street photographs, snake charmers,wooden sculptures, portrait format pics as they just wouldn’tfit in with my theme!! I hope to re visit this book to add sometitles for the photographs and to rearrange them a bit.

2011 UJWALA PRABHU