Brahmaputra – My Photo of the Year 2025

In October and November of this year my wife and I spent three weeks in India, the first time there for both of us. Part of that time was spent in a week-long trip on the Brahmaputra River in the Assam region of north-east India. It was a wonderful trip and of course I took a camera with me; just the little Leica D-Lux 8 which is a 4/3 sensor compact camera with a fast but short zoom

But I did not go on this trip with any photographic goals further than those of a tourist who’s making snaps – and this in itself was challenging for me for a number of reasons. I was unsure of the whole ethics surrounding a “tourist” shot. Happily, I’ve resolved a lot of that stuff in my own mind, but that’s probably a whole story in itself. Let’s just say that the experience made me happier about the type of photos I made on the trip. When I got home I collated a few in to a photo essay using Adobe Spark which you can see here if you like. I’d been chatting to Hamish about this and sent him the essay as part of that discussion, and he came back to me with a very pertinent observation that forms the subject of this piece.

The picture featured here was not even on my radar as a best picture for the year, yet in retrospect it sums up some things about photography that I’d been overlooking or questioning. It was great to be reminded of those, and so in that spirit I share the picture along with my thoughts on it.

Here’s what Hamish said:

“The woman fishing is a great shot. There is something about photos like that which feel as though they shouldn’t be possible – how did you find yourself in such an apparently remote place with just you and the lady fishing without seeming to impact her with your presence…? Photos that make me ask that sort of question often are ones I find myself appreciating.”

And here’s my reply:

“That’s interesting because I really had not given it any thought, but now that you mention it I guess acted on auto-pilot, and perhaps yes, there is more to discuss.

“Here’s how it happened: I was walking back along the top of the river bank, quite a bit higher than she, and obviously the light was great. It was about 4.30 which is dusk over there, and to make it better the air was very still and there was a bit of smoke from people’s fires drifting out over the water. I thought “OK – there’s a shot there,” but I was too high up and on the other side of her, so there would have been no horizon and a boat and other bits of crap would have been in the shot too. So I worked out where I had to get to, and at the same time I watched what her technique with the net was and what part of the casting cycle would make a nice composition. There were others in our tour group (we were walking down the bank to get on the tender that would take us back to our boat) and when I locked in and  started moving purposefully a couple of the others started following me – except following seemed to mean walking in front of me and getting in my frame, but I figured they would just be doing the “snap it with a phone and move on” thing, which they did, so I was fine. Then when I got close enough but not intrusive I crouched as low as I could to make the horizon work, and made two frames – this one and one when the net was not as nice. I had zoomed in a little bit, about 40mm equivalent, and there you have it. The whole thing only took maybe three minutes from spotting her, and probably five seconds from framing up. If you’d been in front of me looking back over my shoulder you would have seen the tender and a bit of other junk around, so there were other people doing things and by comparison I was quite inconspicuous. I also made the frame in a moment when she needed to have her eyes on the net, so she would not notice me. I felt I only had one chance before I became intrusive so after the two frames I turned away and walked off.”

So there you have it – it’s very interesting for me to think about this, because it does bring up the concerns I had (at the time, not so much now) about how to behave as a tourist, about who has agency in this situation and whether I was taking advantage of this person just to make a pretty shot. But as I learned more about the changing economy of the region I became more comfortable with how we were interacting with the people and how our presence could be symbiotic.

The discussion with Hamish also reminded me there are certain skills and thought processes that go in to a making shot like this. When I saw the opportunity I started to previsualise and I processed a whole lot of information quickly to create the photo out of the possibilities I saw – old habits which I don’t use all that much now but which still kick in if needed.

When I initially assessed the light I knew that there would be enough for the frame, the modelling would be nice and exposure comp would not be needed. My little compact camera set the focus and exposure. This is an out of camera JPEG – I’d zoomed in from wide to about 40mm equivalent, used standard colour profile at ISO 400 and daylight WB which I then simply cropped to get the horizon level. I didn’t even play with the curves. I guess I could have, but I didn’t give it a thought at the time and then later I thought, “Well, I think this is more about the capture, and there’s no point fiddling with it.”

Thanks for reading!

Share this post: