During the next to last day of our 80 weeks trip around the world, I suddenly found myself shooting at F16 and a speed of 1/8th for the first time. For someone that basically shoots only at large apertures and high speed, what could then have happened?
Influence. I fell to influence. Indeed, I had just discovered a wonderful picture by Raghu Rai at the Mumbai train station. I found it reproduced so well the atmosphere of this extraordinary place that I could not help trying a similar effect when I got in the building. Bad or good ? I don't know and I suppose that it unconsciously happens to many of us as we reproduce framings and scenes we have seen before, somewhere. In the end, our perception of the world is the sum of past experiences so a lot of what we photograph today is influenced by pictures we have seen in the past. I guess that as long as one does not try to mimik consciously what has been done before, this is fine.
This being said, the slow speeds and motion blur is not my thing and after a couple of attempts (picture 1 and 2), I quickly switched back to what I consider my own style : high vantage point and blur (picture 3 and 4). Though these last two pictures are not anywhere near Raghu's wonderful take on the station, they do represent my own vision of the world. I'll stick to them, no more F16 !
If you would like to discover Raghu Rai's picture of Mumbai Central station, follow this link (second row, last picture). And if you never heard about him, take some time to discover his wonderful work, it is definitelhy worth it.
(click on pictures for high res)
All pictures taken with Leica M9 with 35mm Lux Asph