A boring picture from India

It may seem strange to you that I am showing you such a picture. At first glance it doesn't seem like anything special, but this snapshot has a special meaning for me. Taking such so-called multilayer photos was a reason for me to travel to India.

The picture, which was taken at Assi Ghat in Varansi, has two weaknesses: nothing happens in the left corner - hence the reference in my contribution to the workshop with Maciej Dakowiczthat we workshop participants were constantly looking for dogs in picture corners - and there was an emotional component missing. The photo depicts a rather everyday situation in a not so busy square in a small Indian town (Varanasi has just 1,3 million inhabitants).

Nevertheless, I like this picture because it's not just a snapshot, but a pretty cleanly composed picture. Thanks to the tightly closed aperture, it is sharp from front to back. So it corresponds to a very natural perspective, which promotes the normality of the scene. Many details cannot be seen at first glance, but they still reach the viewer when they spend a longer time in the picture. Like, for example, the precisely positioned pair of eyes on the right in the ladder's setup triangle. The desperate person at the top left could also tell another story in the picture. Or where is the barber for the cleanly lathered face on the top right?

I learned a lot during the process of creating the picture. I approached the final camera position slowly. I had noticed the potential of the scenery early on, but in order to capture the story of the square properly, I needed many intermediate steps and even minimal corrections. Ultimately, I had to wait until someone walked through the picture so that I could fill the photo around the trash can on the left. And of course, this step had to be captured exactly in the triangle of the walking legs. I was lucky that the painter, who was actually in the foreground of the action, held the brush exactly horizontally, thus blending into the background and his idle left arm divided the two people behind him but did not hide them. Maciej had previously said in one of his keynote speeches that I had to be patient when taking photos: "Something will happen. Maybe. Maybe not." This brings the essence of street photography to one of its important points: you stand there and wait for something to happen. Often enough, however, nothing happens. Or only when you no longer expect it and therefore miss the situation.

In my attempt to fit as many people as possible with their noses (i.e. photographed from the front or side) into one picture, this photo is the first successful attempt. That's why this snapshot has special meaning for me.