Hanging Around in Hyderabad (Post #3)

For my third and final post on our trip to Hyderabad, I’m sharing a roll of Tri-X 400 film (black and white) I shot with my Ricoh Super Kr-5 II, a camera that’s barely vintage, having been manufactured in the mid-1990s. And, amazingly, for a roll of 36 photos, every single shot came out in focus and correctly exposed.

Most of the shots were around the Mecca Masjid, or “Mecca Mosque”. Built 400 years ago, the mosque is one of the largest in India and can accommodate 10,000 worshippers at once. More than 8,000 workers were employed to build the mosque, which contains a single block of granite that took 5 years to quarry. Its central arch is constructed of bricks made from soil taken from Mecca. The mosque was the site of a horrific bombing in 2007, and today security remains visible in and around the mosque.

When you walk up to the mosque, you first arrive at an area where people are feeding the pigeons. It’s fun to have a seat on the steps and not only bird-watch, but people-watch:

You can also join in the fun yourself.

We met a family who had brought their daughter to feed the pigeons and goats, and she was completely absorbed in her world and unaware that she was the focus of attention of a group of about 4 Indian photographers, and at least 1 foreigner (me).

We also got some great shots of the mosque itself. I think they turned out great, anyway.

I’ll close with my favorite photo on the roll. I normally don’t like using the different filters and special effects they offer in photo editing software – but in this case I think it “works.”

To see more photos of Hyderabad, you can visit this Flickr set.

This entry was posted in Life in India and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.