Street Photography in Vasai

I am happy when my best friends have their arms around me :)

"When you photograph people in colour, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls!"  — Ted Grant

Street photography is all about wandering, with a camera strung around your neck - observing, soaking in the surroundings, and capturing the moments that define the people, their moods and their surroundings, often in a candid setting. Wikipedia beautifully puts it thus  - Street photography uses the techniques of straight photography in that it shows a pure vision of something, like holding up a mirror to society. Street photography often tends to be ironic and can be distanced from its subject matter, and often concentrates on a single human moment, caught at a decisive or poignant moment. On the other hand, much street photography takes the opposite approach and provides a very literal and extremely personal rendering of the subject matter, giving the audience a more visceral experience of walks of life they might only be passingly familiar with. The best part about street photography is that it doesn't need fancy equipment! Often a point & shoot camera or even a mobile phone camera can do the job. All one needs is the eye to observe, the heart to feel the situation and the mind to quickly frame the scene!

The above photograph was taken inside the Tungareshwar Wildlife Sanctuary, near Vasai, where we had gone birding a few weeks ago. A photographer needs to be alert all the time about possibilities even while he may be out to specifically shoot something else, in this case birds. While that day didn't prove particularly lucky for us with respect to capturing birds, we made the most of the opportunity by indulging in some candid / street photography of people who visit the Tungareshwar temple as well as residents of the place. Later in the day we also visited the Bassein Fort, located beside the Arabian Sea in Vasai. There's a beautiful fishermen's village nearby and luckily we managed to get some good street shots of its residents!  - even though our objective was water birds!

For a slide show of complete set of pictures from Vasai, please click here.