Sensible Erection | Urban Golf in the Slums of India

Wednesday, 10 March 2010

quote [ We associate golf with etiquette, men in polo shirts and neatly pressed trousers. A sport for those with plenty of time and some cash to spare, but a group of slum kids from India didn’t let that stop them playing the game. They don’t use the lush fairways or neatly clipped greens of a real golf club. Nor do they use real clubs or balls. Instead they use the roofs and alleys of the slums they live in as a course and melted iron bars and plastic balls to play with. ]

[by steve-o-lution@4:52pmGMT] [+10 Good]

Comments

crwk8 said @ 5:05pm GMT on 10th Mar
since their gear is mostly crafted by themselves i couldn't help but wonder how good is their technique, I'm not a golfer so i can't tell. Can any of you answer this?

(i know i might be missing the point of the photographs but i would really like to know)

serenitynow said @ 2:57am GMT on 12th Mar
..."Rajesh..lines up his putt....10 foot, very slight North South slope to this roof, running with the corrugations... an increasing breeze, moves his plastic ball back a few inches.... oooh, into a rust hole. He's looking for a steward to call on this, but I think he might just have to chip out of there. That's an extra stroke.
"Mutta Chut!"

spazm said @ 5:09pm GMT on 10th Mar
I'd hate to get hit by a golf ball while minding my own bussiness in my slum. Other than that, great pics.

Asscheeks Akimbo said @ 5:57pm GMT on 10th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
I'd hate to be in a slum.

sanepride said @ 6:10pm GMT on 10th Mar
It says they use plastic balls, not actual golf balls (which I doubt they could ever afford).
Anyway if I lived in one of these slums getting hit by a stray ball would probably be the least of my concerns.

serenitynow said @ 3:02am GMT on 12th Mar
http://www.smh.com.au/victoria/golf-ball-fractures-taxi-passengers-skull-20100312-q1z8.html?autostart=1

ComposerNate said @ 5:39pm GMT on 10th Mar [Score:1 Interesting]

KingPellinore said @ 6:18pm GMT on 10th Mar
While cool, that would be a bitch to get perfectly level. Also, I doubt being sat on all the time would be good for the pool table's bed.

Misanthrope said @ 7:54pm GMT on 10th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
You could pretty easily add some way to adjust the table. Also that looks like it swings to the back so you just lean on it.

KingPellinore said @ 1:42am GMT on 11th Mar
True enough.

Eru said @ 1:23am GMT on 11th Mar
I imagine the real bitch would be playing certain shots while leaning over the back of the couch. Although ones where you could kneel on the arms would probably be good. But... that's either a very small pool table or one big fuck-off couch.

monkeytooth said @ 5:05pm GMT on 11th Mar
either way it's a motherfucking pool table in this motherfucking couch.

m0use414 said @ 5:56pm GMT on 10th Mar
I am far from a good, or even experienced golfer, but even I can tell the difference between using my crappy clubs and the much nicer ones of my father.

Equipment does make a difference, but practice practice practice is far more important.

I have a feeling these guys could kick my sorry but around the links.

I wonder if there is anyway I could send them clubs or bags of old balls so they have something better to work with?

serenitynow said @ 1:39pm GMT on 11th Mar
They'd appreciate the gesture, no doubt. Might even use them for a bit. The sad fact is they (or their parents) would probably sell them pretty quickly. I spent 9 months in India in 2007. Bought a rural Karnatakan family I made friends with a tv/dvd player to help give their kids some education, and a cell phone (along with some cash). A month later they'd sold them, to fund one child a semester of school.

f00m@nB@r said @ 9:40pm GMT on 10th Mar
i want this:

Naruki said @ 3:29am GMT on 11th Mar [Score:1 Funny]
Is it a lens or a thermos?

fhufi said @ 6:22pm GMT on 11th Mar
You can try and preorder it in good faith or have a shot at winning one with a little less zoom.

IronMahatma said @ 9:56pm GMT on 10th Mar [Score:1 Insightful]
It's interesting how the black and white really shifts focus onto the players and what they are doing. We can see the backdrops through which they play, but I think that color would really show the "slum" of where they are playing.

I think if these pictures were in color, we would get a much different sense for what they are doing and where (not that that would be better). However, color in this case might tend to drown out the players themselves by making the environment the emphasis.

G. W. Bush said @ 11:21pm GMT on 10th Mar
More like his low f-stop setting created focus on the players.

fhufi said @ 1:28pm GMT on 11th Mar
Actually more like a tilt-shift lens, as the image plane is not parallel to the focal plane. At least that was my first idea, but some of the effects would be hard to achieve, and I think it's a bit of a hassle for a street photographer. So there's either some chopping involved, or it is being done by freelensing.
I'm lost on the fourth picture, though. I don't think that's possible without post processing.

The photographer's portfolio is worth a look in any case, BTW.

G. W. Bush said @ 1:30pm GMT on 11th Mar
I wondered that also if it was actually a tilt-shift or post processing.

ckfahrenheit said @ 3:01am GMT on 11th Mar
I want special glasses that filter out all the color so I can walk around and experience the world in monochrome

EPT said @ 8:27am GMT on 11th Mar
"Arial view of the slum. "

Looked more like Verdana to me...

theRed said @ 7:15pm GMT on 13th Mar
I feel like there must be more than one picture here but I can't seem to get to them...
wtf.
:(