ETHNOPHOTOGRAPHYSascha Klamp · All projects
An elderly man in a large patterned turban and white shirt stands before a brick wall

India · A village in Rajasthan · 10 August 2025

Until the Fire Is Lit

One afternoon in a village south-west of Jaipur, from five o’clock until the evening fire. A miller, a tailor, an elder, a game of cricket, a herdsman and his cow, and a woman making bread over a clay stove.

Field note · 17:00

Five o’clock. The first open door was a flour mill: a grinding machine, sacks of grain, a bed against the tiled wall, the household gods above the door.

A tiled room with framed pictures of gods above a doorway, a man standing at the door
The mill, 17:00
A flour grinding machine stands in a dim room beside a bicycle
17:02
Sacks of grain and tins stacked on a tiled floor
17:04
The tall grinding mill with a sack at its foot
17:04
A bed with a patterned cover against a tiled wall, a pot beside it
17:05

Field note · 17:12

Next door, a tailor’s shop: a treadle machine, a work table, finished shirts on a rail.

A young tailor works at a treadle sewing machine while an older man stands behind him
The tailor’s shop, 17:12
Close view of hands guiding white cloth under the needle of a sewing machine
Under the needle
Finished shirts and trousers hang from a rail in a whitewashed room
Waiting to be collected
The tailor at his machine in the crowded workshop
17:13
A small boy stands beside a bicycle in a lane, looking at the camera
A lane, 17:20

Field note · 17:28

Sixteen minutes later, an elder in a white shirt and a patterned turban stood against a brick wall for his portrait.

An elderly man in a large patterned turban stands before a brick wall
17:28
The same man, closer, looking straight into the lens
17:28
A boy swings a cricket bat in a dusty lane in front of a decorated gate
Cricket in the lane, 18:08
An elderly woman in a headscarf stands in a doorway, hands folded
18:12
The same woman stands full length with a walking stick beside a whitewashed step
18:13
Three children stand in front of a house, two of them grinning
18:13
An old man in a turban leads a cow with long ears through a courtyard
18:14
The man rests his hand on the cow’s neck and looks past the camera
18:15
Two men ride a motorbike out of a narrow lane between houses
18:21
A wide village lane with whitewashed houses and overhead wires
18:28
Two boys sit on a step outside a doorway
18:29

Field note · 18:34

At the end of the lane a woman knelt at a clay stove, a chulha, built against the courtyard wall. Firewood, a pan of dough, a stack of steel plates.

She made bread for sixteen minutes. I filmed it in one take.

A clay stove and firewood against a stone courtyard wall
The chulha, 18:34
A woman in a headscarf kneels at the clay stove as the fire takes
18:34

Film · one take

Bread at the chulha One minute from a sixteen-minute single take, 18:37. No sound.
The woman cooks at the stove as the light fades
18:50

End of the walk

A sketchbook, not yet a project

These pictures were made in a single afternoon, in August 2025. They are notes towards a longer piece of work rather than a finished story.

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