India

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First of all, Happy New Year my dear friends, all the best for 2010!

I am just back from a short trip to India. I will start with an iconic landmark, the Taj Mahal, shot across the Yamuna River at sunrise. I was not expecting that much fog though! The Taj is barely visible on the original shot, thanks to Photoshop for somehow saving that shot!

Incredible !ndia it is! ;-)

India Set

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Veerabhadra Temple, Hampi, Karnataka, India

Tea Garden Plant in Suryanelli, Jeep Journey from Kolukkumalai Mountain Hut to Munnar, Munnar, Kerala, India

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-Winston Churchill.

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This is the Lotus temple, one of the landmark buildings of New Delhi, India. It is a Baha’i House of Worship completed in 1986. Notable for its flowerlike shape, it serves as the Mother Temple of the Indian subcontinent and has become a prominent attraction in the city. The Lotus Temple has won numerous architectural awards and been featured in hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles.

Like all other Baha’i Houses of Worship, the Lotus Temple is open to all regardless of religion, or any other distinction, as emphasized in Baha’i texts. The Baha’i laws emphasize that the spirit of the House of Worship be that it is a gathering place where people of all religions may worship God without denominational restrictions. The Baha’i laws also stipulate that only the holy scriptures of the Baha’i Faith and other religions can be read or chanted inside in any language; while readings and prayers can be set to music by choirs, no musical instruments can be played inside. Furthermore no sermons can be delivered, and there can be no ritualistic ceremonies practiced.

The architect was an Iranian, who now lives in Canada, named Fariborz Sahba. He was approached in 1976 to design it and later oversaw its construction. The structural design was undertaken by the UK firm Flint and Neill. The major part of the funds needed to buy this land was donated by Ardishír Rustampúr of Hyderabad, who gave his entire life savings for this purpose in 1953. A portion of construction budget was saved and used to build a greenhouse to study indigenous plants and flowers that would be appropriate for use on the site.

I first visited this temple in 2005 and was fascinated by both the faith and the incredible simplicity of this building and the rituals associated by them. Finally I had a chance to visit the building and get a shot without the tourists.

Palace illumination of Mysore Palace, Mysore, Karnataka, India

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Red Fort, New Delhi.

Thanks to my friend Babul Bhatt for spending the whole day with me and my wife, and taking us to several places in New Delhi.

My next post will be a street shot from the famous Chandni Chowk district. A premiere on my photo stream! ;-)

Technical note: 5 exposures handheld tone-mapped (Photomatix) HDR.

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View of Courtesan's Street from Veerabhadra Temple, Hampi, Karnataka, India

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Back to my India shots!

Safdarjung's Tomb is a garden tomb in a marble mausoleum in Delhi. It was built in 1754.

5 exposures (shot handheld) Digital Blending. I tried HDR tone-mapping with Photomatix first but the result was totally useless, too much noise, so I decided to manually blend it, which was quite easy to do actually.

India Set | Digital Blending Set

Chandrashekara Temple, Hampi, Karnataka, India

• Jim Rohn.

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The wonderful Kannan Devan hills of Munnar, Kerala. These are the tea plantations which the western Ghats of India are famous for. Even though this area is close to the Equator and generally have a tropical climate the hills tend to be cool and crisp because of the altitude. This makes the hills stations of Kerala a hot spot of tourist activity as warm tropical beaches are only about 70 miles away.

Hope you all like this shot, thanks for visiting..

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• Thomas Paine.

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Sorry for being absent from flickr for a while, due to some unforeseen complications at work I was forced to take a quick trip back to India. Even though I had plans for extensive photo trips across the country, reality intervened and I had to settle for just one trip.

This is a pano shot I made at Munnar, which translates to three rivers, is a popular hill station in the south western state of Kerala. Its known for tea and spices like cardamom and is also home of the tallest peak in India outside of the Himalayas. This shot was taken close to sunset when the setting sun gave the thick fog a tobacco glow. Thanks for visiting hope everyone likes the shot..

Brihadisvara Temple, Gangai Konda Cholapuram, Tamil Nadu, India

Palace illumination of Mysore Palace East Gate, Mysore, Karnataka, India

Kailasanathar Temple, Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu, India

View from Veerabhadra Temple, Hampi, Karnataka, India

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Devikulam Tea Plant Garden, Taking Jeep from Muunhar to Kolukkumalai Mountain Hut, Munnar, Kerala, India