Tag Archives: travel

Hazy Crazy Days of Lathmar Holi

14 Friday Mar 2025

Posted by in festival, India, Travel, travel photography

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In March 2016 I spent unforgettable – and very colourful – days around the town of Barsanar in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh to immerse myself in the special Holi celebrations that take place there.

Lathmar Holi is celebrated in the towns of Barsana and Nandgaon, some days before the main Holi festival in the rest of India. During the celebrations, women hit men with sticks, a tradition based on the Hindu legend in which Krishna (supposedly born nearby) threw colours at women and the women shooed him away, beating him with sticks. At a stretch, it might be seen as a symbolic ceremonious enactment of women’s rights, since it’s the men who get beaten.

Due to some typically Indian travel confusion, I missed the stick hitting ‘play’ part of the festival, but I more than made up for that by being present at the temples during the extreme colour-throwing proceedings, as well as submersion in the general local ambience. Without actively intending to (honest!) I probably inhaled a fair amount of the suspiciously scented smoke hovering around the proceedings.

Photo tips for anyone attending Holi celebrations in India: Things get a little wild and there’s no point politely or even impolitely asking the locals not to throw any coloured paint or powder in direction – it will probably only goad them into throwing even more colours at you. So wear your grubbiest tattiest clothes, wear a hat, and wrap your camera in a plastic bag, sealed with an elastic band , but with the front of the lend poking out and covered with an affordable protector filter. Try to make your camera settings before sealing the camera, working out a versatile compromise for shutter speed and aperture. It could even be one of those occasions when setting everything to Auto makes perfect sense!

Here’s a gallery of images from my Lathmar Holi adventures.

2024: celebrating a year of brilliant auroras

15 Sunday Dec 2024

Posted by in Arctic travel, aurora borealis, Finland, lapland, northern lights, photography, Travel, travel photography

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2024 was a vintage year for Northern Lights viewing and photography.

Looking back over my photo folders from the various adventures of the past year, one phenomenon jumps out from everything else: the amazing aurora borealis shows that I was lucky enough, like many other stargazers this year, to witness over the course of 2024. We’ve reached the peak of the 11 year solar cycle when the aurora – in this part of the world, otherwise known as the Northern Lights – is especially active, and that should continue into 2025. It was even clearly visible in southern Finland, in and around Helsinki where I live, on a number of occasions – not something we can take for granted with the amount of development and subsequent light pollution in the capital area. On my annual autumn trip to Sapmi – also known as Lapland – my timing was brilliant, with three clear nights out of four and increasingly intense shows on each night.

The aurora is triggered by the collision of solar wind’s protons and electrons, released by flares on the surface of the Sun and directed towards the polar regions by the Earth’s magnetic fields. The colours depend on the concentration of gas molecules with which the particles collide. Green is the most common colour, and also the easiest for the human eye to register, and results from the collision with oxygen at relatively low altitudes, from about 60 to 180 miles. Red displays occur at higher altitudes where oxygen is more rarified. Less common blue and purple auroras are caused by a collision with nitrogen at up to about 60 miles. 

Myths and legends

So much for the science. The myths and legends, conceived long before any prosaic and scientifically devised theories were applied, are almost easier to believe, and much more fun. The Finnish name for the Northern Lights, revontulet, which translates as ‘fox’s fires’, derives from the idea, as plausible as any when they evolved, that the apparition was caused by sparks set off when the tails of scampering foxes brushed the fells. Believing the aurora to be a bad omen, the indigenous Sámi were reluctant to converse about the aurora, believing them to be the souls of the departed, capable of scooping the living into the sky. Other Arctic tribes were similarly in awe, but attributed more benign functions to the aurora, believing them to be a guiding light for the deceased on their way to a well-illuminated afterlife. If I had been alive in a pre-science Lapland, I like to think my own proposal might have gained some traction, that the Northern Lights are orchestrated at the whim of an invisible giant – a specially designated auroral god, perhaps – using a series of mystical hand gestures.

Anyway, I thought I’d post a big selection of my best aurora moments over the course of the 2024 as a celebration as the turn of the year approaches. I hope you enjoy the show! The first block of images are from my September trip to the village of Sevettijärvi in Lapland, way above the Arctic Circle in northern Finland.

The following selection were all captured in the locality of our Helsinki home, on the northern edge of the city, in the Central Park area and close to the River Vantaa at the end of our road, in early May and August. It’s very rare that we get such vivid displays, although the occasional faint flicker isn’t so unusual.

Kreenholm – a post-industrial, captivating wilderness

29 Monday Jan 2024

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Images from the enormous, derelict textile factory of Kreenholm in the Estonian city of Narva, directly on the border with Russia. An ongoing project consisting of an exploration in photos of this extraordinary deserted factory.

The island of Kreenholm is in the river marking the boundary between Narva in Estonia and Ivangorod in Russia. The factory premises include a labyrinth of production halls that were once filled with weaving looms and spinning machines, employing thousands of people. Eventually becoming one of the world’s biggest textile mills, it was founded in 1856 by German industrialist Ludwig Knoop. During the Soviet era, it accounted for about 8% of the USSR’s total textile production. After Estonian Independence in 1991, the factory continue to operate but in 2008 the last loom was turned off, with sewing and finishing operations closing down two years later. It’s been disused and derelict ever since, populated by birds, mice and foxes.

The reservoir serving the water needs of both bordering countries is to the east of the factory, leading to the giant Lake Peipsi. In the spring, the damn between river and reservoir is opened and spectacular rapids tumble down towards the border crossings between the two towns.

Concerts have been held in the factory courtyards, and in a more peaceful era, when cross-border visits would be easier and more friendly, the massive investment required to renovate and develop the area might be realised. Meanwhile, the buildings stand eerily empty but full of architectural surprises, including the ornate crowns of the cast pillars still holding up the ceilings in the production halls. It’s a fairly niche tourism attraction, but visitors are always astonished at the scale and details of the complex. These range from those ornate pillars to alcoholic drink labels and Hollywood pinups, the remains of worker relaxation, on the walls, themselves peeling in pastel flakes of fading paint. I was astonished myself when I visited for the first time in spring 2023 (luckily coinciding with the dramatic release of the water to feed those rapids), and on my second visit in January 2024 when everything was covered by a sparkling sheen of frost and the rapids were frozen over.

Near the entrance there’s a memorial, screened by shrubs and bushes that are gradually reclaiming the red-brick and sand stone surroundings, commemorating a strike by women workers in 1872.

These images will be the eventually expanding result of various visits.

The factory is not generally open – you need to arrange a visit. If you happen to visit Narva and you want to visit Kreenholm, you can make an appointment for a tour through the Narva Museum.

Happy birthday Tikau

18 Tuesday Sep 2018

Posted by in India, photography, rural India, Travel

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In November 2011 I sat in a car loaded with luggage and five ladies from Kolkata airport to the town of Balasore in the Indian state of Odisha (also called Orissa). Of those ladies, three were Finnish and two were Indian and we were on our way to visit a small, remote and very poor village in the flat Odisha countryside. The village was (still is) a Dalit, otherwise known as ‘Untouchable’ community, right on the bottom rung of the Indian social and economic ladder.

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Kolkata airport – Ea Söderberg, Taina Snellman and Linda Lehto.

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A very crowded car.

The Finnish girls were members of an NGO, Tikau Share (Tikau means ‘durable’), that was developing the artisan skills of the villagers, especially the women, so that they could sell their bamboo design handicrafts via the Tikau shop in Helsinki. The charity also donated clothes and toys and blankets, and our car was loaded with extra cases of odds and ends. There was barely room to breathe, but I managed to get the seat in the front with Ganesh, the Elephant God, whose job it is in Indian vehicles to remove obstacles to travel on the chaotic and often very bumpy road ahead.

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The airline, Finnair, had donated extra kilos so we could carry all this stuff to India. I was going to write an article about the project for the Finnair magazine Blue Wings.

The next two weeks were an inspiring, life-changing event for me and I returned to Finland having made three great friends in those Finnish girls, who included Taina Snellman, the founder of Tikau, a female pied-piper who casts a charm over everyone she meets, luring them unsuspectingly and inescapably into the Tikau camp. I’ve returned to India and that village many times since, and I made a multimedia documentary, Outcastes, about the village in Odisha. We’ve held exhibitions on the theme of Design Helps, we’ve got sick and got well again, there have been romances and weddings, there have been adventures…

This year Tikau/Tikau Share celebrates its tenth anniversary, and the villagers have increased their confidence, their self-sufficiency and resourcefulness while Tikau has continued to sell their products and those of other Indian artisans. I was checking through my photos from that first visit – I have hundreds more from subsequent visits -and thought this would be a good time to shake them free of digital dust and reveal them to the world again. So here’s a selection (yes, this is meant to be Six Images, but who’s really counting):

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My name is Tim, I’m a Facebook-aholic

12 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by in addiction, social media, travel photography, Uncategorized

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I gave up smoking in the early 90s. I decided that changes of scene and routine would be the best circumstances in which to make the break, and my companion, now my wife, also reckoned this would be a good plan. So we decided that a trip to Singapore and Bali would be a good time to kick the habit. We had been upgraded to Business Class (those were the days) so we sat in the Lounge at Helsinki Airport waiting for our flight to Singapore to start boarding. We had bought one last ceremonious pack of cigarettes (yes, kids, you could smoke in airport lounges in those days) and sat puffing away over our gins and tonics.

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An Indian pilgrim at a festival in Allahabad lights up for the first smoke of the day. But has he checked his Facebook yet?

The time to board arrived. There were maybe a dozen cigarettes left in the packet. Solemnly, we crumpled up the pack, making its contents unsmokeable, and gathered our bags to make our way to the plane. This was the allotted time at which we had decided to quit. Then came the announcement: a delay of 40 minutes. Damn. We could have smoked at least four more cigarettes each in that time.

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Temple offerings in Ubud, Bali. Notice the cigarette in one of the baskets. Even the Gods like a ciggy.

I haven’t smoked another cigarette since. It was actually quite easy. I had tried many times before, aware that I was getting a reputation for smoking that special brand known as OP’s – Other People’s. This time I realized that I really wanted to give up and it wasn’t difficult. Sometimes I still lift a cigarette to my nose and inhale the scent of dry tobacco, finding it strangely pleasant. But I’m never tempted to light it. Sometimes I dream that I’m smoking too, but I never wake up reaching for a packet at my bedside.

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‘Giving up’ probably wouldn’t have been in the vocabulary of these smokers in Hanoi, Vietnam.

So I don’t think I have an addictive personality. I can go a whole week without a drink. Like most people of my age and circumstances, I dabbled with drugs in my youth, but I never tipped into the abyss, although I might have looked into it a couple of times. Until now tobacco was the most addictive drug I’ve ever sampled, and I managed to kick that instantly. But now I find myself facing a much deadlier addictive beast: Social Media.

If you share my addiction you’ll understand. The urge to look at my phone in the morning – before I have my breakfast, before I shower – to gorge on the Facebook ‘likes’ being offered to me, or to feel a deadly slump at their absence, must be familiar to many of you. Likewise the thrill at that throbbing red heart in my Instagram account.

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Delegates at a Helsinki start-up conference try to look important while actually liking silly videos on Facebook.

Largely, I blame Brexit and Trump. Both of them make me so angry that I need a way of venting my fury and receiving confirmation that my fury is shared. But I also blame my work, not because of the pressure it incurs, but because Social Media (or ‘Some’ as it’s now being called – oh dear) is the canal de choix for anyone involved in media production, especially if you’re freelance. A large part of my work is as a travel writer and photographer. So I get to boast about all the cool places I’m lucky enough to visit. It’s actually desirable for me to do this, so that people know that I ‘walk the talk’ in terms of travel. You’re not much of a travel writer/photographer if you never go anywhere, are you?

The conventional wisdom is that a presence on Social Media, whether Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Sprinkle or LumpedUp – OK, I invented the last two – is essential if you want to build and maintain the kind of visibility that converts to financial income. You don’t even exist without a presence on SM. Only a few brave souls are prepared to challenge this idea.

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Russian vodka in a St Petersburg store. If you had to give up Social Media or Social Drinking, which would you choose?

The knowledge that I am addicted means that I have a love-hate relationship with Social Media, especially with Facebook. It doesn’t stop me living an active and interesting life (and lets me brag about its best moments), but it’s like speaking in a parallel voice that I don’t always recognize. I find myself getting sucked into outraged political arguments with people I haven’t even met, for example, afterwards suffering from the kind of guilt that you feel after a night in a pub making a lot of noise and with the vague sense that you misbehaved in some way. Or am I the only one who knows what that’s like?

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A casino in Las Vegas. Those cynical designers of Facebook aimed to replicate the addiction of gambling. I wouldn’t bet against it.

Meanwhile, my dependence continues. And I am relying on yours to spread the word. So please feel more than free to share, tweet, re-tweet, post, re-post and like this blog to your (and my) heart’s content.

If you follow this blog you won’t have to keep looking at Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/timbirdphoto) to see when I’ve published a new one. And like a barman at happy hour, let me tempt you to visit my Instagram account at @tim_bird_photo

Yearning for Creative Stress© in Incredbial India

29 Sunday Oct 2017

Posted by in culture, culture shock, India, photography, Travel

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I’m going to India again. Why India? I go there several times a year and my friends and other people often ask me why. I pay my own way, so this isn’t some all-expenses-paid press junket. It’s usually not for a holiday, either. I love going to India, but it’s not a place in which I can honestly say I normally go to relax (although I hasten to add that there are places where this is more than perfectly possible).

So why the hell do I love going there? First of all, there is the incredible (did I spell that right?) visual variety, a feast for any obsessive photographer and writer such as myself, and the surprises that seem to wait around every corner. And it keeps you on your toes to discover, again and again, that a taxi driver might actually mean “No” when he says “Yes”, as in: “So you know this address, right?” “Yes, sir.” So why is he driving the wrong way (and sometimes against oncoming traffic) for half an hour, then calling his mate for directions? To describe just one example, familiar to many people almost as soon as they get off the plane at Delhi, bleary-eyed and gullible.

I am of the old fashioned, slightly perverse school of travel that says it’s fun and life-enhancing to be removed from your comfort zone. India does comfort zone-removal better than anywhere, unless you happen to be Indian, in which case it’s just normal. Arriving from Europe, you have to take a mental shift sideways or fight against the cultural flow. Either way, you are enriching your soul. In any case, that’s what I keep telling myself. In fact, I’ve just invented a name for it: Creative Stress©. Watch out for the self-help manual.

In India there seems to be a guru for everyone for every day of the week. I’ve been consulting my blog guru lately and I’ve been advised to inject some humour into these blogs. I have a lot of very good friends in India and I think – I hope – they won’t be offended if I tease them a bit with this selection of photos that illustrate some of the more amusing visual culture shocks I have encountered during my visits. If they want to get their revenge they only have to remember that I’m British, and these days that’s about as ridiculous as you can be.

And just to cover my tracks, I have to mention that Indian hospitality is of the first order. Indian friends are for life, not just for Diwali. So I keep returning happily to see them as well.

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Spotted in The Times of India, Mumbai edition, I’m not sure this needs any comment. I think all of us condemn bum blasts in public places.

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No, I don’t know what a Dliabetologist is either. Probably someone who treats ‘dliabetes’. Meanwhile, form a queue to put your mind at rest with Assistant Professor B. Shit.

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Those well-fermented drinks are collector’s items that date back to the days of the 16th century Mughal Empire.

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The slogan of the Indian Tourism Board is widely promoted by auto-rickshaw drivers. I think this sums it up. All my memories of Idnia are of incredbial experiences..

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On the border with Pakistan at Wagah, near Amritsar, I witnessed the surreal evening border-closing ceremony, at which the Indian army demonstrates its considerable sonic warfare capabilities. I kid you not.

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This guy’s tee-shirt is all the more alarming for the fact that he was wearing it at the site of the shrine of the Sufi Muslim saint, Nizamuddin, in Delhi. Sufis are known for the gentle, music-loving, celebratory nature of their brand of Islam. Either this fellow didn’t know the meaning of the slogan or he actually really did know I was going to be there. Probably the latter.

Lots more photos from all over India here, although not all as irreverent as those above:

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

Come and see me on Instagram too at @tim_bird_photo

Six Images: Six photos to check from the bucket-list

18 Wednesday Oct 2017

Posted by in bucket-list, travel photography, Uncategorized

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There are certain things you simply have to get shots of. As a travel photographer you can never exhaust the photographic possibilities of the world around you, whether it’s the people or the places or the natural phenomena. I know I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to tick off quite a few items on my photo bucket list. On the other hand, if you don’t go looking for those opportunities they’re not going to fall into your lap. So luck is only part of the story. You need to be at least a little bit adventurous and resourceful.

Here are six images of things I really wanted to photograph and managed to. Some of them, like the Northern Lights, I could happily photograph daily – or nightly – if I had the chance. But then I wouldn’t have time to shoot all the other amazing people and things I see on my travels.bucketlist-9397

Walking on water: I live in Finland and large parts of the Baltic Sea freeze every winter, although climate change is affecting the extent to which ice forms. But it’s still possible to walk on water – an enthralling experience. I shot this during a cruise on the Sampo icebreaker, converted to tourist use from the north-west port of Kemi.

http://www.visitkemi.fi/en/sampo

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2. An erupting volcano: Shooting an active volcano has always been an ambition. I went through a period of travelling throughout Central America peering into dramatically smoking craters, even glimpsing red hot lava just a few metres away. But I didn’t see a properly erupting volcano until I went to Sicily and the island of Stromboli, probably the most frequently and visibly active volcano in Europe. When I was there the lava spewed out every 20 minutes or so. This was shot from a ledge about half a kilometre from the eruption. Less intrepid volcano-watchers have the option of viewing more distantly but very comfortably from the terrace of a pizzeria further down! Or like my even more intrepid companion, trek for several hours almost right to the rim of the thing, where shooting has to be done at far greater speed.

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3. Wild tigers in India: The first time I tried this, I got one shot of a tiger’s head emerging from the bush and another of its tail disappearing into the undergrowth on the opposite side of the track! My second visit to the Bandhavgarh tiger reserve in the state of Madhya Pradesh was much more fruitful. This little family (minus Dad) came strolling along the track towards our jeep and passed within a few feet of us. A breath-holding moment.

Thanks to my hosts at http://junglemantrasafaris.com/ for helping me on this one.

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4. The Taj Mahal: This extraordinary building has a lot of hype to live up to as India’s most famous tourist destination – but it succeeds. It really is magnificent. It also is really crowded during the daytime, so get up early (getting up early is an essential thing for photographers to do if they want to get the most interesting light) and head across to the other side of the river just before sunrise. When I did this I was rewarded with this wonderful view of the marble domes wrapped in mist. The night before I had seen it in moonlight. Go out at different times, see the same places in a different light…

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5. The Northern Lights: The aurora borealis is without question – in my view at least – the most magical, transfixing and addictive spectacle on the planet. It reduces me to blubbering infancy every time. You can’t just see the Northern Lights once, you have to keep trying to see it again once you’ve seen it. It casts a spell. I still haven’t got what I think is the perfect shot and the alerts I have on my phone frustratingly let me know that activity is sometimes strong – even when the sky is covered in cloud! This shot was from a lakeside near Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland, almost bang on the Arctic Circle. Note the reflections on the water – this was taken in September before the lake was frozen and snow-covered. So you don’t need freezing temperatures but you do need clear skies.

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6. The Himalayan Mountains: This dawn shot of Kanchenjunga, the summit of which is in Nepal, was from Darjeeling in India. I love mountains, all the more for their rarity in Finland where I live! I remember waking in a village in Nepal on the Annapurna trail and parting the shutters on my guesthouse window and seeing the Annapurna range in this kind of light, shaking my room mate awake and telling him: “Juha, you have to see this!” Is there anyone who cannot be humbled and awestruck by a view of mountains?

That is my bucket list shortlist. If you have enjoyed this visit (and thanks for dropping by), do come again, and feel free to share, but contact me if you have something commercial in mind – copyright for all photos is mine, all mine. If you’d like to find out more about me and my photography, visit my website at www.timbirdphotography.com

I am also in Instagram at @tim_bird_photo

and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/timbirdtravelphoto/

Six Images: Mad about mountains

26 Tuesday Sep 2017

Posted by in mountains, Switzerland, travel photography, Uncategorized

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Time to revive my sadly neglected photo blog, formerly Six Picks, now rechristened Six Images, in which I present six themed photos – sometimes a few more if I am feeling especially generous – from my uncontrollably mushrooming archives. Visit my Instagram site at @tim_bird_photo for more regular postings, and my website at www.timbirdphotography.com – the home page features a ‘slide show’ portfolio of selected images.

I was inspired to kick-start the blog again by memories of a visit to the Swiss Alps, specifically the region dominated by the three mountains of Mönch, Eiger and Jungfrau. Living in Finland, we have to travel to see mountains although there are a few in northern Lapland. That’s OK, Finland has other charms (the climate not always being one them). But I do love a good mountain and I think that if I woke up to the view across the Lauterbrunnen Valley every day, I would never cease to be amazed by it. It doesn’t seem fair for some places to have more than their share of mountains. I thought I should show a few views to press the point home.

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The sheer sides of the Lauterbrunnen valley reflect spectacular morning sunlight. Waterfalls cascade down the cliff face.
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Another view along the valley from the Trümmelbach falls, towards the town of Lauterbrunnen.
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Outlying farms and cottages close to the town of Mürren, at the foot of the Schilthorn mountain. The Schilthorn Cableway takes you up from the valley to the Bond World museum at mountaintop Piz Gloria, where scenes from the Bond movie, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, were filmed. I wasn’t ready for wintery snow, nor temperatures of minus seven centigrade – in September, for goodness sake. But it was beautiful.
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Mönch, the smallest of the three peaks, glimpsed through the clouds from the blissfully traffic-free town of Mürren.
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OK, so it could be Eiger, it could be Jungfrau, but it’s magnificent anyway, especially in the magical light just before sunset.
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A night shot of the ridge of mountains further along the valley from Mürren. I spend an hour in the darkness here gazing at the Milky Way and making a few wishes on shooting stars (I’ll tell you only if they come true).

To see more of my pictures visit my website at www.timbirdphotography.com, or my Instagram site at @tim_bird_photo, and occasionally on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/timbirdtravelphoto/ and https://www.facebook.com/timbirdphoto .

Thanks for dropping by. Do follow the blog so you don’t miss future posts! And tell all your friends and families the good news – in fact, shout it to the mountains: Six Images is back!

Visit https://schilthorn.ch/en/Welcome to find out more about the local attractions and the Cableway.

Want a nice hotel to stay in? Here’s one:

http://alpenruh-muerren.ch/en/Offer/Willkommen

Six picks: Face to face with an Indian tiger

12 Wednesday Apr 2017

Posted by in travel photography, wildlife, wildlife

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I’ve just returned from India where I visited the Bandhavgarh National Park Tiger Reserve, as a guest of the delightful Junglemantra resort, right on the edge of the park’s buffer zone and close to the core area. The park is home to a great deal of wildlife including what is probably India’s highest concentration of wild tigers.

Hosts Sheilin and Rhea are effusively enthusiastic and very well-informed about the abundant wildlife – all sorts of birds, jackals, wild boar, leopards, spotted deer, sambar deer, monkeys, peacocks – on their doorstep. Sheilin is a keen wildlife photographer himself and was great company on the drives I took in the park.

The couple also do a lot of good NGO work in the nearby villages, where they arrange health clinics at the local school, for example. In their own words: “It is our policy to provide training and employment opportunities to local villages thereby reducing the dependence on the forest resources. We also support the local village school with books and teaching aids. At Junglemantra, we believe in sustainable eco-tourism, where tourism is for the forest and its denizens.”

My first evening started with a frenetic but exciting search in the dark for a tiger that had been feeding on a ‘kill’ a few hundred metres from the resort entrance! We didn’t find the tiger then, but I had some great sightings over the next few days of a mother and her three cubs. I was there during the pre-monsoon hot season, when the vegetation is dry and the animals make frequent visits to the watering holes in the park.

If you want to see tigers in India – and there are only a couple of thousand left – Bandhavgarh should be top of your list, and Junglemantra is hard to beat as a base – good food, comfortable bamboo huts, a nice lounge area, and expansive grounds that include a small lake frequented by lots of birds. Here are a few tiger shots to whet your appetite. .

If you’ve enjoyed your visit, do follow me and come back for more! Please remember, no reproduction of my photos without permission, but feel free to share the blog!

Thanks for dropping by!

Six Picks: highlights from India

21 Saturday Jan 2017

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

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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:

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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!

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A Sikh pilgrim at the Golden Temple in Amritsar. 

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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!