Another timeless monochrome from India and from long ago, so scanned from film.
It was taken in a tiny village called Aihole in Karnataka State which is blessed with the remains of dozens of temples from the sixth and seventh centuries.
This bike repair shed serves a rural community, and perhaps doesn’t get as much passing trade as the liquor store just up the street, but the condition of the roads must cause quite a few punctures and bent wheels.
This is a simple scene, but telling. The barefoot boatmen wade through the detritus on the river bank. A string of beads lies in the water, maybe carried downstream from the funeral ghats just up river. The decaying brickwork and the old boat showing that entropy is having its way.
A scene on the river Ganges, The Ganga, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India.
I used to collect old train postcards and had over 2000 of them. This one from the late 19th Century I kept because it’s a beautifully taken sepia print.
The scene is a posed one and is of the Royal Train that no doubt hauled Queen Victoria around the Great Western Railway of England.
The locomotive has the royal coat of arms attached to the wheel splasher and is appropriately named ‘Queen’. I guess the picture was taken in the late 80s or early 90s.
Hmmm, it ain’t sharp, but it sure is moody.
I like moody, even better than sharp.
Fort Cochin, Kerala, India.
This cat certainly has a mean look in its eye, which is strange as cats usually take a liking to me. I do like cats. Boiled with rice preferably.
Joking…… Just joking…
After the shock of celebrating my birthday yesterday with a picture in technicolor, here we are back to another truly exciting and memorable monochrome.
Perhaps the title for this one should be ‘Peanuts for Peanuts’.
One of several old negatives scanned recently from the late 70s or early 80s and presented, so as to give an indication of my era and great age!
I remember that there were some trees growing in some of these vehicles, so perhaps the pictures aren’t quite as old as I suggest. Car graveyards like this are very sad places. Sad pictures from a sad old git.
A street scene captured in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. It’s sometimes difficult to read peoples reactions to having their picture taken.
Is it suspicion, fear, annoyance? Does he think that he’s been caught out?
I’m pretty sure that I would feel all of those and more….
Do we have the right to intrude? Should we reserve the right for people to see only our good side, or should we use our camera to catalogue and record even the negative and less than ideal conditions? I almost decided to delete this picture.
But life can be dour…..
This photo must have been taken in the late 80s and is a scan from a film negative.
I was working in Staffordshire, England, at the time and have only the vaguest memory of the location of this scrapyard.
A street portrait taken in Glasgow.
I like how working in monochrome encourages a more formal and studied approach to picture making. Balancing the tones and cropping to enhance the formal elements of placement and division is a very satisfying activity. The unruly diagonals always add a touch of tension, don’t you think?
Life, Photography, & Other Mistakes 