Working the Scene

“You don’t take a photograph, you make it”

-Ansel Adams.

When you talk of street photography, no statement can be truer than this. Street photography is all about capturing the essence and ethos of a place, a moment, or a situation. All street photographers have that horse sense of sniffing out a scene. They comb the streets for something worth capturing and when they get the gut feel that they are on to something, they just don’t leave the scene till they have got that one special image which they were looking for in the first place. As a travel photographer, besides shooting cityscapes, landscapes, monuments, exteriors, interiors, people, and varied other things, I also do street photography. During my recent photo-visit to London, while on Westminster Bridge, I sensed that I could have a shot that could sum up London in its entirety. To me, this place offered it all. It had diverse people walking by, it had Big Ben as the backdrop; the period lamppost depicting the history and heritage of London; the skies were cloudy with the dodgy sun - something that is typically London. So I started shooting. I shot standing up, crouching down, sprawling on the ground, from the footpath, from the bridge railing, from the edge of the road. I went on and on, till I finally felt that I have nailed the shot I was looking for. On a later count I realised that I shot approximately 130 frames over a 40-minute shooting spree. Some of those frames weren’t bad (see the enlarged thumbnails alongside). But I hadn’t stopped, till I had what I would call the ‘gold’ shot (see the following page). I subsequently processed it in B&W, as, for me, London is symbolic of the ‘Raj’, which is now history. To many, London may be a colourful city, but to me this image in black and white sums up London ( I am from an era when Films Division documentaries screened in movie halls were in Black & White). I share all this, as there’s a lesson hidden in it somewhere; a lesson for all to take and keep; a lesson, which I repeat to myself many times. The lesson is - when you feel you are on to something, don’t give up easily or settle for mediocrity. Keep at it. Continue to shoot. As I say, ‘ Work the scene’. And be at it, till you get the sense that you have struck ‘gold’.