» trees http://stuartfreedman.com/blog 'we are but shadows'... a blog about photography and life in general... Wed, 02 May 2012 15:37:01 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 Delhi’s Red… errr… White Fort… http://stuartfreedman.com/blog/2011/05/delhis-red-errr-white-fort/ http://stuartfreedman.com/blog/2011/05/delhis-red-errr-white-fort/#comments Wed, 25 May 2011 07:41:04 +0000 stuartfreedman http://stuartfreedman.com/blog/?p=1872 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

]]> http://stuartfreedman.com/blog/2011/05/delhis-red-errr-white-fort/feed/ 0 The leaf, the rain and the poet http://stuartfreedman.com/blog/2009/05/the-leaf-the-rain-and-the-poet/ http://stuartfreedman.com/blog/2009/05/the-leaf-the-rain-and-the-poet/#comments Fri, 29 May 2009 08:20:39 +0000 stuartfreedman http://stuartfreedman.com/blog/?p=183 Yesterday, I managed to put my back out . I just bent over to pick up a file of papers and it gave way. Some of you will remember a more serious occasion in Delhi two years ago and me laying on the floor for weeks on end, moaning… but that’s another story. Anyway, as I lay there in a completely dignified manner with an ice-pack glued to my lower spine, I was distracted by the rain pelting down on my windows; it is almost summer in London after all. Then something odd happened. A leaf landed against the pane. A single, solitary leaf, not extraordinary, a leaf from a neighbour’s tree. It just sat there. Stuck. It’s still there despite the sunshine and the best efforts of the evening winds to dislodge it. It got me thinking. Firstly, how dirty the windows actually are and then, looking at it more closely, I thought I’d photograph the little chap. Over the last few years, I seem to have been looking more and more at plants and less and less at people. For the last couple of years, I’ve been making work in Delhi about space and gardens as a way to view the city and, strangely enough, I think my favourite frame that I made last year was of a tree and its fallen blossom in Hue on assignment in Vietnam. I don’t think my leaf is in that league but it did bring to mind the poetry of Ryokan whose work I always have with me when I travel and when I am down:

The plants and flowers
I raised about my hut
I now surrender
To the will
Of the wind

My particular favourite when it’s raining in London and when I have hurt my back:

You must rise above
The gloomy clouds
Covering the mountaintop
Otherwise, how will you
Ever see the brightness?

Here are the photographs that I mentioned. I hope that you like them. One day, I will go back to Japan and make some work on Ryokan…

A leaf on a window pane blown there in a storm

UK - London - A leaf on a window pane blown there in a storm

Vietnam - Hue - Fallen blossoms under a tree

Vietnam - Hue - Fallen blossoms under a tree

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