Well, we ended up in Chennai for one night after we read there was a New Year’s celebration taking place there. The Pongal Festival. Chennai was not picturesque like most other places we’ve experienced.
It’s a big harsh city with an attitude. From the hotel where we stayed to the rickshaw driver, we were routinely victimized.
The taxi driver, who was hired to take us around four several hours, decided to quit before the day was complete leaving us unable to pick up items that were being held for us. The hotel was yet worse. On our first day, two hotel employees came into our room and locked the door behind themselves before demanding money from us.
Thanks Lonely Planet!
A Million People Celebrating Pongal. Chennai, India
Rama’s Song, Pongal Perfromance. Chennai, India.
All that aside, however, we’re glad for the trip to Chennai because Pongal was truly a spectacle to behold. The beach was filled with probably 1 million people celebrating the new year. People were swimming in full saris with generations of family.
Everyone welcomed us and wanted to be photographed with us. I have never seen anything like that or experienced such a joyous mood amongst so many strangers.
Daughter + Father. Pongal. Chennai, India.
Indian Woman Wading in the Bay of Bengal. Pongal Celebration. Chennai, India.
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3 Comments
oh, the photo of the woman wading is amazing…it looks like a painting. did you take that one with a digital camera? if so, how come it looks so good?? (I’m mostly camera-illiterate, but even a photo philistine like me can recognize that the quality of digital is not nearly as good as that of film…or maybe it’s a user issue in my case…)
as for the victimization, word. I got so tired of being ripped off by autorickshaw drivers that many times I just got out and walked…that usually ended with having my ass grabbed by some random in the street. sometimes in India you just can’t win! but the thing with your hotel’s employees is over the top
and I know what you mean about you all being the subject of photos…I am sure that my picture is in homes throughout northern India, I have never been photographed so much by strangers!
enjoy the rest of your trip and safe travels home to you all
LP
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Thanks LP!
Despite the few bad experiences I’ve had with rickshaws and taxis, I have to say that the people in India are amazing. And very friendly.
For the wading-in-the-water shot, I used my Canon 5D and my 17-40mm lens.
The light was already magnificent at the time I took the photo; I made sure not to overexpose in order to get the rich colors.
I think someone shooting in automatic mode (with almost any camera,) would have overexposed the photo and ruined the atmosphere of the picture.
All of these photos are straight out of my camera. I have no access to Photoshop or Lightroom. It has been very disciplining to get the photos perfect right out of the camera….
I’ve been shooting RAW + Medium JPG and uploading the medium JPG to Flickr then posting to my blog.
When I get back to my good computer at home I will go to work on the RAW files.
Take care,
Kirk
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I’m alon
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