Outdoor City Street Photography - Pondicherry, India

Walking around on the city streets of Pondicherry, India, with my DSLR.

It’s been a while since I’ve done this, just gone out into a busy street in the city, and try to capture some local scenes that I found interesting. The first thing I noticed, is nobody found ME interesting at all, they just ignored me - which was fine by me. That issue was solved. No need to look down at my display screen, rather than looking into my viewfinder, as nobody cared what this strange foreigner was doing.

It was late afternoon, so I had interesting light. It was also much too hot, and I don’t think I could manage this mid-day. I may try it early morning next time, before the Indian heat sets in. I probably took 30 or so photos, deleted over half, and of what was left, four images looked like they might be worth posting.

I only had the stock 50mm f/1.8 lens with me, which limited what I could do, but it forced me into taking only images that worked with this lens. The D780 looks like an inexpensive black camera, very quiet, which was fine by me. My D3 would have been very much out of place, not to mention the loud sound it makes. Nobody said anything to me, other than one guy who pointed out a nearby taxi.

There are several places I plan to travel to - the fishing villages, and a local light house being at the top of my list. There are two other cities I hope to visit before I return home.

To @wolfgang - thanks for all the tips; I guess they worked perfectly, as nobody gave me a second glance. Nobody cared. And, to @Joanna, the idea of Live View with me looking down at the folding screen will be ideal, if I go someplace where people notice me. That was not the case this afternoon.

That’s more than enough photos for now. Since I now have a working system, next step is to concentrate on images I enjoy, which I want to remember.