I’m a big fan of The Travel Photographer’s blog and indeed I’ve been lucky enough to have my work featured there several times. It’s a lovely showcase.

Imitation as they say, is the sincerest form of flattery. So imagine how flattered I felt when I saw a similar set to one that I’d previously had shown on that blog on a link to another photographer’s archive page who has also just been featured. Lovely. And published too – in M Magazine, the weekend supplement of The National in the UAE.

I shot my story about a decade ago on transparency film… seems like another age really, though I see that one of subjects, the wonderful Bhagwan Das Bhatt has lost a bit of hair. Obviously not his love of life (or a drop of the hard stuff – of which I remember joining him for one morning…) although I see he has decorated…

Actually, from the selection that I have here – my images are on the left by the way – very little seems to have changed. In fact what struck me was how similar, how… familiar they looked. An homage I’m sure…

Of course I am not suggesting that I am the only photographer that has ever shot in Shadipur – far from it -  Zackary Canepari shot it recently as I am sure have lots of people. For me though, the much underrated Australian photographer Philip Gostelow did it best (and before me) in black and white.

What links them though is their unique vision. Their ability to see things their way.

It was all their own work too… and so easy to find on the internet…

I suppose if you were interested in seeing original work then you could look at the set on my website here and you could also read my reportage here… all the words are, please note ©Stuart Freedman.

That’s copyright Stuart Freedman.

Thank you for your time.

Here’s a recent tearsheet from the May/June 2011 edition of the rather lovely German Magazine, Effilee with my long term piece about the Indian Coffee House in New Delhi.

Effilee is a food and lifestyle magazine who commissioned the images and a 5000-word piece from me. The English translation can be found under the Writings section of my website here.

The piece is called The Palace of Monkeys and Memory

It’s with great sadness that I heard this morning that the rather wonderful Indian artist MF Husain passed away during the night. I wrote about him last year as he’d taken Qatari citizenship but continued to keep a house in London. Doubtless those shrill self-appointed, hateful voices from the Hindu religious right will be celebrating his demise – and how brave they were from keeping a old man from dying in his own country. I remember him as a courteous and thoughtful subject, delightfully playful during the evening I spent with him in apartment in Mumbai a decade ago. A charming man and an astonishing talent.

India - Mumbai - MF Husain, India's greatest modernist painter at his studio in Bombay. Before him is a picture of his muse Maduri Dixit, a film actress

Well, according to the Daily Telegraph, conservation architects in Delhi have discovered that originally, a good deal of the Red Fort was originally… white. Quoting KK Mohammad, head of the Architectural Survey of India said the ‘Red Fort’ is a “misconception” because although its exterior ramparts are red sandstone “more of the Red Fort is white than people realise.” Apparently, the giant red stone sundial that is the Jantar Mantar was also originally all white too… ooops.

India - Delhi - Judduchkra Iqbal, a magician from the Kathiputli Colony in the Shadipur Depot slum dresses for a show behind the Red Fort

India - New Delhi - A garden seen through the arches of the Janar Mantar

Happy Vesak (Vesakha) … not exactly the same date across all of the world but never mind…

Japan - Hikone - The shaved head of a Zen monk of the Soto School meditates at the Seiryu-ji Temple. In Zen Buddhism, zazen (literally "seated meditation") is a meditative discipline practitioners perform to calm the body and the mind and experience insight into the nature of existence and thereby gain enlightenment (satori).

Vietnam - Hue - A young monk writes in the early morning dew on a pillar at the monastery at the Thienmu Pagoda

India - Sarnath - A Buddhist monk blows a trimpet during a service at the Vajra Vidya Institute for Buddhist studies

My good friend and colleague, Findlay Kember is having an exhibition of his work entitled New New Delhi in a couple of weeks and I urge you, if you’re in town to go and have a look. Findlay’s an old Delhi hand and a very talented photographer. Without his logistical and moral support over the last few years I certainly couldn’t have shot half of my work in the city.

In case you hadn’t heard – or had been made deaf by the firecrackers and screaming – India won the Cricket World Cup…

Not a huge fan myself but who can argue with 17% of the world’s population? Here’s a few of them in Delhi playing… cricket… the batsman here being a little less successful than a certain Mr Dhoni…

India - New Delhi - Boys play cricket in the park at India Gate on a Sunday afternoon