This picture of a couple farmers in India plowing a field is possibly my favorite picture from my work trip to India. I mainly like its simplicity – after all, it’s mostly just color and pattern with just enough going on to provide an element of interest in the ‘foreground’. Also, it prominently features an ox butt.
My googling skills tell me that those are a team of Hallikar oxen, but I could be wrong…
After the work even was over we had the opportunity to go on a brief safari (a term typically reserved for Africa, but I think fair to use here too). This picture was taken when a group of us went out for a walk near the bungalows where we stayed the night. I only have one picture of this scene, which is rare for me, but at the time I didn’t expect it to turn out like much.
Picture taken with Canon 60D, EF 70-300mm lens @ 165mm, f/8.0, 1/800 sec shutter, ISO 800. I don’t recall why I had locked in f/8.0 and chose to use ISO 800.
Side story: This lens started malfunctioning on me shortly after this picture was taken. The auto focus quit working, which on a DSLR is pretty much the end of your picture taking time because they’ve all abandon the focus prism of film cameras and this was before the invention, or at least prevalence of focus peaking. It was unfortunate to have an equipment failure while on vacation, but it was toward the end of the trip and I suppose that’s why people carry backups.
To be fair, I had bought the lens used and had owned it for maybe five to six years before this, and while I like to think I take care of stuff, I had carried it all kinds of places, not always cased perfectly and probably gave it a few good, unintentional bumps. When I got home I sent it to Canon for repair and about a week and $100 later I had it back and it’s worked perfectly ever since.
