photo essay – Page 2 – Musings of a Wandering Mind

April 26, 2013 —Categories: photo essay, Uncategorized

Delhi, Jaipur and Varanasi – Street Photography

I spent a lot of time travelling through Rajasthan, Agra and Varanasi in the winter of 2012-13. In some visits, the focus was all-round photography in the city and in some occasions we wandered the streets aimlessly, holding a camera. Here is a collection of images from the streets, taken during these and earlier visits.

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The narrow lanes adjoining the ghats in Varanasi offer unlimited street photography opportunities. A part of people’s lives here is lived outside four walls, and they are more often than not happy to share their way of life with strangers. Shops and working spaces in the lanes have an amazing diversity that is perhaps not seen anywhere else in the world in such a small place. Sweet shops, silk handlooms that work in very tiny spaces where you can barely step in, vendors on bicycles crisscrossing the tiny spaces, chai shops, guesthouses, grocery stores, lassi shops, statue-makers,… the list is endless.

A goddess in the making..

Aging wheels and an aging wall. Bicycles are a convenient tool for crisscrossing the incredibly busy traffic and constrained spaces of Varanasi.

Time to go to school, but friends have not yet arrived..

Shy, curious..

Shy, happy..

Red! lips, shirt and the wall..

Every second shop in Varanasi seems to specialize in some eatables. Savouries, tea, lassi,..

Smiles laced with sugary stuff..

While the diversity of Varanasi seems to be confined to narrow patch of a few kilometers length, the entire state opens up to myriad possibilities in Rajasthan. The old never seems to fade though the new continuously attempts to change the system. In Jaipur, the old city area still mirrors much of its past – its pink facades, turbans, big moustaches, old temples and monuments haven’t yet lost there space to tall glass facades.

Life outside the famous Hawa Mahal, Jaipur. The means of mobility may have changed, but the commotion we see today is perhaps the same that queens witnessed from the windows of Hawa Mahal once.

Undecided! Do I smile.. or not? A hardware shop in Jaipur’s old city.

The scooters, once believed to be extinct! Now, the old ones are being brought back on the road and new releases are coming out from factories as well. A case of classics. Photographed somewhere not too faraway from the hardware shop above.

Jaipur’s fetish with pigeons may not be as legendary as its forts and palaces. But it should be. Everyone, everywhere wants to feed them and see them proliferate.

Somewhere on the way from Jaipur to Agra, mud pots still rule over steel utensils.

..and the good old tailors are preferred over ready-to-wear stuff.

Delhi’s Chandni Chowk is another area where, similar to Varanasi, a small place is home to amazing diversity. Ever heard of anything you wanted that is not available in Chandni Chowk?

A scrap yard.. Everything can be recycled.

March 14, 2013 —Categories: bangalore, karnataka, photo essay, Uncategorized

Hampi – Morning Landscapes

I usually make two visits to Hampi every year. If there is one thing that I necessarily look forward to during every visit, it is the climb to Matanga Parvata to watch sunrise over the landscapes of this ancient city.

Matanga is perhaps the tallest hill in Hampi, on the right bank of Tungabhadra River. From the vantage point on the top, the sun rising over a misty landscape during the winter months highlights a wave of ridges that line up the eastern sky. As the big blob of light moves well above the hills, the golden lights sparkle on the smooth surface of the boulders littering the landscape. Tungabhadra shines in the skylight, with occasional coracles moving up and down on its calm surface.

The steep fall of Matanga towards the east offers a bird’s-eye view of Achutaraya Temple right below and an uninterrupted view of the sunrise above. On the western side of the hill, the tall spire of Virupaksha Temple appears to challenge Matanga in its height. All around, remains of the erstwhile Vijayanagar Kingdom – Vijaya Vithala Temple, Krishna Temple, Lotus Mahal and several mantapas offer insights to the city’s past.

A little downstream, on the other side of the river, is Anjanadri Hill – a place of many legends. While Hampi’s hills are often credited to be the place where the kingdom of monkeys from Ramayana once existed, Anjanadri is known as the place where Hanumantha was born. The hill now houses a hoard of monkeys that usually settle around an Anjaneya Temple, as if to prove a point.

While Matanga is the highest point on the right bank, the Anjanadri probably takes the honour on the left bank. Near the base of Anjanadri, the river takes a steep turn from its northwardly flow to east, which allows a line-of-the-river view of sunrise from the hill top. In the winter months, the morning landscapes over the river appear bathed in gold – a spectacle that stays in the heart as permanently as it does in the camera.

February 13, 2013 —Categories: photo essay

Jantar Mantar, Delhi

In the first week of January, I had a chance to join a half-day photography session with master photographer Ravi Dhingra, along with a select group of four more photographers from different parts of the country. The session was organized by Tamron India. Here is a collection of images made during the session. All photographs are made using a Tamron 24-70 f/2.8 VC lens.