Christine Rodgers' photograph 'Late Night Banking', taken in 2024 on a Samsung Galaxy S21, captures a man at a bank counter in Melli, a border town in northern India. The image is featured in this year's Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy in London.
A photographer drawn to the Himalayas
Over the last decade, Lancashire-born, London-based Rodgers has trekked in Bhutan, Nepal and the Indian states and regions of Uttarakhand, Ladakh and Sikkim. "I've developed something of a passion for the Himalayas," she says. "I love being in the mountains; not climbing, but walking and camping at altitude, in sight of the wonderful range of peaks."
Rodgers used to rely on her Olympus camera for trip photographs but has since switched predominantly to using her phone. "I love the immediacy," she notes. "I did miss having a viewfinder at first, but I now feel completely at home with the screen."
The story behind the shot
The photograph was taken after midnight in Melli, on the West Bengal-Sikkim border. Her guide had stopped at the police station to collect passes for the trekking area. "Melli was mostly dark and deserted, apart from the police station and this bank branch. I was drawn initially by the light, and the blocks of colours of paint, then by the stillness of the man at the counter. There seems to be some kind of tension in the air, caused by a customer waiting there alone at this hour of night."
The shot is one of three Rodgers took before quickly moving on. She never found out the reason for the unease she sensed before stepping back into the night.
