Gianni Berengo Gardin's best shot: a Venice vaporetto in 1960

I was 30, living on the Lido in Venice, and every morning I took the vaporetto, or water bus, across to where I worked in San Marco. I always carried my Leica with me, taking photographs for my own pleasure. I love Venice in the winter – the fog and the rain. This was taken one winter's morning, when all the men were off to work.

It was a matter of pure luck, really. I was doing a lot of architectural photography, and this was a spontaneous shot: I only took one picture. In the centre there is a reflection in the glass door of the vaporetto, behind which stands a man all dressed in black. If he'd been wearing white, the shot wouldn't have worked. The man looking into the camera is a sailor. He didn't object; there was no such thing as privacy in those days.

Of all the books of photography I have published on Venice, this is the best picture. It marks my shift from amateur to professional. It's in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and a print sold at Christie's for €38,000. Italian photographers are not highly thought of abroad, so this was a huge deal.

I did everything on film. Cornell Capa, whose older brother was the famous photojournalist Robert, had sent me a 400 ASA film. The fastest film you could get in Europe at the time was 125 – this little gift from America allowed me to take pictures with less light. He also sent me books of photography by Dorothea Lange, Elliott Erwitt and William Klein. When I saw them, I figured out that photography was not just a hobby, that it could be an important job. Henri Cartier-Bresson included this shot in his list of the 100 most important photographs of all time. To me, Cartier-Bresson was a god. He once dedicated a book to me "with affection and admiration". It was the greatest gift I ever received.

CV:

Born: Liguria, Italy, 1930.

Studied: "Self-taught. Spent two years in Paris working with photographers, learning the art from them."

Influences: "Henri Cartier-Bresson, Willy Ronis, Edouard Boubat, Robert Doisneau."

High point: "The work I did in Great Britain, for the Touring Club in 1978. I loved the cars: I had an Austin and an MG."

Top tip: "Be curious. Look at everything, read everything – photography books but novels too."