Polo in The Karakoram – Hockey on Horseback with a Contax G2 and Velvia 50

I’ve never played Polo, in fact I don’t know much about it and have no idea about most of the rules, to me it’s a bit like Soccer on horseback – or is it more like Hockey?

Reading up on the game I see that it’s ancient – probably the first ever team sport and brought to Britain during the days of The Raj from India – or rather the North West Frontier and Kashmir.

The game is played in a more rustic and ancient form in those parts – in Central Asia and around Northen Pakistan and Afghanistan called Buzkashi

This is played with a goat’s carcass and is a rough dangerous contact sport like Rugby on Horseback! If you watch Rambo III you’ll see Sly Stallone enjoying himself with the Taliban, I mean, Mujahideen, playing the game in all it’s glory.

If you watch Journey’s to The Ends of The Earth – the excellent 90ies documentary series, David Adams (photographer) travels to find Shangri La and watches a game of Buzkashi.

Polo is more civilized and cultured – known as The Sport of Kings; nobility, aristocracy (and Prince Charles) and other such folk are often seen posing around the Polo Field and people like to wear Polo Ralph Lauren T Shirts and look cool.

However in the north of Pakistan Polo is played under different rules, with not much glamour or showiness involved. It’s rougher and more dangerous.

In 2009 I was on a trip to the Hindu Kush and Karakoram – having returned from a trek to Rakaposhi Base camp I was relaxing in Gilgit when a friend asked me if I wanted to go and watch Polo. Of course I did! I jumped to it and we then made our way to the local Polo Ground – with Polo being one of the popular local sports.

The Stadium was a bare patch of ground surrounded by the majestic mountains of the Karakoram – which has remnants of grass still on it. The vocal crowd were just locals and to this day I don’t know who was playing, I remember something about it being a match between the irregular infantry of Gilgit vs Chitral or was it Army vs Navy? I forget.

I had my trusty Contax G2 with the trusty 21mm Biogon, 45mm Planar and the not very trusty 90mm Sonnar. The camera was already loaded with Fujichrome Velvia RVP 50 and was 3/4 way through the roll. It was my only camera and I was therefore lumbered in trying to shoot a fast Polo match with less than half a roll and a 50 ISO dead slow Film. I didn’t have much hope.

I spent most of my time trying to get some shots in and missed most of the match, having no idea about what the rules were I doubt I missed much but I did notice that it was fast and chaotic.

I decided on using the 21mm Biogon as my main lens – I determined that the wide angle would mean I could shoot with a slower shutter speed (my rule of thumb is anything 1/focal length of lens would mean I’d get little camera shake) and perhaps nail a few shots.

I did put on the 90 but opened up – as expected, every single shot with it was Out of Focus or blurred because of slow shutter. I did however manage to get some acceptable photographs with the 21. I don’t think the 45 was used much for this. I tried to remember which photo was for which lens. 21 is obvious the 90 as well so I assume the others are the 45.

Anyway I finished the roll and when back in Blighty I had the film developed. And it stayed that way until recently when I unloaded some boxes of my slides and negatives I had taken out of my mum’s cellar to take home and pulled out some sleeves with these slides in them. After scanning I was quite surprised with the results – most were blown highlights. blocked shadows or out of focus but what they did have was the sense of fast movement, speed, madness and flavour of the day and the Polo match I had witnessed.

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