The ride on the motorcycle, a converted Yamaha RX100, was a great feeling, as usual, a slow ride with no helmet.  With the warm dusty breeze on my face as I rode along, I reached the rocky terrain at the slopes of Gwalior Fort.

The local Jain community has worked wonders around the monument, having cleaned and landscaped the whole area.  Gardens have sprung up around the base of the Fort, with walls built to harvest rainwater, to irrigate the trees that have been planted.  The area is very clean, quite a contrast to what I had seen before.   I also had to take off my shoes as the community deems it to be a religious holy place.  So, I walked up the small but arduous climb barefoot on the path, landscaped with rough cut stones and cement.  My feet were burning as I stepped on the stones but happily, I climbed to the monument, in anticipation of photographing the beautiful sculptures.

As I reached the monument, I was impressed.  The statues have been cleaned and well-maintained.  There are twenty six statues of Jain Tirthankars in various upright and seated positions.  There is a mention of the monuments being built around 1424 a.d. under the reign of Tomar King Dungar Singh in an inscription in one of the caves.  Built between 1398-1536 by kings of Tomar dynasty, these are quite a spectacle to behold.

Ek Patthar ki baori is in the first cave, a water reservoir carved out of a single stone.  Honey bees swarmed around as I peeked into the locked baori.  As I photographed the details of the statues, a group of pilgrims came up to pray.  I quickly took a couple of photos to show the scale of the statues.

The largest idol of Bhagwan Parshwanath seated on a Lotus is the largest single stone carved statue in the world.  It is 47 feet high and 30 feet wide and extremely difficult to photograph in its entirety.  More on this later…

Here is a photograph of the row of statues as seen from an opening in the rock…

]]> http://www.naharas.com/blog/2009/03/gopachal-parvat-gwalior-fort-ek-patthar-ki-baori/feed/ 2 http://www.naharas.com/blog/2008/10/innocence-in-rain/ http://www.naharas.com/blog/2008/10/innocence-in-rain/#comments Wed, 08 Oct 2008 07:12:13 +0000 Nitish http://www.naharas.com/blog/?p=75

Splashing in the puddles
rain drops dance
off the red umbrella
It’s time to float
my paper boat
Notes of innocence
waft in the air
the spirits
play a rain-song
as two little kids
marvel at the skies

These photos are from a dance performance called “Tale of a Tree” performed by the talented dancers from Shiri Dance Company.  I love the theatrical lighting on the dancers. All these photos are shot handheld without flash.

(“Dilemma” featuring Kriti Achia of Shiri Dance Company)

(“Love Dance” featuring Preeti Sunderajan of Shiri Dance company)

We visited Astachal with the statue of Mahatma Gandhi, the young eucalyptus tree and remembered looking at the old ramparts of the fort in the background as the sun went down over the hills beyond the fort walls. I remembered Mr Chatterjee with reverberations of his voice as he sang – “surya ast ho gaya..gagan mast ho gaya…pag pag hum gaate chalein…aha gaate…aha gaate” (The sun has gone down…the sky is rosy and ecstastic..we are singing with every step…”). It looked just the same but there were no boys, no roll-call and no school astachal this evening.

Also, I finally got to see the light and sound show in the vicinity of the beautiful Man-mandir built by Raja Man Singh. As the deep voice of Amitabh Bachchan started the narration of the chequered history of this famous fortress at Gwalior, multicolored lights spot-lighted the historical buildings around the area one by one as the sound-bytes changed.
A mild winter breeze blew as I sat on the edge of the wall, trying to keep my camera steady and wishing I had brought my tripod with me. I was under the impression that photography with-or-without flash was not allowed. The lights of the Gwalior city below, twinkling like stars, winked telling me that I will be back again.

In Dec 2004, I was in Bangalore on an assignment. It was the last evening of Bangalore Habba ’04 at the Palace grounds. A grand stage was set in front of the majestic Bangalore Palace. Thanks to Inayat, I was able to photograph a spirited dance performance by Nirupama-Rajendra and Abhinava Ensemble. All the photos in this post are from that performance.

I have been thinking of putting up a portfolio of dance photography on my website. Over the past two years, I’ve photographed quite many dance performances but I have just not been able to share the pictures on the web. Slowly, I am gleaning pictures from those performances.

Have you seen the studio photography of RJ Muna? About two and a half years back, I saw his dance photography. Even though those were studio images, my heart yearned to shoot dance performances. His images inspired me to shoot dance.

Photographing dance performances is fun and challenging as well. One has to shoot without flash, have fast film speed, an arsenal of fast lenses and like everything, you learn to anticipate movements and shoot on instinct.

Long back, I read somewhere -
“Work like You don’t need the money.
Love like You’ve never been hurt.
Dance like nobody’s watching.”

Maybe, I should add to this -
“Photograph something like you’ve never seen it before.”