What if cycling was your only choice?

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Slideshow - Portraits of India on Two-Wheels - Images by Gregg Bleakney  
In 2005, I made a choice to go car-free in favor of using a bicycle as my primary source of mobility. And, every time I saddle up I’m 100% thrilled to be living this two-wheeled lifestyle.
But…what if I didn’t have this choice?
I spent 2.5 months on photojournalism assignments in India earlier this year and discovered there are an estimated 300 million Indian people who ride bicycles because they have no other option. I couldn’t help but wonder, “If cycling was NOT something I did by choice, but was designated by the caste I was born into, would I still love it the same?”  
To explore that question, I made 16,000 photos, (most of them portraits) of Indian cyclists: brick makers from the untouchable caste, milk deliverymen, paper delivery boys, homeless children, farmers, mystics, popsicle salesmen, slum dwellers, and more.  
Please enjoy this slideshow of 40 of my favorites…and keep in mind the one thing all of these people have in common—cycling is their only choice.  
Cheers,
Gregg

Air Travel Is a Trip

My life list of long-haul flights continues to grow with my new career, yet I'm convinced that these tin can teleports will always remain a trip.

My latest--starting with an assignment in India's Thar desert, making pictures of a man who commutes from his tent slum to the market everyday with his working camel in tow...followed up by back to back overnight bus trips and 21 hours of flights.  From the airport directly to my good college friend's bachelor party in San Francisco, hitting a line-up of the city's most swanky bars via a Mexican-themed chicken party bus.

Proof that time travel is possible and that reality definitely does not share a universal lens.

Leaving Basecamp

After spending nearly 1 month working in, around and out of this little basecamp in Rajasthan, India...it's time to move on:)  I'll miss the rooftop palace views.

out there

digging, searching, scratching. curiosity leads into a desert. finding nobody, finding nothing. and finding things that can't be imagined. 120 degrees is nuclear heat.  confusion, questioning, the swelter redefining--what is normal anyway?

me a few days ago -- the greatest project I've ever worked on

Latina Magazine - Bogota Takes on Hollywood

A portrait I made while traveling with writer extraordinaire Grace Bastidas appeared in her article in Latina Magazine this month (April).  The portrait is of Colombia Film Director Oscar Ruiz Navia--the article explores Bogota's emerging film industry.  Grace and I should have some cool stuff coming out later this year.