Playing With Light At New Delhi’s Lotus Temple

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India — a photograper’s delight! Here’s one among many favorites of mine from a recent month-long stay in New Delhi, India’s capital city. The Lotus Temple, a Baha’i worship center, is named for the shape of the flower used in its unique design.

India is fascinating, a country of many stark contrasts, and the images are stunning almost everywhere you turn.

Yet the fascination comes with a jumble of mixed feelings, as in the advantage I took in shooting the scene above of the beautiful Baha’i Lotus Temple.

I was there at dusk with the setting sun, good for taking a photo of almost anything, anywhere. And in New Delhi, with the most polluted air of any capital city in the world, shooting straight into the sun like that, I was able to use the pollution like a filter to mute the sun’s rays coming directly through my lens from behind the temple to capture the scene with dramatic effect.

At least I thought so. Let me know if you disagree.

Below is another shot of a sunset across a greater expanse of Delhi, hence a more concentrated layer of dirty air for the sun’s rays to fight through.

Here the sun is barely able to penetrate the compacted layer of pollution above the horizon; it consists largely of industrial waste from energy production, smoke from agricultural fires, vehicle emissions, wood fires for cooking, burning of waste materials, dust from roads and construction sites, and even cow dung cake combustion.

Since I have a chronic lung disease (COPD) that I’m managing, the daily presence of such heavy air pollution was a major concern for me that darkened the sky as well as my overall view of Delhi, despite the colorful city’s many attractions.

But India’s a large country and I only visited Delhi. The air pollution in other regions is not as bad as it is here, I’m told. Still, India still has the highest death rate in the world from chronic respiratory diseases.

While I still have another 10 months on my visa, I’m not sure I’ll go back.

I’ll leave this post with a more conventional photo of the Lotus Temple, taken the same afternoon as the photo above, but this one has the sun shining on it from the right. It really is a spectacular piece of architecture and has become a tour attraction all its own. Persons of all faiths are welcome. Interior photos are forbidden.

1 thought on “Playing With Light At New Delhi’s Lotus Temple”

  1. That is a gorgeous photo! But I understand your need and desire for clean air to breathe—a precious commodity these days. The Baha’i faith is very interesting and worthy of learning about!!!

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