A second deeper look in to one of the photos that make up “scenes of india“, a photographic journey through India.
Jama Masjid is one of the largest mosques in India and sits in the heart of Old Delhi. The courtyard, partially seen in the photo above, can hold up to 25,000 people. The Muslim community is spread out from the mosque, with small shops and large congregations of people going about their daily lives. We made a visit to the mosque after a morning of site seeing through Delhi. As westerners we were allowed to keep our shoes on while visiting the mosque, but were required to cover them prior to entering the grounds. It’s an odd experience walking outside with cloth booties covering your shoes.
The large mosque, at the front of the square, is used for prayers. As you walk quietly through the mosque you can see a large number of people kneeling in front of the walls performing their daily prayers. It is somewhat intimidating to try and photograph in the mosque, you aren’t quite sure if it’s allowed or considered disrespectful. I can remember standing off to the side, out of everyone’s way and taking some hip shots before my desire to try and capture the scene just go the best of me and I quickly kneeled down and fired off a few composed shots. The large arches are home to plenty of men taking afternoon naps while trying to escape the direct sun beating down from overhead.
The large square in front of the mosque is a lovely sandstone orange, similar to the color of the mosque. Huge mounds of birdseed can be seen strewn about the square, the pigeons who normally feast on the birdseed scared off by the young boy running across the square.
For this shot I tried to capture the size of the square and mosque. Using a 24-105 lens I positioned myself off to the side so that I could capture the mosque without too much of the distortion that occurs when photographing a large building with a wide angle lens. Because I did not have a tilt and shift lens the towers were going to look as if they were leaning, by positioning myself to the side the leaning towers look as if it’s a product of the angle as compared to lens distortion (here’s an example from the Taj Mahal). The cloudy sky allowed me to maintain detail in the sky while properly exposing for the mosque. For most of my time shooting from this angle I was trying to capture the birds in flight when someone disrupted their feeding. But as luck would have it, in this specific shot a young kid came running through the square, scaring the birds off. But at the same time he creates a nice foreground object to help bring the composition together and make it feel more realistic than just a standard tourist shot of the mosque. You wonder why is the child running, is he late getting home from school? Does he have somewhere important to be or was he just trying to scare the birds?
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Sean Scanlon is a travel and landscape photographer based in Southern California, home to an amazing array of photographic wonders. He has traveled the world, journeyed on long and desolate desert roads, and spent many cold and shivering mornings waiting for the sun to rise while his partner in life, Andree, wonders what in the world she is doing up at 4am in the morning. His photographs have been presented on museum walls in Melbourne, Australia and countless numbers of family and friends.
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All content © 2010 by Sean Scanlon | redinkphotography | landscape, urban, and travel photography | fine art and stock sales