From India With Love

Presenting My Lens Aug 2024 edition – This is the second photo blog in the series. (Read the first blog in the series here) We travelled to London in the second half of August, so some photographs were clicked in ‘Aamchi Mumbai’ and the rest in London.

I had been to Courtyard Mariott at Andheri, Mumbai. Their reception lounge is big, simple and yet elegant. And an architect creates lines which make a place beautiful. Using those lines to compose a photograph is to highlight the beauty of the place.

I get mesmerised by the lines. The same object looks so different when a photographer uses lines creatively to his advantage.

And I turned around to discover those beautiful lines which this staircase had created. They bring the play of light and shade so strikingly well.

I was on my morning walk. The municipal guys had chopped off a tree on the road almost completely, and also ‘uprooted’ it. Even then the tree sprouted up. All that the tree needed was sunlight, water (plenty in July in Mumbai) and a will to grow. Every adversity can be an opportunity to grow.

Among the Airports, the International Airport at Mumbai takes the cake. It is a photographers’ paradise. I turn a compulsive photographer whenever I enter the airport in Mumbai.

And this is another one inside the airport.

I was having my cup of coffee when I noticed the beautiful passage which led to a Gate for boarding. I got up and kept my phone at a low-level waiting for someone to come in the range. And clicked. Airport offers many opportunities to click beautiful photograph. For me, it was literally “I walk, I look, I see, I stop, I photograph” experience as Leon Levinstein, the famous street photographer said.

Talking of Leon Levinstein, I too love dabbling in street photography. One has to be alert and quick to do street photography. Here is one photograph I clicked on reaching London.

And this bark on a tree! I remember my botany professor Mr Battiwala who asked us (students) to observe plants and trees carefully, including the bark. Now I know why.

This tiny plant was growing between two tiles in a garden. And bears a beautiful yellow flower. I find divine messages in such small incidents. One must be ‘Life-Assertive’ even in adverse conditions. The purpose of life lies in the pursuit of positive experiences.

London is a photographer’s paradise. So also India. One must have the eyes to see what others do not see. What say you?

And that brings us to the end of this My Lens Aug 2024 part.

Vivek S Patwardhan

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others/ All work copyrighted.