Saturday, March 24, 2007

Indian Summary

A Tram's-Eye View Of A Stunning Country

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON


Looks like an advertising billboard, doesn't it? Well, yes and no. Yes, it's an advertisemement. But it's actually painted across the side of a Melbourne tram. You know the feeling? You can see a great shot, you've got the camera with you - and you're in completely the wrong position and you've got literally a couple of seconds to shoot it.

There I was, stuck at a traffic light on the intersection of Dandenong Road and Chapel Street in the Melbourne suburb of Prahran. And I could see this tram coming from the opposite direction, with a stunning rendition of the great series of `Incredible !ndia' television ads. If you haven't seen the ads, they contain some amazing cinematography and of course the ad campaign substitutes the capital I in India with an exclamation mark instead.

(If you worked on the ad campaign, or know someone who did, please let me know by leaving a comment here.)

I was in the middle lane, with two vehicles between me and the tram and a schoolboy at the tram stop. Time only for one shot but strangely enough the colours across the frame somehow bleneded well, with the burgundy of both vehicles and the brick on the wall across the street.
I firmly believe in the `integrity' of an image, and I choose not to crop or enhance any photograph I take. But as an experiment, I cropped this frame to exclude most of the two vehicles and I still reckon the original frame is the stronger image.

Let me know what you think. And watch this space for a series of shots from a recent trip to India, the country where I was born and educated and where I began my career in journalism.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I find the uncropped frame definitely more striking, because of the contrasting colors - but then, I like lots of color. It also sets off the advertisement, which otherwise tends to blend into the surrounding colors...

Carol M.

Med said...

hello friend..

kindly tell me how to make a evergreen post box that will contain posts selected by me displayed in a seperate text box on the right side..

kindly reply..

www.medtape.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

I agree with Carol, but at the same time, the more prominent, & hence so much more mesmerising, stare of our Royal Bangla Tiger in the cropped picture made me feel more nostalgic ;-}

Great shot,

Rene.

david mcmahon said...

Dear Carol,

Thanks for your feedback. You're right about the colours. I certainly prefer the uncropped frame. Just a lucky shot, given the circumstances ...

David

david mcmahon said...

Hi Med,

If you;re on new Blogger, just go to your Layout field (Posts>Settings>Layout) and add a text box. You can customise it to any colour you want and just keep changing it if you're not happy with the result.

Buzz me here to let me know if it worked successfully.

Cheers

David

david mcmahon said...

Hi Rene,

Yes, like you and Carol, I prefer the uncropped frame, but how could anyone resist a good close-up of a Bangla Tiger!

Cheers

David