Canon EOS 300D: 1/125s, f/7.1, ISO 400 (18mm)

2005/11/05 16:02:06

Pune, India

Flynn

I met this woman walking in Pune, alse just a few minutes' walk from $100-a-night hotels. Most of the beggars I met were very aggressive and persistent; by contrast, she was very low-key. I held up a five-rupee note and the camera, she nodded, I gave her the note and took this picture.

Five rupees was worth about eleven cents in US currency at the time. It's about ten times what I saw other people giving away. The stratification of India's economy - and society - is very strange to Western eyes.