Delhi Dallying: train

Last weekend, Karen, her Dad, and I went to Ranthambore National Park, located approximately 300 km south of Delhi. "Incredible India" dealt us a few hiccups on the morning of our departure (a 4-hour train delay and Karen suffering from an extreme case of Delhi Belly) but we finally boarded the Golden Temple Mail train #12904 and started our 5 hour journey south.
Laying on our bottom 2AC sleeper seats, Karen and I watched much of what passed by our window. So many lives are exposed along India's train tracks. As we sped by, every few seconds brought a new landscape along with a new set of characters. In the mind of a day dreamer, these landscapes and characters help create many interesting stories.
To help my fellow day dreamers, I decided to break out my camera and capture a few of these scenes. Shooting through dirty, double pained, sun glared glass (all while traveling 60+ mph) I hoped for the best when it came to picture quality. One thing I needed to make sure of was that the pictures turned out sharp. Here comes some camera talk. Since we were traveling in a speeding train, I had to bump up my camera's shutter speed to at least 1/4000th of a second to get still shots. To compensate for such a high shutter speed, I had no choice but to open up my aperture as far as I could (F/2.8) and boost my ISO to 1600(not helping image quality either, but hey, at least they are sharp).
Below are some images I shot while waiting for our delayed train and some of the many pictures I shot through our dirty window.

Track #2 , Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station, New Delhi at 7:40am. Our train was supposed to pick us up here! No luck as it was 4 hours late....well, at first it was 1.5 hours late...then 2.5 hours...then 3.5 hours and then it arrived on the 4th late hour. Karen was so sick that we went back home for an hour during one of the delays so she could rest. Her Dad and I were very proud that she battled through the sickness in NASTY conditions (the train station bathrooms) and finally felt better by the time the train left the station.

The morning sun hitting the morning fog....a.k.a. pollution.

Bags of potatoes wait to be loaded onto the next train.

This happy conductor smiles for me. I use hand gestures and expressions to ask if I can take people's pictures if they are far away from me. I've done this about 4 times now and each time, I get the initial impression that the people say no. Then they smile and I can see they mean yes, I think. So I take their picture. I think I will solve this communication issue by the time my 2 week train marathon is over!

These cool cats wanted to get their picture "clicked." So many people ask me to "click" their picture! If you are looking for willing models that are good at posing, India is the place. I ended up shooting the guy on the left in some tough guy Bollywood poses that were kind of ridiculous. All of this certainly entertained the masses waiting on the track.

These guys were framed up nicely by the open doors of this train. It took me 10 rail cars to find them,

Karen, her dad, and some random guy waiting in the waiting room!

Happy to finally be on the train!! My seat was supposed to be in another compartment, but I sat in a vacant seat in the same compartment. Each compartment is comprised of 2 bunk bed style seats...totaling 4 seats. No one challenged me, saying that I was laying in their seat, so that was a blessing. We had the whole compartment to ourselves!

This scene photographed through the train window was at the beginning of our journey. So much life is exposed to passing trains. I like this shot because it's a cross section of a building, exposing what's going on inside...kind of like how trains cut through India, allowing us to witness the lives of many people.

A few seconds after the previous shot, there is this. Many beautiful cranes mingle with buffalo on the edge of town.

You see guys like this walking quite often along the tracks. I wonder where this guys is going with his bag on a stick? You can't wonder for too long as there is always another interesting scene that takes over your window!

The train wasn't going too fast for this one. It was stopped actually at a station about 3 hours south of Delhi. The windows of our section of train have tint and reflection so that people outside can't see inside. This lady and her friend were certainly interested in something further down platform. I wouldn't want to mess with these two!

As we pull away from the same station, I photographed this fairly common scene. Again, so much life is exposed to the passer by. What is this guy's story? The curtain of the window accidentally got in the way for this shot (on the left). It adds something to the picture though. Maybe the viewer is peaking past a curtain because he's afraid of what he's going to see?

Yes, this picture is blurry, but it is also pretty cool. Our train was traveling at top speed while this train was traveling just as fast in the opposite direction. As I shot this, all I could see was the blur of a passing train. I quickly snapped this before the train fully zipped past. I captured this moment of time that no human eye could see without the help of a speedy camera shutter! Next time I will try 1/8000th of a second to possibly get a sharp result!

The further south we got, the prettier the landscape!

What is their story? I think they are just relaxing in a shady spot!....or were they "abondoned" like the building says?

I found this one kind of haunting. I know that's not a wedding dress, but that's the first thing I thought of. Notice how a lot of the subjects in these pictures are to the left. It took an extra split second for my brain to see what was going on in my camera frame and react by pressing the shutter. I'd reccommend shooting from a high speed train to any photographer. It is GREAT for developing reaction time!