India with the Leica M 262 By Dan Bar

December 8, 2016 Featured, Guest Post, Leica, Street Photography, Travel, User Reports 43

India with the Leica M 262

By Dan Bar

Hi Steve,

Just got back from India and what a country. On one hand dirty, poor and  hot. On the other hand heaven for photographers, especially street photographers. People are nice and welcoming. They all want to be photographed which is a refreshing change.

I knew I had to take a color camera this time. No use flying to India with a B\W camera.

India is THE MOST colorful country I have seen so I sold my Leica M 246 and got a Leica M 262 instead.  I hope I succeeded in showing some of these fantastic colors. As said all photos were taken with the 50 APO and the 28.

Thank you

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43 Comments

  1. What a great set. Thank you for sharing.

    India is such a an enthralling place. You view the immeasurable poverty and you have to fight to stave off depression. Yet when you see the smiles amidst the chaos and hopelessness, you can’t help but be inspired by the human spirit on display.

  5. Having lived in Bombay for a number of years and travelled the sub-continent extensively, these picture seem like a very superficial view of the country. Not only do they seem to be mostly weakly composed images with little sense of timing, they are also typical of a certain sort of tourist’s view. Yes, they are colourful, and for people who have never been there, this catches the eye, but there is nothing new here just the same old view from yet another western tourist captured by the exotic.

  6. Typical one sided simplified western perspective of India – “Colours, poverty and dirty”. Obviously any country has its good and bad, if you go searching for the bad, you will only see the bad. The unfortunate thing is people like you will only propagate that idea. I can only see exploitation of poverty here, sorry. As a street photographer myself, I think there is a thin line between documenting and exploiting.

      • I am not the person who wrote that first post, and I don’t think his intent was to “search for the bad,” but there is something that makes me cringe when I see people posting photos of poor people taken with $10,000 cameras.

        Now, context has a lot to do with it. Steve has posted images of homeless people in the past, but he also told their story with the photos, and they were represented as a human beings and not just as objects of aesthetic interest. If you’re going to post photos of poor people from a $10,000 camera, then it’s only fair to talk to them and present their stories with the images. With their permission, of course, as you would treat any other person you photograph.

        Now, I don’t think these India photos are so bad. Dan Bar doesn’t really show anything too intimate or personal, and many of the images really are just purely aesthetic studies of colors and objects with no people present. So, personally I don’t see anything to get upset about, but I do understand how some people might given their own background.

  7. Typical one sided simplified western perspective of India – “Colours, poverty and dirty”. Obviously any country has its good and bad, if you go searching for the bad, you will only see the bad. The unfortunate thing is people like you will only propagate that idea. I can only see exploitation of poverty here, sorry. As a street photographer myself, I think there is a thin line between documenting and exploiting.

  8. As always your images beautiful scenes and colors combination of lens and camera are excellent.

  9. Why do many people only associate India as poor and a dirty place. In any country you go to if you seek poverty you will find it including modern western worlds!

    I think your perception of the country is a bit harsh, obviously you haven’t been to the more modern and cleaner parts of India. I understand your genre of photography and what you were trying to capture but stating that India is dirty and poor all round is wrongly described as a whole. One thing I do agree with is it is most definitely hot.

    I wish people would start looking at the other side of India where it has grown into a clean modern society. Maybe some photographer should start telling a story of the poor sides of India and show the better and cleaner side of India as well, and stop this stigma of India being a poor and dirty place as a whole country.

    • I am sorry my friend if I offended you. Never meant to.
      As for what I said, sorry but it is true, yes there are beautiful places and richer quarters, but in general people simply don’t care about India cleanliness, it was a shock for me atfirst.
      Poverty is something I never saw anywhere else.
      At the same time most Indians I met where lovely kind people that often invited me to their houses.
      I could say nice things, I simply mentioned what I saw

      • Hi Dan,

        You mean to say that this is the first place on earth you saw poverty!! I thought photographers do a lot of travelling, which then in your case is not the case. I have been to the best of the best western countries or eastern countries and have seen abject poverty and dirt and filth as you have found in India. Well I think the world already knows poverty sells real good and makes for good photos, documentaries and cinema. You may have had the best of intentions but for some novices and crackpots the article and photos may completely depict a wrong picture of India.

      • Hi Dan, no offence taken!

        I was merely pointing out that India is always perceived as a dirty and poverty riden country. Yet I totally understand what you was trying to capture, it was the comment you made that got under my skin.

        Keep up the good work buddy.

  10. Why do many people only associate India as poor and a dirty place. In any country you go to if you seek poverty you will find it including modern western worlds!

    I think your perception of the country is a bit harsh, obviously you haven’t been to the more modern and cleaner parts of India. I understand your genre of photography and what you were trying to capture but stating that India is dirty and poor all round is wrongly described as a whole. One thing I do agree with is it is most definitely hot.

    I wish people would start looking at the other side of India where it has grown into a clean modern society. Maybe some photographer should start telling a story of the poor sides of India and show the better and cleaner side of India as well, and stop this stigma of India being a poor and dirty place as a whole country.

  14. Always love what you do, Danny. Your exposures are moody and wonderful in B&W and, in color, yield a gorgeous saturation. Terrific stuff.

  16. These are just amazing. Should like to have heard what motivated you to go for the M262. I’d be grateful for your comment, if you could spare the time. Thank you.

    • Thank you John. I don’t like heavy cameras .M9 was a great choice but I needed something with better ISO as I knew I shall shoot in dark places like houses. Streets with hardly any light, the 240 was an option but I was looking for a lighter camera so the 262 seemd like the perfect camera for me

    • I’d be interested in hearing about this too. I understand that some have said that even though they share the same sensor, the color palette on the 262 is more like the M9.

  17. Nice shots and nice framing. Quite differentfrom traditional Indian shots. I like the framing and the matter of “factness” of the pics . Shots 25&26 (the train ones) remind me a bit of Steve Mc Curry’s photos in the book the imperial way. I was struck as you were by the squalor of some places on my way to Bhutan. It’s such a contrasty country in terms of money and light of course. Pics 14,15 and 18 are my favorites. If you like colors save money to go to Myanmar (Burma) and Sri Lanka. Amazing places and people. Keep on the good work

    • THANK YOU, It surely is. Poverty is unbelievable , I was warned I shall have a culture shock. I thought I was immune but I was in a state of shock as I got to Mumbai. I Kinda got used to it later

  19. you know, i initially looked through many of these and thought that they could benefit greatly from some degree of fill flash. there are plenty of blocked-out blacks in many pics. The dude with the white cow head is a great example of this -where the exposure choice blocks out probably too much of his face.

    Taken as a whole, however, the exposures kind of work together as a style. I do enjoy underexposing slightly to avoid blown highlights and to heck with the blacks/shadows.
    The color palate and consistency of “look” redeems the exposure choices here!
    thanks for sharing…

  22. Great photos and share.

    For my likely limited budged, I’ve thought about if I were to get 1 digital M, what would lit be? I love shooting B&W and the monochrome seemed it would be great for that. BUT, I can’t help feel if I only stuck to that, I would miss the wonderful colors I could get with Leica.. Perhaps if I had a color Leica to begin with and shoot for a while, I might be inclined to commit to a B&W only camera.. IDK.. probably not that committed.. B&W conversion would work just as well for me.. The 262 looks like a great no nonsense Leica M digital camera to date for a reasonable entry fee considering that has all you really need in an M camera.

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