Immediately parallel to the River Ganges within the city of Varanasi is a stretch of road lined with buildings of final grandeur and disrepair, a mine of material for street photography. I walked down this street on several occasions during a trip to India in 2013, looking out for interesting scenes to evolve. These two photos I got on the penultimate day of the trip.
Bicycles, motorbikes, rickshaws, motorized tuk-tuks and motor cars create much of the visual and sonic landscape of the street, as do the various hawkers, sellers and repairmen lining it. And this is what I love about India: life lived on the street. I love the scene of the bicycle repairman, squatting in front of a front wheel twisted almost upon itself, seemingly being asked the impossible and yet still pondering it. Perhaps he’s just trying to work out how to remove the bent wheel.
Then there’s the boy waiting for another repairman, busy pumping up the flat front tire of his tricycle, so he can be on his way. The tricycle is actually a rear-loading carrier trike, fitted with a slatted platform, of a type commonly seen in India. Perhaps he uses the trike for his work, transporting goods around the city.
Photo: Paul Cooper, Taipei Times
照片:台北時報記者古德謙攝
(Paul Cooper, Taipei Times)
在印度的瓦拉納西,沿著恆河有條街道,街上滿是破舊失修的建築,散發一種頹廢之美,恰巧提供了豐富的街道攝影題材。在二○一三年,我旅遊至印度,幾次走過這條街,尋覓著有趣的攝影場景,而在旅途的倒數第二天,我拍下了這兩張照片。
腳踏車、摩托車、人力車、電動三輪車、汽車構成了這條街道上最主要的視覺與聽覺元素,當然還有站在各種車子旁吆喝的小販、商人、修理工。生活在街道上的人們是印度深深吸引我之處。我喜愛腳踏車修理工蹲踞在極度變形的腳踏車前輪前,彷彿受到刁難,卻仍苦思著如何解決的樣子。我不知道他在想什麼,或許他只是思考著要如何把變形的輪胎取下。
Photo: Paul Cooper, Taipei Times
照片:台北時報記者古德謙攝
街上另一名修理工忙著為一名孩子的三輪車打氣,孩子等待著,車輪充好氣他才能再次上路。那是一輛載貨用的三輪車,後方拖著一個石板平台,在印度很常見。或許男孩的工作是用三輪車在城市載貨。
(台北時報編譯涂宇安譯)
A: Artificial intelligence technology has been causing controversy lately: a student was caught cheating with AI to win the grand prize in an art contest. B: That’s so absurd. Does this mean that AI paints better than humans? A: Maybe. Luckily, the student was later disqualified. B: And more absurdly, it’s becoming more and more popular to use AI technology to “resurrect” people. A: Yeah, some netizens even posted videos featuring the late singer CoCo Lee, who was “resurrected” by them with AI software. A: 人工智慧的爭議不斷,有學生違規使用AI參加美術展,甚至贏得首獎。 B: 真誇張,這是不是代表AI比人類還強大? A: 或許吧,幸好得獎資格被取消。 B: 還有更誇張的︰讓死者重現的「AI復活」技術越來越熱門。 A: 對啊,還有網友製作已故歌后李玟「復活」的影片呢! (By Eddy Chang, Taipei Times/台北時報張聖恩)
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