A Rainy Night in Chandni Chowk — My Photo of the Year 2025

I found myself in New Delhi, India, for a conference and took the opportunity to explore the local markets for some street photography. This image was taken on my first day in India, and I was definitely not prepared for what I was about to experience. I arrived at Chandni Chowk market in Old Delhi just before sunset. The taxi drive over from my hotel was a standstill—one of those intense and chaotic traffic jams I’ve only ever experienced in India. It was a rare double holiday, with Gandhi Jayanti—a national holiday marking Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday—coinciding with Dussehra, a major Hindu festival. The result was gridlocked traffic and crowds packed far beyond anything I’d expected.

As I started to explore, it wasn’t so much walking as it was being pushed along by the crowd. I was still acclimatizing to the situation and feeling conscious about trying to remain inconspicuous with my camera gear. I had my Zeiss Ikon ZM and my 28mm f/2.8, 35mm f/2, 50mm f/1.5, and 85mm f/4 Zeiss ZM lenses with me. The crowds were too dense and the working distances too tight for the 50mm f/1.5, and with daylight fading fast, the 28mm f/2.8 was a little too slow. As I began to settle into the chaos, the 35mm f/2 proved to be the best compromise for the conditions. Then, without warning, a tropical rainstorm poured down. In a desperate attempt to stay dry, I hailed a rickshaw and rode to the far end of the market. Only then did I realize how vast the place really was—not just the length of the market running along a major road, but also the countless side alleys branching off in every direction. It was on one of these narrow, dark side alleys that I would later come across this scene.

By the time the rain eased enough for me to continue, night had fully fallen, and the crowds had thinned. I was shooting with the Zeiss 35mm f/2 ZM and the Zeiss 50mm f/1.5 ZM with Kodak Tri-X pushed +2 stops to ISO 1600. The rain never fully stopped, so I purchased a small umbrella to keep both myself and my gear dry. This led to an improvised shooting technique: tilting my neck to the left to pin the umbrella against my shoulder, freeing up my left hand to focus. I believe this image was shot with my 50mm f/1.5 Zeiss Ikon ZM lens though I can’t remember for sure.

By the time I came upon this scene, I was on my second roll of film and finally starting to feel comfortable shooting with my neck-tilted, umbrella-pinned setup. I noticed these men deep in conversation and stopped to compose and focus, hoping they wouldn’t notice the strange man standing in the rain—head tilted, umbrella pinned to his shoulder, camera raised in the middle of a dark alley. Somehow, I managed to capture the moment, getting a usable meter reading and holding the camera steady just long enough before they noticed me and the moment slipped away. I can’t decide if I like the blurry man in the foreground walking in from the left of the frame. I didn’t get a second chance to take another shot, so this is all I have. Maybe his presence adds to the chaos and imperfection of the scene, helping the viewer feel like they are right there with me—caught in the confusion of a dark, rainy night in a narrow alley in Old Delhi.

This photograph is part of a larger series I’ll be sharing soon in another post. When I first read the call to submit a Photo of the Year for 2025, this image kept coming back to me. It was my favorite trip of the year, and this image felt like the one that best captured that experience. I hope you enjoy this image and this brief glimpse into that shoot.

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