"A still life"

Excellent crop and DOF

I like the dof. It's an excellent photo!

I've never been to India and know next-to-nothing about Indian culture, but going on your title and perhaps this chap's wizened appearance, my guess is he's one of those fakir characters who spend fifteen years sat on top of a pole or something equally daft. Is he sitting on a bed of nails? Or maybe he's just been sitting there immobile and speechless on the same spot for the past 50 years. Whatever his story, this is another great shot.

You guessed very well, because he is indeed a kind of fakir, but from the Hindu tradition rather than the Moslem one.

 

So he's called a Saddhu-baba, and he spent many many MANY years meditating in forests, performing strange yogic absolutions, and wandering from holy place to holy place with nothing but a blanket, a hash pipe and a golden trident to his name.

 

And then one day he felt rather tired of all this wandering from place to place (a feeling many of us who are floating round Asia may understand all too well), and he felt like he'd done everything he needed to, so he decided to find a place to sit and wait for his next rebirth.

 

But despite being more than 120 years old (apparently), and in every way ready to die, the reaper has resolutely failed to pay him a visit.

 

SO he continues to sit on the same wooden bed in the same, empty, blue room that he's been sitting in for as long as anyone can remember.

 

Which is why I called it A Still Life, and why he was the most composed, compliant and unmoving subject for a portrait you could ever hope to meet.

 

(Oh, and by the way: I fear that the quality of flattery you dole out may be more than I can afford...)

Ben...you and Trevor both got me there...I thought the guy was looking so forlorn because he had spent his whole life wandering from place to place with nothing but a blanket, a hash pipe and a golden trident to his name while he searched for a black leather cap that he could tip to the audience...

does he come across as "forlorn" to anyone else ??

(Forlorn..? Because there's a strange Englishman sitting on his bed who's been thrusting a camera into his face and telling him to "look more holy" for the last 20 minutes..? Hmm. I suppose it could be possible, yes...)