I was walking in this small village adjoining Tonle Sap Lake, where I made this image.
The village was a long line of houses on either side of a unmetalled road. The road was a raised mud-bank, while the houses were built on stilts to keep the water out during the high season. This place also served as a gateway to several other dwellings that are built fully over water, without road access. These monks were on their way to one such place on Tonle Sap Lake. They were getting in to boat driven by the boatman, but it rook a bit hop,skip and jump over other boats to get there.
A version of this story was published in Vara, the inflight magazine of Maldivian Airline.
I went to Trivandrum with an open mind to discover the city. I saw under the urban masquerade, the essence of what Kerala is known for – long beaches, coconut groves, unlimited Ayurveda and heritage buildings with a touch of history.
Besides the ubiquitous state-sponsored signs that welcome every visitor to the “God’s Own Country,” it would be hard to set Trivandram apart from any other city at its first sight. The signs of a true country of God, however, begins showing up on getting away from the wide arterial roads, when the city reveals itself as a leafy and charming seaside town disguised under the hood of an urban expanse.
Padmanabhaswamy Temple
Trivandrum’s large buildings and busy traffic is limited to the main MG Road that runs through its commercial center. Slip into the smaller streets leading out from here and it morphs into a quiet old place, more like a village where houses with spacious gardens, tall coconut trees and shaded empty roads replace the rush hour of the main street.
I saw this thick assembly of prayer flags at a small temple in rural Bhutan. My first instinct was to walk into them and photograph them with the camera facing up.
I used my phone camera to make this image. Sometimes when you know what you are shooting and the subjects are not complex, it doesn’t matter what equipment you have. Nonetheless, I do not subscribe to the generally outspoken idea that your equipment doesn’t matter at all in making good images. Good equipment that can handle challenging conditions can be crucial to bring a photographer’s idea into life.
