My first attempt
In the last blog I introduced some portraits I had taken in Ooty. However, this blog is all about the life in the streets of Ooty.
First of all, I have never taken many street photos in life. In fact, this Ooty street photography was the first real attempt to capture the life of the streets with my camera.
Why street photography?
I like street photography for many reasons. It portrays the candid moments of the story happening in the streets and It has to be a real unposed moment. Documenting people in their everyday environment is not so easy. It requires patience, hard work and some amount of bravery to approach and photograph complete strangers.
Also, out in the streets, if you or your camera is not ready at any given moment of time then there is a big chance that you will miss a candid moment that you might not ever get back again.
The particular issue I mentioned above happened to me several times. Despite I think I am ready all the time (or almost all the time 😉), there were times where at some right moments I’ll take photos just to see that the focus has been shifted to some useless background instead of the subject, or in the low light, not a single pixel in the photo will be in focus.
Streets in Ooty
To take street photos in Ooty, I have spent almost 24 hours in the same street looking at different stories that happen in the same place. It’s like the same film set but different people use the set differently to tell different stories.
Ooty streets are not the busiest street you will find. If It’s 12 AM, the street will feel like a ghost town. There are moments after midnight that I often hear no sound. No humming noise of a vehicle or no footsteps.
When it is early morning, the town slowly opens its eyes, the whisper of footsteps of the people who go out for the morning walk will begin again.
Then slowly, there will be revving sound of engines passing by and the streets will start taking the pace and in no time the street will come back to full life with fast-moving people and even faster vehicles racing to get to their destination.
To fuel up all the stories in the street the climate in Ooty plays a role too. The climate here is dramatic and unpredictable. One moment, it’s sunny and 10 mins later, it will start to drizzle or the fog will start to crawl up to the places.
Conclusion
From all these experiences I got from Ooty, I feel the streets here are unique in its own way. The stories in these streets doesn’t end, it just goes on with each and every person passing by making them the part of the story itself.
I hope you like the photos. If you haven’t seen the previous blog “Faces of Ooty” check it out here.
Follow me on Instagram @fernwehphotoz to get the updates on my latest (mis)adventures 😉
And don’t forget to check out my photos in Gallery!
