After an issue full of conflict and change, we thought we would end with an image that is as timeless as it is beautiful. On a trip to Varanasi, India, Canadian photographer Christopher Gora discovered this quiet scene of a woman sweeping out a walkway.
"During the festival season, I lived in an ancient apartment overlooking the Ganges River." Gora said. "Daily, I would get up before dawn to witness people's rituals and then pass through this archway on my way to the market. I was often struck by the play of light through the arches, but there was never anyone there to complete the space.
On the morning of the day he was scheduled to leave Varanasi, Gora found the composition for which he had been searching. "I saw the sweeper, doing what others before her had done for thousands of years," he said. He snapped the photo with his Fujica AX-1, using a Tamron 28-80mm lens.
The image was entered into PhotoMedia's World in Focus Photo Contest in the Indigenous Cultures category and was exhibited in Seattle this summer.
Gora is a freelance photographer living and working in Vancouver, B.C. He has traveled and photographed extensively, alternatively drawn to our planet's amazing landscapes and its inspiring human diversity.
He also enjoys working in multimedia and currently is producing a series of light boxes about the inhabitants of cities and the expression of their humanity.
I saw the sweeper; doing what others before her had done for thousands of years.
