India

I’m really intrigued by Islamic geometric patterns, having read the excellent books by Eric Broug and attempted to draw some of them myself. I spotted one particular tiled pattern on the internet that is frequently attributed to the Taj Mahal, so when I visited there in 2023 I kept an eye open for it. However, after several hours I hadn’t managed to find it anywhere. In fact, it wasn’t there at all. It’s a panel on the ornately tiled exterior of the tomb of I’timād-ud-Daulah, sometimes called the “Baby Taj”, which is also in Agra a few kilometers north-west of the Taj Mahal. The tomb was built between 1620 and 1628, and has walls of white marble from Rajhastan inlaid with mosaics and semi-precious stones. The building is often described as a “jewel box” and is considered an architectural stepping-stone between earlier Mughal buildings – which were primarily red sandstone – and the ubiquitous white marble of the Taj Mahal. ...

These images are from a recent two-week business trip to India. I grabbed a few hours to visit the beach in Chennai and the Mehrauli Archaeological Park in Delhi, but a two-day holiday in Jodhpur at the end of the trip was my main opportunity to explore with a camera. I’ve visited Chennai several times in the past and have never really got to grips with it. This time I visited Edward Elliot’s Beach and the area around Besant Nagar. Elliot’s Beach is smaller and cleaner than the better-known Marina Beach and has more of a fairground atmosphere. There is a cluster of stalls in the centre of the beach where vendors sell seafood and roast corn on miniature furnaces, and people wander through the crowds selling candyfloss, bubble wands and offering horse rides through the surf. ...