Kristian Bertel | Photography
Archive story
In this archive story we are taking a photowalk to the Naya Bazar Rd in Delhi, India.
Read the background story of this archive photo by the photographer.
Let your photos reflect who you are and what type of photography you are passionate about. Cameras are everwhere, but carrying around a giant camera bag tends to scare people when doing street photograph. In this photo the photographer likes the rustic locations of his subjects and the portrait was taken during a photowalk and depicts an Indian man at the Naya Bazar Rd in Delhi, India.
Let your photos reflect who you are and what type of photography you are passionate about. Cameras are everwhere, but carrying around a giant camera bag tends to scare people when doing street photograph. In this photo the photographer likes the rustic locations of his subjects and the portrait was taken during a photowalk and depicts an Indian man at the Naya Bazar Rd in Delhi, India.
Kristian Bertel, Photographer By Kristian Bertel, Photographer
– Updated on March 21, 2024

Naya Bazar Rd Portraiture

Getting around Delhi is always an adventure. Traffic is, by and large, horribly congested and many drivers will think nothing of quoting ten times the going price to a tourist. Best way to travel is via metro, where there are separate cabins for women that prove to be very useful during rush hour. Or by foot like the photographer did in Naya Bazar Rd.




What is the difference between bazaar and market?

As nouns the difference between bazaar and market a bazaar is a marketplace, particularly in the middle east, and often covered with shops and stalls while market is city square or other fairly spacious site where traders set up stalls and buyers browse the merchandise.


Delhi, a microcosm of India
Delhi is known as a microcosm of India and is a leading world city with strengths in arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism and transport all contributing to its prominence. It forms the National Capital Territory of Delhi, rather than being part of a state. India's capital and the home of the executive, legislative and judiciary branches of government. Like the rest of the Gangetic Plains, Delhi is as flat as a pancake.

The only geographical features of any significance are the Yamuna River, which flows down the eastern side of the city and the Aravalli Hills which form a wide but low arc across the west. On the west bank is the crowded and congested Old, Central, Delhi and, to the southwest, the broad, tree-lined avenues of New Delhi, built by the British to rule their empire. The rest is an endless low-rise sprawl of suburbia and slums, with southwestern Delhi nearer to New Delhi generally somewhat wealthier.

The native language of the Delhi area is Hindi, which also happens to be the main official language of the Union Government. Hindi is spoken by almost all locals, quite often with Bihari and Punjabi accents. Most educated people are also fluent in English and many shopkeepers and taxi drivers have a functional command of English. Punjabi and Urdu are also official languages, but are not as widely spoken. The Hindi spoken in Delhi is quite Persianized, similar to the Hindi spoken in Western Uttar Pradesh and much less Sanskritized than the Hindi spoken in Madhya Pradesh. Signage is usually bilingual in Hindi and English and some road signs especially in South and Central Delhi are in Hindi, English, Punjabi and Urdu.

Announcements on the metro are in Hindi male voice and English female voice. People from all over India are found in Delhi, but finding a person who can speak other Indian languages is not so easy. Metro is clean, efficient and typically ridden by relatively affluent middle-class students or commuters en route to and from work, there is almost nowhere in the city that you cannot get to by metro.




"Much of Delhi is quite pedestrian-hostile. Distances are long, road signage is poor, and in the more tourist oriented areas, you will be constantly accosted by beggars and touts. Crossing roads often involves wading across multiple lanes of heavy traffic. Try your best to move in a predictable straight line, so vehicles can weave around you. Better yet, latch onto a group of locals and cross in their shadow"





See this video about being a beggar in India made by Rohit Sadhwani.




Photographing in India
"- As a photographer and traveler in India it is a good thing to photograph the contrasts with clothing and location. Delhi, the capital of India, is a city of contrasts. It is a place where ancient monuments coexist with modern skyscrapers, where diverse cultures and religions mingle and clash, where poverty and wealth are starkly visible. It is also a city of faces, where every person has a story to tell
and I wanted to capture the essence of the city through its people. I decided to focus on portraits and to photograph strangers on the streets. I was curious about their lives, their backgrounds, their hopes and dreams, which could be seen in the photographs", the Photographer says.

"- One of the most memorable portraits I took was of an Indian man with messy hair and a long beard. He was sitting on a sidewalk near the Naya Bazar Road and he had a piercing gaze and a calm demeanor.
I felt humbled and inspired by his example. I realized that he was not just a face, but a person, with a rich and complex history and I realized that Delhi was not just a city, but a mosaic of stories, waiting to be discovered", the Photographer says again.

"- Be yourself and photograph what you love. I think it is unfortunate when photographers do downright strange things to try and make a creative portrait. Do things that you like and if you are more like to photograph traditional portraits in a studio is probably what you will do best", the Photographer says again.

Read also:  Nawab Ganj portraiture



Nawab Ganj portraiture


Read also:  Nawab Ganj portraiture

More archive stories

India is a land full of stories. On every street, on every corner and in the many places in India, life is rushing by you as a photographer with millions of stories to be told. In the archive story above, you hopefully had a readable insight in the story that was behind the photo of a messed up Indian man in Delhi. On this website of Kristian Bertel | Photography you can find numerous travel pictures from the photographer. Stories and moments that tell the travel stories of how the photographer captured the specific scene that you see in the picture. The photographer's images have a story behind them, images that all are taken from around India throughout his photo journeys. The archive stories delve into Kristian's personal archive to reveal never-before-seen, including portraits and landscapes beautifully produced snapshots from various travel assignments. The archive is so-far organized into photo stories, this one included, each brought to life by narrative text and full-color photos. Together, these fascinating stories tell a story about the life in India. India, the motherland to many people around the world, a land of unforgetable travel moments. The archive takes viewers on a spectacular visual journey through some of the most stunning photographs to be found in the photographer's archive collection. The photographer culled the images to reflect the many variations on the universal theme of beauty and everyday life in India. By adding these back stories the photographer's work might immensely enhanced the understanding of the photographs.

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