Back to the Ganges, and lines and triangles and circles and saris.
A woman gives orders to someone off-scene while she holds out a sari to dry in the fierce mid-morning sun along the River Ganges in mid Feb 2013.
Shot on a faulty Leica M4 with a 50mm Collapsible Summicron for which the framelines were indicating a 35mm FOV, although I had no idea of it at the time. I remember remarking on the wide angle of view that the 50 was seemingly giving me, clearly believing in the infallibility of the M4 over my own experience. So, the shot shows less of what I had originally envisaged, but retains the focus point, general composition and moment of capture.
Interestingly, had I known about the faulty framelines I would have composed differently, and would have had to slant the camera up slightly to achieve this. It was a happy accident. The straighter lines of the background make the image work better in my eyes.
A word on this Collapsible Summicron. The glass has yellowed over time. I hear this is because of a slight radioactivity in the glass used for the lens. I’m not much interested in that per se, except for the fact that it does seem to make the lens draw in a way dissimilar to other generation Summicrons that I own, almost as if it has its own built-in light yellow filter. I really like the effect. And, for such an old lens, it is certainly sharp.
[…] applying a tincture to his brow, a group of women witnessing a baby’s head being shorn, a bather, back arched, feet curled inwards, fire in the eyes, holding a sari to dry in the sunbreeze as she […]