January 2005, Hyderabad.

January 2005, Hyderabad.

Today India celebrates the 60th anniversary of her independence from British rule. It is a time to celebrate, reminisce, take stock and of course look forward. As The Guardian put it succintly, “India is the best place in the world to be born right now”. Indeed.

January 2005, Hyderabad.

Something from HCU or more properly, University of Hyderabad, my old alma mater.

March 2005, London.

June 2005, Berlin.

The cupola inside the Norman Foster designed dome on top of the Reichstag, which houses the German parliament.

February 2005, Hyderabad.

An art installation at the State Art Gallery by an artist whose name I cannot recall. The gallery had been recently opened then and is housed in a building made up of assorted design elements. It was as if the architect was trying to put in everything he had learnt in architecture school. But the whole experience was rather interesting from a photographic p.o.v. The outdoor gallery cafe has an amazing view, perfect for having a cup of coffee in the evening and watch the sunset. The gallery mostly exhibits modern art but ironically it does not even seem to have a presence on the net! In addition, although the gallery was built at great expense, like most government galleries/museums in India it was languishing in a state of semi-obscurity. When I visited it with a friend, I think we were the only two visitors in the whole building! There was not even any basic security for some of the art installations and paintings. I hope the situation has changed now and more people in Hyderabad know about its existence. I also hope they take better care of whatever art they put on display there as it is a nice place to check out the results of the contemporary art scene in India.

January 2005, Bangalore.

This is the 100th photo on this photoblog so I thought I’d do something different today. This was taken by a friend of mine almost a year ago when I was in India. The person in the photo, if in case you have not guessed already, is me. This photo is the closest in spirit to the title of this photoblog (as well to the title of my home page on the domain). I shall let you make your own interpretations of that last sentence. The photo is, of course, heavily post-processed. Nothing special, almost everything was done using the simple filters and effects available in Picasa by me.

Another trawl through my archives. This one is from quite a while back, from my last trip to India to be exact. This was shot at the same place and time as the one here. However, in this case, I did not do much post-processing.

Evening falls over the campus of the University of Hyderabad, India, my old alma mater. I fell in love with its campus, especially with the huge rocks and the forms they took. Each shape had a different story to tell. Someday soon I’ll go back and record those stories with my camera.