[Leica] last one

["Robert Appleby" <laintal@hotmail.com>]

I had a bad shock today - suddenly realised I only have one more evening of 
photography at Dharavi. I thought I was flying out Tuesday night, but it was 
Tuesday morning instead. Anyway, the project has more or less petered out by 
now, but the thought of leaving Bombay is always sad for me.
Not much more to add, really. It's the first day of Ganesh Chaturti, a 
twelve day festival devoted to Ganesh, the elephant-headed god. I usually 
avoid festivals because they tend to get rowdy and even violent, last year I 
was assaulted during both Holi and Ganesh Chaturti, although admittedly i 
was in North india at the time, not noted for the sophistication of its 
small towns. But it's been nice photographing craftsmen preparing statues of 
the god for sale, each chaal or group of hutments in the slum get together 
to buy some statues and set up a small stage for the festival, and have 
drumming, music and dancing and often films on show through the twelve days 
of the festival.
I also photographed yesterday a family making papads, those crispy wafers 
which are eaten as an appetiser or with meals. They make three thousand a 
day (all the children participate, going to school only in the mornings) and 
earn around 200 rupees for them. Which is a family income of 5000 rupees, 
not bad in the slums where the residents don't pay rent mostly.
It's always difficult coming to the end of a project, you wonder whether 
you've really achieved anything, if you could have done more, how to sell 
it... Everything in life is an anticlimax, as Proust or someone said!
By the way, I wouldn't want to go round and round over UV filters again, but 
one thing: it's been raining pretty consistently over thelast few weeks and 
I've been wiping my filters dry at least ten times a day. By now they are 
looking a little worse for wear. Rather them than the lens. On the other 
hand, I've not noticed any untoward flare. One thing is for sure, the 35/1.4 
and 24/2.8 asphs are extraordinary lenses, everyone who sees the results 
remarks on the quality. They seem to have a similar look, on the other hand 
I'm no expert on lenses. But I'm pretty delighted with them. I recall 
someone on the list saying "who shoots wide open anyway", well, a good 
proportion of my stuff is at 1/8th at f1.4 or even a quarter of a second 
braced against the wall. Fast is good in my book, f2 just doesn't cut it. If 
Leica came out with a 24/1.4 I wouldn't hesitate a moment.
Oh yes, I finally had a misload of the M6 after reading about them for long 
enough here. Well, one misload a year is acceptable, I think. Annoying, 
though but.
Rob.

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