The Photowalk

India is not a country that eases you in gently. It doesn't really do gentle. It's a place of somewhere between 1.4 and 1.5 billion people, the most populous nation on earth, having overtaken China in 2023, and it carries that scale in everything: the noise, the colour, the traffic, the sheer press of human life happening all around you at once. It is the world's largest democracy, has a space programme, a film industry that dwarfs Hollywood, and somewhere in excess of twenty official languages. It's not a country so much as a civilisation that happens to have borders around it. In this special, we go to two cities. Kolkata, in the east, formerly Calcutta, and Varanasi, on the Ganges, which may well be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world and which confronts you, very directly, with questions about life and death that most of us spend considerable energy avoiding. Into all of this walked eight photographers, Anne, Bill, Fraser, Lloyd, Mercedes, Nicola, Owen and Peter, along with my travelling partner, in The Journey Beyond Lynn Fraser, and our Indian mentors and guides: Shivam, Shubh, Mohit and Arvind. What you're about to hear is an India special edition of the Photowalk Podcast, and honestly, as you'll hear, it affected us in ways we weren't expecting. It's a long episode, and for that I make no apology… but I hope that, with the music, the characters, the surprises, and the scenes described, you will feel you have photowalked there with us. Read more about our photographic adventures on our photography travel website, The Journey Beyond. Links to all guests and features will be on the show page, my sincere thanks to our Extra Milers, without whom we wouldn't be walking each week and Arthelper.ai, giving photographers smart tools to plan, promote, and manage your creative projects more easily. WHY: A Sketchbook of Life is available here.

After a handful of specials, four weeks away from the studio, and a journey that took me from Austria to Bangladesh and on into India, it feels a little overdue, and very welcome, to make this a mailbag week, walking one of my favourite photowalk paths with camera and Sir Barkalot, spending a good hour and a bit with the letters you've been sending in, some contemplative music, the wind doing its thing along the path, and the welcome return of Valerie Jardin, our street photography mentor, fresh from her own travels in Mexico, for TEACH ME STREET. Letters and stories today from Martyn Cox, who wonders if exotic places and travel lead to making better photographs, Paul Morgan has some thoughts on Bangladesh and her workforce, Andreas Noeh shares a super project from New York where loft life rules for artists, Jon Otis has me diving for cover behind the sofa of flattery, Dennis Linden is researching family history and creating his own, Tom Cavness practices Haiku, and Monika Adler finds profound beauty and peace with her photography and a famous English backdrop. Read more about our photographic adventures on our photography travel website, The Journey Beyond. Links to all guests and features will be on the show page, my sincere thanks to our Extra Milers, without whom we wouldn't be walking each week and Arthelper.ai, giving photographers smart tools to plan, promote, and manage your creative projects more easily. WHY: A Sketchbook of Life is available here.