85/ 100 Post Box Dog
Why a photographer should eat more snacks.
Wherever there is food, there will be a dog. Even if there used to be food there, or there was a slight chance of the food returning, the dog would be waiting patiently.
Even though I have been travelling and photographing for decades I still routinely annoy myself because I didn’t take a photograph that I ought to have done, and then immediately regretted not doing so. Of course, there are occasions where I see a great potential image but make a conscious decision not to press the shutter because I just feel that it isn’t the right thing to do. Perhaps a person or an animal is in distress, or maybe the people in the photograph clearly don’t look comfortable with me taking a photograph with them in it, but there are so many more times when I was just being lazy or, even more likely, I was hangry because I hadn’t had a snack and was in a bad mood.
One shot I didn’t take that will haunt me forever was a scene that presented itself as I exited the metro in Paris several years ago. In a busy street, a small lady walked past me carrying a very large and very hairy Newfoundland puppy, just as a person would carry a small child. It was facing her and she had both hands tucked underneath its bottom. The dog had one paw over each of her shoulders whilst its enormous furry head rested next to hers, looking back towards me. My camera was in my backpack and, in truth, I couldn’t be bothered to grab it. This is why these days, when roaming the streets of an interesting place, I always have it round my neck, ready to shoot (even when everyone tells me it’s too risky because it will get stolen).
What does any of this have to do with the photograph of the Post Box Dog above you may wonder? Can you see all the blackened paint up the front of this iconic red lump of metal? Every evening an old man would arrive, set up his gas burner and huge Kadhai (similar to a wok) full of oil. Placing it up against the post box he would cook samosas for hours whilst a cluster of eager dogs would gather in the narrow lane waiting for any leftovers.
Most evenings I walked past, on the way to somewhere else (usually to get a shower and some dinner), but never once made a photograph. I had fallen into the fatal trap of thinking that I could just do it the next day. On our very last evening in Varanasi I decided that I really must make the photograph. That night, after the sun had disappeared and the evening chill made its way along the winding streets I went to take what I knew would be a great image. I hadn’t yet eaten and even had my heart set upon one of his delicious steaming samosas.
Of course, the street chef was there every evening, except for this one particular day of the week. There was no photograph to be made, no snacks to eat nor even any dogs (they must have known it was his day off). Literally nothing more remained than an empty patch of stone and a lot of oily soot.
In the very final hour of our Varanasi visit the next day I went back to the post box in the futile hope that he might be cooking something in the morning. However, all that was there was this lovely dog who received a crushed biscuit as a reward for at least allowing me to come away with a picture, even though it wasn’t the one I wanted.
