Perplexing Procession.
Last week I had an awesome opportunity to visit a town to film and photograph a holiday that the local people group celebrates. Due to the split of Muslims and Christians in this particular people group both parties participate in this tradition making it intriguing from the start.
After driving nearly six hours to get there we entered into a local family’s home and gorged ourselves on the various foods and drinks that were persistently pushed upon us. Once an ‘appropriate’ amount of time passed we asked for the host to dismiss us so we could retreat to our hotel to get some rest before the long day of filming arrived.
The next morning we woke up, ate breakfast and then began the pursuit of capturing the essence of what the holiday involved. Our first stop was at the Orthodox Church in town where we got footage of people praying, lighting candles and meandering about. After getting the footage and photos needed we left and headed a little ways out of town to another historical church on the side of a mountain. Within the first minutes of arrival we witnessed sheep being offered and killed and then prepared for consumption, lots of people making the accent up to the church, and many families setting up picnics. The entire time I was perplexed by some of the actions taking place around me. All the way from how they slaughtered the sheep, what the church represented to the people, why some women were walking barefoot, why there were so many candles, and why did everyone circumnavigate around the church to kiss all four corners. Regardless, I finally made it through the droves of people and got inside the church where I captured some of my favorite images from the trip.
The smoke from candles and light filtering through the window offered the perfect lighting no matter how you pointed your camera towards it. The last few images are all during the beautiful sunset that concluded our day. Another one of my top shots from the trip is the single tree in immaculate light. I made the vertical version specifically for your phone background so feel free to drag it off the screen to use it! I will be posting most of the images on my social media feeds so follow there if you want more information on each image. Thanks again for reading and please share my blog if you like it!
