Moods of India

Marti Belcher Journeys combine the magic of travel with the art of photography. Every Journey is an adventure into new territory, offering the opportunity to learn more about travel photography while exploring exotic and inviting environments.

Travel photography requires the integration of a wide range of skills and knowledge. Patience, resourcefulness, flexibility, and inexhaustible curiosity are only some of the qualities needed to capture exceptional images in unfamiliar territory. In travel photography, competent technical skills are important, but genuine interest in people and cultures, as well as the ability to adapt and respond creatively to new environments and situations, prove to transcend technical skills.

Our workshops are given in the continent of Asia. They nourish cultural sensitivities while providing moments to capture beautiful photographic images. The Journeys are timed to take advantage of the seasons with significant cultural events and the best weather conditions.

In an effort to maximize our photographic good fortune, the numbers of members in workshops are kept deliberately small. This allows each participant to receive the attention and time they need to develop their own interests and skills. Small coteries enable our groups to be unobtrusive, allowing us to enjoy sincere contact with the environs and people that reach out and touch us.

Marti Belcher Journeys are well suited for beginners and experienced photographers. The workshops will give you first-hand experience doing travel photography. If you are new to the camera experience, the moments created by a well-planned itinerary will assist your growth. We welcome spouses and friends who simply want to have an intimate travel experience of a type that is rare in guided tours. Photography is about learning to see, experiencing the moments. Our journeys will take you face to face with some of the oldest civilizations on earth and offer you the opportunity for true discoveries about the world and yourself.

We will journey to Rajasthan, the heart of the imagery that is India. Also known as the ‘The Land of Kings’ and ‘Rajputana’, this area of the country has attracted travelers, traders and explorers for centuries, with its collection of former princely states. Our guide, Krishnaveer Singh Deora, a native Rajput and licensed guide of India, will take us through some of the most beautiful and ancient cities of Rajasthan.

The journey has been designed to satisfy photographers and adventurers alike. Each city has been chosen because of its historic significance and its beauty. We will visit city markets and venture off the beaten path to villages where warm and gracious Rajasthanis live. The beautiful tribal dancers of Rajasthan will enthrall us. We will see a puppet show, shop for gems and jewels and eat amazing food.

While the journey will have a definite outline and format, we will remain open to the unexpected. We will not let timetables stop us from satisfying our individual curiosity or from taking full advantage of those serendipitous twists that are the fabric of India. Ultimately the emphasis will be on seeing with a new and richer set of eyes, while experiencing another culture, continent and world.

Single and double occupancy rate available; meals; pre-departure information; entrance fees; excursions, and sight-seeing as noted; all gratuities; ground transportation during the expedition; services of tour leader (Marti Belcher) and guides; taxes, port charges, baggage handling and service charges.

Not included: Air transportation and related fees (except as indicated in the itinerary), activities noted as optional in the itinerary; passport and visa expenses; baggage/accident/ cancellation insurance; personal expenses, such as laundry, telephone calls, alcoholic beverages; any health care costs, including emergency services; and any other items not specifically listed above.

Artist Statement

L ife is a journey, a continuum of everyday events and ordinary people, all of which make for an extraordinary lifetime of experiences.

The commonplaceness of the people, the situations and the objects found along my journey, become the elements that evoke calm, bring comfort, and furnish a sense of connectedness to my world.

As the 21st century races forward, the simple and traditional moments of life in countries like India and Myanmar, are vanishing. This race, supported by the deluge of information technology, cannot be stopped. Western culture is seductive; jeans, t-shirts and baseball caps dominate the world. I would like to keep the American cowboy in his boots, the Indian woman in her sari and the Burmese man in his longyi. I am also a realist.

The world loses when ancient cultures disappear and centuries of tradition are abandoned, forgotten. Photography, with the unique property of being both an art form and an accurate recording medium, affords me the ability to capture the reality of a moment and keep it for eternity. It is a means of recording a society’s folkways, with all its subtleties and nuances, for posterity.

I am an adventurer, a lover of color, culture and the bewitching. I am drawn to the surface beauty but the beauty within ultimately captivates and transports me. To grasp and celebrate what it is that makes a people unique, in appearance and in spirit, is a gift beyond rational thought.

A Few Words About Me

I was born on my grandfather’s dairy farm in upstate New York. My parents, Eleanor and Percy, made TV antennas for a living. The tranquility of agrarian life, the nitty-gritty of the factory environment and now, the speed and sterility of the age of technology, have each provided me with an uncommon vantage point from which to observe and record the human condition.

Curious by nature, I remain always a student. In 1981, I moved to Virginia to complete my education at Georgetown University. My time at Georgetown afforded me the opportunity to question basic beliefs, examine new philosophies and to develop into a more aware human being.

After working for many years in the federal government, I went back to school to study interior design, art history and graphic design. In 2003, this path led me to the study of photography. From the moment I picked up a camera, I knew that I had found my creative outlet.