Solus Christus ("Christ alone"): January 2007

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Photos from India--The Taj Mahal pt 3

The final installment to my trip photos. For those who've been faithfully looking at the various batches which come in, hope you've liked my small attempts at photography. For those who've just come on board, look at the first post... way down...

Took this picture from this angle to show how flat the surface is. The patterns you see are NOT paintings. Rather, they're semi-precious gems carved and encrusted into the white marble and filed flat! And when you shine a torch unto them, the gleam and glitter. And as you can see in one of them, people have tried to pry out these gems. tsk tsk.

What you see above is one whole slab of white marble and the flowers are all carved from the marble. The pictures below are basically the individual "buds" carved. Tried to take them from an angle which shows off the 3-D effect.

And that's a wrap :)

Photos from India--The Taj Mahal pt 2

This entry's mainly of the various views of the Taj... once again, experimenting with angles

Photos from India--The Taj Mahal pt 1

And I present to you... one of the 7th Monumental wonders of the world... the famous (but not all that fantastic) Taj Mahal! Well, I have to give credit where credit is due so... yes, the Taj Mahal is a fantastic feat of engineering and design. And it is beautiful. But at the end of the day, it is but a lavish tomb.

Brings to my mind once again of Man's preoccupation with death. Doesn't matter what race or civilisation he comes from, death is the final and greatest sting that Man has always (and is still trying) been trying to defeat. But when will he ever accept that Man cannot and will not defeat death, for death HAS BEEN defeated :) That's the Hope that we have as Christians. That there's something greater than death. Something more eternal, something brighter... And that something is a someone :)

Thank You Jesus Christ

The passage in Mark 13 also came to mind. A reminder that for all the beauty and wisdom of man, these stones will fall away. But the Word of the Lord is eternal :) Hallelujah!

Anyhow, these few posts are basically different angles of the Taj.

The Taj in the light of the early morning... didn't manage to catch the Taj @ sunrise though :( But nice enough I guess

This particular picture wasn't taken by me but by my bro!

This is the position of the sun when we arrived at the Taj

Underexposed the shot to display the reflective characteristics of white marble... reflection looks as though its off water

Photos from India--Miscellaneous

Taken from Jaipur, these pictures were, but they were, shall we say... different :p

The 2 pictures above taken from the the Hawa Mahal.

Yes, there was a lovely blue sky in India... but take a look at the brown "fog" below... and for one of the explanations for that brown? Look below... typical Indian traffic.

Photos from India--Jantar Mantar pt 2

I particularly like this set of pictures as I took the liberty to try to play with angles and lines... do leave comments as to what you think :)

The pictures above and below are actually pictures from the small sundial. (look at the previous post) Loved the fact that the sky was nice and blue. Oh, and if you're wondering who's the boy in the picture, that's my bro.

These 2 instruments are sundials too--there's actually 2 of them, one for each half of the day (east & west). Once again, trying to play with lines.

The time of the day when we were there... I can't read the words though :P And if I recall correctly, we where there at about 4+

Photos from India--Jantar Mantar pt 1

Pictures from the Jantar Mantar in Jaipur, India. The Jantar Mantar is a collection of architectural astronomical instruments built in the 18th century and the amazing thing is that the instruments are still accurate today! Though its mainly a tourist attraction now... and if you didn't know, it looks like an amusement park... just look at the first picuture... its a view of the the whole place.

What do you think is in common with the instrument above and below?

Well, both are acutally sundials! Yeap, the smaller one above has an accuracy of 20sec but the Maharaja "buay song" and decided to cut the accuracy to 2sec! So, he built a sundial 10 times bigger! And thus, the bigger sundial (Samrat Jantar) is the biggest sundial in the world.

This is the intricacy and accuracy of the astronomers, craftsmen & engineers of that time... all this carved into marble

Photo reflections from Nepal--Miscellaneous pt 2

Ok, these are really totally random pics taken from everywhere.

I was hoping to capture a greater contrast in the lighting so that the shape of the bare tree stands out more but didn't manage to do it that well. But in any case, it was a stark reminder to me about how one can become leafless & fruitless when one not roooted and connected with Christ. Also, in the winter months of life, do I continue to flourish? Or do my leaves wither and fall off?

There were obstacles in the way so I couldn't get a better angle to capture both the silver motorbike and bicycle gleaming in the sun. An evolution of technology side by side :)

I title this picture.... "A Man and... A LOT of monkeys" :p

If you can give me the correct number of monkeys in this picture, I applaud you :p Welcome to Pashupatinath, where in the evenings, the number of monkeys outnumber the number of people by... A LOT.

Interesting couple of signs don'tcha think? ;)

Photo reflections from Nepal--Miscellaneous pt 1

Ok, final 2 sets of pics from Nepal... rest will be from India :p

During this trip, the clouds followed us EVEYRWHERE, not too sure why... anyhow, God blessed us with fine weather on our last day and cleared the skies :) Saw the Himalayas and the Annapurna range from Kathmandu but decided to post up these pictures that were shot from the plane. (more up-close)

My facination with taking pictures of fire and flames continue with this picture and the one below

Photo reflections from Nepal--Jo's factory & Sophia's Home

As the title suggests, pics from Jo's new Touch Nature factory (taken during the official opening) & Sophia's Home (which I visited).

Jo's gleaming white factory. It stands heads above the neighbouring buildings and is a lot more colourful and cheery. I can understand why her ladies all enjoy coming to work :)

There's actually a panoramic view of Kathmandu from the roof but I just chose this picture which I think best captures how the other buildings look like. Now you know why I say that Jo's factory stands out!