Photo of the week: Pulling faces in rural India

This weeks photograph is from Gujarat in India.

I love this photograph as it is a great memory of the friendliness of the people in the villages of rural India. Travelling around the villages of Gujarat you can still find places where the locals clearly don’t see ‘foreigners’ very often. This was particularly clear when you met the kids who, refreshingly, didn’t instantly ask for sweets or money, but instead were inquisitive and curious.

Of course most clamored for a photo and to see their face on your camera screen. The kids in this particular village seemed to have a particular way of asking for a photo – making a round shape with their finger and thumb and holding it up to their eye. This gave me an idea for having a little fun by trying to teach the girl on the right something I did as a kid.

It is a bit hard to explain in words, but here goes…

You’re making a mask with your hands. You put your first finger and thumb together on each hand to form a circle – imagine you might look through the hole with one eye. Do this on both hands and touch them together at the finger tips to form two circles – like a pair of glasses – your remaining fingers fanning out above.

Then you kind of twist the hands back over themselves, tucking the loose fingers under your chin, then twist up over your face so the two holes go over your eyes like spectacles. It is quite difficult… hopefully you understand what I mean…

Anyway the little girl interpreted this as a game of “Who can pull the funniest face?” which was great fun, but meant that every time I took a photo she pushed her nose up!

So enjoy this Photo of the week as it was certainly fun making it… and these another two faces I’ll never forget!