After a
very hectic first half of the year, my wife and I were
both getting a little frayed and decided to take a weeklong
break to recharge our batteries. We decided to head
to Darjeeling to relax in the cool mountain air, catch
up on some reading and generally just get away from
everything.
Darjeeling is a very popular tourist
hill town in the lower Himalayas, at an altitude of
2100m. Over the last 15-20 years that I have been going
there, it has become a lot more crowded, a lot more
polluted and a lot dirtier. However, a part of it still
retains a very unique charm which brings me back there
over and over again.
This trip was during the monsoons,
which envelop Darjeeling with heavy mist and clouds.
This means no spectacular vistas (or even sun, for that
matter), but I find the atmosphere at this time of the
year to be very invigorating. This is a time of introspection,
solitude and rest.... perfect for our needs.
I also wanted to use this opportunity
to shake up my photography a little bit, as I’ve
been in a bit of an unproductive spell of late. My plan
was to try to get back to what made photography fun
- being outdoors, shooting things that interested me
and generally, pleasing myself, as opposed to editors,
agencies and buyers. So I started by leaving my “serious
photography” rig behind: no DSLR, no multiple
lenses, no laptop or portable hard drive, no filters,
no flash, no tripod; the only piece of camera gear I
took with me was a Panasonic
LX1, a 1gig card inside it (not even a spare) and
the charger.
Between my familiarity with the town
and the deliberate lack of “photographic goals”,
I was successful in controlling my self-induced urge
to get out there and try to create photos. We'd sleep
in till 9am (even 10am a couple of times), have long,
leisurely lunches, read on benches, etc. And I'd carry
my LX-1 in my pocket, whipping it out to take a shot
when something struck my fancy. No bracketing, no multiple
angles, etc. Just one shot on a subject, and done.
The Panasonic was the perfect camera
for this sort of a trip: it was easy to carry all day;
its relative lack of flexibility compared to a DSLR
system forced me to start thinking differently and also
let me take unobtrusive candids. And somewhere along
the way, I started to have fun again....
The following photos are my impressions
from this week in the mountains. As always, comments
are welcomed.
Thumbnails are cropped. Please click on them for a
full, enlarged view |
