Seeing sights

There's a lot to see in Mumbai and here's a picture of someone doing their best to see a lot of it.

Faces on Oriental Buildings

I was taking a wander around the Fort area of Mumbai, one of my favourite spots for Gothic architecture.  I stopped off to say "hello" to the Flora Fountain.

Nearby, sits the impressive Oriental Buildings, originally a school and fully armed with spires, intricate carved borders and arched windows,

It has three carvings of Dead White Men which I zoomed in on to get a closer look.

The centre one looks Shakespearean but I have no idea, and can't find out, who the other two are.  Any ideas out there?

Camera experiment

I'm spending Diwali on a beach, relaxing and enjoying the break.  I still wake ridiculously early, 5am is the norm.  I decided to spend some of this time experimenting with slow shutter release and low light.  This is what I ended up with:

I'm quite pleased with the effect.

Beach Party Animals

Indian beaches are working beaches.

You'll find fisherfolk landing catches, cows grazing or just wandering and the local dogs marking out their territory. On the more tourist developed beaches you'll find hawker selling bedsheets, bangles and clothes.  Almost everywhere you'll find food and drinks on offer.

it's less likely that you'll find horses, but my beach of choice for Diwali has seven of them that happily mingle with the tourists and make the effort to appear at sunset for photo opportunities.

Cow Donation Box

At my local pharmacy this wonderful thing has appeared.  It's a cow and calf in a perspex box.  The cow is strewn with Gods and Sages and sporting a delightful earring and the best eyelashes I've ever seen.

I pushed aside the pouch of prunes and the jar of energy supplement, to add a few notes by way of a modeling fee.  I'm not entirely sure what I've donated to, cow care I think.  I couldn't read the script and was too bedazzled by the bovine beauty to think about photographing the words for later translation.

It's the prettiest cash cow I've ever seen.

On Three Wheeled Mobile Temples and Colourful Feet

On a quiet side street I heard music, chanting and tinkling bells and caught the aroma of incense.  Nothing unusual in India, but this time it was coming from a mobile, motorised shrine.  I hadn't been up close and personal to one before, it was delightful.

I dropped a few rupees in by way of thanks for a cheering sight, sound and smell.

It was only after looking at the picture closely, that I fully realised how striking the sari on the woman was.  I've finally become accustomed to Indian colours as evidenced by my feet:

They've got a lot brighter since I moved to Mumbai.

Markets

I like markets, I like the busy buzz of them, the smells and sounds and of course, the sights.  I particularly like that I can usually wander around markets and be largely ignored because people are too busy going about their business to pay any attention to a strange foreigner with a camera.

Here's a recent market picture.  There's a lot I like about it.  The dark interior full of fancy dress materials, a rack of sari blouses hanging up ready for collection.  Meera's beauty salon being given a little corner of the shop sign and a nice bit of greenery being given a table all to itself.  The two tailors taking in the sights and entirely oblivious of me and the arrow and label pointing to the hub of the tailoring business just in case you couldn't work out who did the sewing.

Return to the stamping ground

I was horrified to realise it was more than a year since I updated this blog.  I've not been out and about taking pictures as often as before for a variety of reasons but this weekend I charged up the camera and headed down to Colaba.

It took a bit of time to get back into the swing of things but, I'm glad to report, Mumbai is still as photogenic as ever.

Colaba Causway, home to stalls selling all kinds of touristic and fashion items.  I seldom buy but there are very few times I wander through here without seeing something I want to photograph.  In this case; wooden fabric stamps.

Lion Gate Mumbai

I wandered up Kala Ghoda with the express intention of taking a couple of pictures of Lion Gate, the entry to the Naval Dockyard but was shooed away by guards who, quite rightly, pointed to the giant "No Photography" sign on the wall.

A bit dejected, I carried on walking and noticed for the first time a brilliant mural on the external wall of the dockyard.  I'm not sure whether the no photography rule applies to further away from the gate but who can stop themselves taking a picture when someone pushing colour co-ordinated laundry passes a painting?

Thank you Laundry Guy for making what would otherwise be a boring picture much more interesting.

Urgent Passport Photo

We would all look much more dashing in our passport or other ID photos if we could pose like this:

The "model" is Akshay Kumar, for non-Bollywood fans he's a famous actor, and probably completely unaware that he's being used to advertise passport photo services.    Image theft is terribly common and I went to the bother of getting a copy of the original from a website which offered free downloads.  I'm confused whether I stole the image or not.

I'm also not sure whether I've broken any copyright laws by taking a picture of a stolen picture but I would dearly love to pose for official identification pictures in shades, with my collar up and a fabulous fake background.