Tag: Kala Ghoda Arts Festival

The Installation

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There are very few public installations in Mumbai. Most of the older ones, such as the painted cows, lions and elephants outside the Churchgate stations are in a pathetic state. Barring the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, one barely gets to see much public art installations. So, it’s a pleasure to see an installation being given a place of pride inside a public park.

Present inside the Cross Maidan just off the Churchgate railway station, on the left hand side of the road leading to Flora Fountain, this installation just arrests your attention.

Post sundown, it is quite well lit with the LEDs which transition from red to blue to violet.

I wonder how the installation will interact during the daytime with the sunlight. Should be interesting to find out for a future post. Hopefully will get more details about the installation as well:)

Take Care,
Ciao

Framing the framers!

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I had already stopped bothering with clicking the art installations at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival since last year, for the simple reason that people never stop posing beside the installations. And I hate to make images where the art installation is peppered with people. Last year, i missed out on making some candid shots. This year though i went ahead and decided to explore this aspect. 



Considering there is an unhealthy number of people with DSLRs ready to make images, i thought of just shooting people shooting whatever it is that they were shooting. As with my street photography, none of the shots involved taking prior permission, as that would not give me the required zen-like expressions that most of us have while composing frames. 

I just decided to go with the flow, and wait till i was able to make a frame which had another person in it, making his or her own frame. And i thouroughly enjoyed shooting at the fest this year, more than last year. 

Presenting on this blog some of those images i made during the first weekend of the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival 2012. I made liberal use of the Color Creative – Yesteryear 2 preset from the ones offered by Adobe Lightroom, to five these photographs a warm feel.

Multi-tasking with a camera and a phone.







One of the main reason why i prefer doing street photography alone.



Take Care,
Ciao

Hanging Feet 2

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This is a continuation of a series i started at the Kala Ghoda Arts fest last year called Hanging Feet.

Also this photograph is heavily inspired by this shot made by one of my favourite contemporary street photographers Eric Kim. Please visit his blog for a treasure trove of information on the genre of street photography.

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Ciao

Ghazals will never sound the same again..

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This was probably the first time i was seeing a Ghazal maestro perform live. And what an experience it was. Jagjit Singh took to the stage dot on time, but he did not begin singing immediately. For the first 15 minutes, he did a sound check! 


Considering the event was happening at the open air theatre, Jagjit Singh personally checked the sound for each and every microphone, and made sure that each instrument sounded just perfect. Many people in the audience seemed quite impatient at having to wait, to hear that voice, but i really liked the way he was up-in-arms with the organisers, teaching them a lesson or two in sound check.


But despite the initial setup time, Jagjit Singh continued to engross us in his musical masterpieces one after the other for the alloted performing time. Jagjit Singh presented his ghazals, which were listened to, in pin-drop silence. The chill in the November air was just the perfect accompaniment. And you know what the best part was? The concert was absolutely free! Just kinda gave a fillip to that old cliche – the best things in life, always come free.

I was introduced to ghazals by my elder cousins who had cassettes filled with them. And although i am not a huge fan of ghazals as such, to me it meant only two people: Jagjit Singh and Pankaj Udhas.   


We lost one of them today. 


Here are some of the moments that i had captured back then. I acknowledge the poor quality, but then, for once i was more interested in the performance than photography. 



Some of my favourite Jagjit Singh ghazals:
Hoshwaalon Ko Khabar Kya
Jhunki Jhunki Si Nazaar
Hooton Se Chu Lo Tum, Mera Geet Amar Kar Do
Tum Itna Jo Muskura Rahe Ho...
Koi Fariyaad

Thank you for making people like me appreciate ghazals and leaving behind an everlasting legacy. 


Take Care,
Ciao