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Six Picks: highlights from India

21 Saturday Jan 2017

Posted by Tim Bird in Golden Triangle, India, photography, travel photography

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agra, Amritsar, Assam, darjeeling, Delhi, Golden Temple, himalayas, India, islamd, jama masjid, Kanchenjunga, mamallapuram, mountains, photography, religion, Sikh, Taj Mahal, travel, travel photography

I travel a lot but I find myself returning to India more and more. For a photographer there is nowhere more rewarding. There are surprises, some small and quirky, some funny or tragic, some vast and majestic, around every corner.

Recently I have been organizing some of my best material, compiling a single gallery of highlights from the many visits I have made over the last decade or so. It made me appreciate the distances I have covered and the variety contained in this extraordinary continent, in which the mountainous regions of the north, for example, are as different from the tropical jungles of the south as Norway is from Spain. There are common threads running through India, of history and culture, but the landscapes and traditions vary immensely from one area to another.

So far I have added well over 1,000 images to my India gallery, which is on my website at this link:

http://timbirdphotography.photoshelter.com/gallery/India/G0000irlXmGr5Dyg/

I still have to add several hundred more images, from places like Varanasi, Srinagar in Kashmir, Haridwar and Mumbai, and complete the inclusion of key words and other info, so it’s a work in progress. I’m well on my way to making it one of the most comprehensive single galleries of photographs from India available anywhere.

Meanwhile, here are a few samples:

kanchenjunga

The peak of Kanchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world, illuminated at sunrise as seen from Darjeeling in Assam. The peak itself is across the border in Nepal but the mountain is a precious cultural icon to Indians, too. 

mamallapuram2

Fishermen on the beach at Mamallapuram. This small town, on the coast of the Bay of Bengal between Chennai and Pondicherry, is famous for its ancient temple carvings, but I spent more time photographing the fishermen early in the morning and in the evening than looking at the carvings.

jama-masjid-mosque

The Jama Masjid mosque in Old Delhi is reckoned to be the biggest place of Muslim worship in South Asia and was built under the rule of the 17th century Mughul emperor, Shah Jahan.

subrata

At its most colourful, there is no more dazzling country on the planet than India. This is my friend Subrata at her wedding in the state of Assam in the northeast. I wanted to photograph her all day, she looked so stunning. Sorry, Subrata!

amritsar-punjab-golden-temple

A Sikh pilgrim at the Golden Temple in Amritsar. 

india-agra-taj-mahal

Like the Golden Temple, the Taj Mahal at Agra lives up to the hype. The cool marble changes shade and mood during the day and is especially mysterious in early morning mist and dazzling in the late afternoon.

I hope you enjoyed this quick tour of India and introduction to my photos. If you are interested in taking advantage of my considerable photo resources from India, please get in touch through my website at www.timbirdphotography.com  And of course, I would be delighted if you follow this occasional blog. Thanks for dropping in!

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Six picks: the Theyyam in northern Kerala

22 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by Tim Bird in India, photography, travel photography

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culture, Fujifilm, Fujifilm X-series, India, Kerala, photography, religion, ritual, Theyyam, tradition, travel

A lamentably occasional photo blog in which I share some samples from my archives at www.timbirdphotography.com .

Did you miss me? I’ve been away from here for far too long but I’ve had lots of adventures with my camera while I’ve been away. I don’t have a good excuse for not posting for a while apart from other creative distractions going on – more news of those to come. I shall try to make up for lost time in the coming weeks with some photo selections that I hope you’ll enjoy.

I’ve been sifting through my archives and amazing myself at all the extraordinary things I’ve seen and the places I’ve visited since the last time I posted anything. Top of my list is the Theyyam ritual ‘performance’, for want of a better word, which you’ll only find in the northern part of the Indian state of Kerala. This is very much a living tradition, a ritual of great significance to local people, not just staged for tourists. There are often several Theyyams being performed each night during the winter season at shrines, many of them in remote villages. Theyyams can continue through the course of a night from dusk to dawn, and sometimes even longer.

An important part of the ritual is the preparation, in which intricate make-up and elaborate costumes are applied to the ‘actors’, whose aim over the course of the enactment is to actually become the deity that they represent, not just play its part. The trance into which they attempt to enter is induced to the accompaniment of frenetic drumming. Only men and boys are permitted to represent the characters, and only members of the Dalit or low-caste community are allowed to serve as actors. It is a rare case of Dalits being held traditionally in great respect by members of higher castes.

I stayed near the small fishing town of Kannur and attended three different Theyyams during my visit.

theyyamblog-1680

Making up is very hard to do: face and body decorations preceding the Theyyam can take several hours and is a highly skilled art form in itself.

theyyamblog-1727

After make-up, dressing up. Costumes are very colourful, and very heavy.

theyyamblog-9435-2

A Theyyam character (there are hundreds of them) ready to ‘perform’.

theyyamblog-0118

The character ‘actors’ need plenty of stamina.

theyyamblog-1831

Some Theyyams involve dancing and the acting out of ritual scenes.

theyyamblog-1880

Assistants provide support as the characters ‘become’ the deities they represent.

If you’d like to see more of my Theyyam photos, click here to visit a gallery on my website.

All photos produced with Fujifilm X-Series cameras and Fujinon lenses.

Please follow this blog and watch out for the next edition!

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Six picks: A free lunch in Amritsar

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by Tim Bird in Amritsar, Golden Triangle, India, Punjab, religion

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Amritsar, food, Golden Temple, India, Punjab, religion, Sikh, tradition

Six images from my alarmingly expanding archives: visit my website at www.timbirdphotography.com

India is full of surprises. Just when you think the whole place is falling apart and there is no concern for order of any kind, you come across startling examples of method in the madness. Amritsar was my latest example of this.

It’s as polluted as any city in India, more polluted than most, and the litter-strewn roads appear to be falling apart. An unhealthy haze hangs over everything. Yet when you enter the main compound of the Golden Temple, the Harmandir Sahib, you are immediately enchanted by a sense of calm and almost pristine cleanliness of a kind almost unknown on the daily outward face of India.

This is the centre of the Sikh religion, a hybrid mix of Hinduism and Islam founded by the Guru Nanak in the 15th century. The original holy book of the Sikhs, the Guru Grath Sahib, is housed in the main shrine opposite the dazzling Temple, itself positioned in the middle of a ‘tank’ or artificial pool approached along a canopied marble causeway, rumoured to have healing powers for those who brave its chilly water. It’s a very gentle place, where verses from the holy book are chanted from loudspeakers, live ensembles of traditional musicians perform, and the tall bearded Sikh guards quietly ensure that etiquette is observed, like gentle bouncers.

The Golden Temple is well documented and photographed – understandably. It is an extraordinarily beautiful apparition. Less well documented is the refectory, the ‘langar’ or meal hall, where pilgrims and infidel foreign guests such as myself can sit cross-legged on the floor and eat little feasts of dal, sweet rice pudding and roti. The all-welcoming open restaurant is symbolic of the open nature of Sikhism, which shuns the caste system of its cousin Hinduism, for example.

I wandered into the huge kitchens quite unchallenged, greeted only with smiles and welcoming gestures – a dreamland for photographers accustomed to stern and grudging looks of admonishment. Vast vats of dal steamed away, the roti machine continued on its daily production of 60,000 pieces of bread, the volunteer dishwashers lined up to do their bit over troughs filled with clanking metal thali plates. And everything proceeding with the kind of clockwork efficiency that would put the Swiss to shame.

Here are six images from my very memorable visit. Since other aspects of India, such as its sometimes dodgy wifi, are holding true to form as I post this, the pictures might not appear in any logical order at first, but I hope you get the idea!refectory6 refectory5 refectory4 refectory3 refectory2 refectory1

If you’ve enjoyed your visit, please do follow and return! And take a look at my website at www.timbirdphotography.com

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Six Picks: the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris

17 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by Tim Bird in culture, France, music, Paris, Travel, travel photography

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cemetery, Chopin, Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Paris, Père Lachaise Cemetery, Piaf, religion

Six Picks – a photo blog drawn from my archives, much of which is on show at www.timbirdphotography.com

Paris and religion are this week’s buzzwords, so it seems like as good (or bad) a time as any to combine them in the symbols of the Père Lachaise Cemetery in the French capital, a wonderfully atmospheric place of burial and the resting place for the likes of Jim Morrison (probably), Oscar Wilde, Édith Piaf and Frédéric François Chopin, to name just a few of the celebrities, in addition to many other less well-known souls.

The cemetery is near Boulevard Menilmontant and was opened in 1804 on the site of a Jesuit retreat. It’s at turns touching, scary and poignant, very large and rambling,and well worth a visit.

These pictures were made using my previous Canon camera using a gimmicky little gadget called a Lens Baby that gives the spooky blurred effect.

20110628-IMG_9735

I have heard Oscar's memorial has been sealed off to prevent his many devotees from planting their lipstick on it.

I have heard Oscar’s memorial has been sealed off to prevent his many devotees from planting their lipstick on it.

A disturbing and hard-hitting memorial to French Jews who perished in the death camps of the Second World War.

A disturbing and hard-hitting memorial to French Jews who perished in the death camps of the Second World War.

Vampires?

Vampires?

She had no regrets.

She had no regrets.

Very sad.

Very sad.

Thank you for visiting – please drop in again. Find me also on Instagram as Indifreak and on Twitter as @BirdTimothy

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