Photowalk at Kingston Upon Thames

Photowalk at Kingston Upon Thames

/ July 25, 2023 / 13 Comments / Travelogue

Photowalk is not a solo walk, it is to be done with a group. But there are times when you break the rule. I derive great pleasure in breaking rules. (Why not admit it?) Creativity is born when you break a rule. Conformists never made great artists!

I decided to walk, I mean photowalk, alone with my mobile which also has a good camera. After you cross seventy, nobody calls you. You carry a mobile only for its camera!

Mobiles have good cameras and I do not own any DSLR or such other camera. This really is not a handicap. Mobiles take excellent photographs with their advanced cameras. Best suited for a photowalk.

My first Photowalk began in Kingston. Kingston upon Thames as it is called. As you get down at the bus station and cross the road you meet these two objects bang opposite Wilco. A Chimp and the post office boxes.

We usually go to Bentall, the Mall. And I like the overall design of the mall. Symmetry works magic.

When you come out of the Mall and if it is a weekend, you meet a Phugewala (as any Mumbaikar will call him and I do not know what he is called in English,) children ask their mother to buy one balloon.  

We then find a merry go round. This discovery surprised me. Was it not an Indian invention?

Then we go to the market area. Beautiful it is. People obviously love their city.

We made our way to the river. Kingston upon Thames. The bridge makes a beautiful backdrop for a photograph. My better half is happy to pose at my request. Perhaps she was waiting for my suggestion! Clean air, blue sky and a few clouds make the picture beautiful, but more beautiful is the subject of the photograph.

And a group is practicing rowing, their rhythmic movements are so captivating to the eyes. We saw symmetry. Now the magic of rhythm was visible.

This beautiful ‘Everyday Church’ is nearby. We click a photograph. There is something about old buildings. They unfailingly bring nostalgia. There were several old buildings, some more than a century old, in Thane and Kalyan where I stayed. A large number of them is lost to the greed of the builders.

And yet another photograph of the Thames River. Water in flow has some magic. It can be sea waves at Mumbai Chowpatty or Hooghly under the Howrah bridge. Flowing waters of Brahmaputra certainly have ‘magnetic’ property. I have sat down on its banks at Guwahati for hours watching it flow a few times.

To end the story, and my Photowalk, we meet another Chimp on the way. Jane Goodall said, ““Chimps taught us we’re not separated from the animal kingdom, we’re a part of it.” A reminder is essential, what say you?

Do let me know if you liked the Photowalk. Your encouragement will send this old man out again on a long walk (“It will do you good, Lulu said!”). (All photographs copyrighted)

Vivek S Patwardhan

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”

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