From the time I started posting pictures at Flickr it was a mechanical state of mind and I uploaded the entire lot in a set added title and tags hardly any description , perhaps only as an introduction and once I had offloaded all my stuff I breezed out ..I never went back..if somebody commented I went back thanked him that was it a few pictures I crossblogged from Flickr to Twitter Facebook or Tumblr though my main blogs are at Blogspot and I still dont understand why Ms Marissa Mayer disabled crossblogging there ,...as I have to manually blog there which is a pain typing with one finger ..a bigger pain.
If you are a peoples photographer , the Kumbh Mela grows on you after every picture and I shoot without constructive method I just shoot impulsively I know when to direct my lens cosmically at a situation or thought ,,perhaps it was this inherent attitude of mine that had upset a lot of American photographers that shot with me ,,and thankfully alienated me from both of them.. I dont have the patience to sit compose ,, I shoot a storyboard single frames stitched together as moving pictures .
I had no intention of leaving Trimbakeshwar where I was based with my Naga Guru Shree Vijay Giri Maharaj at the Naga Sadhu commune ,,and Ramkund Panchvati where I shot this bathing and the Vaishnav Sadhus at Tapovan is almost 27 km away from Trimbakeshwar .. I took permission from my Guru on 28 August to shoot both these places had he told me not to go I would have not gone at all.. and on 29 August was Shahi Snan at both the places the Grand Holy Dip of the Sadhus roads being blocked inwards outwards for vehicular traffic at both places ,I was to leave Trimbakeshwar for Mumbai via Nasikh on 30 August ,, so I hardly had anytime ,, I shot Ramkund and Tapovan..
I was also not very sure I would come back again for the next Shahi Snans , my work commitments , etc .
For me going to a place like the Kumbh is cosmic interpretation ,, it can happen if he wills I call it miracle .. nothing less ..I may not have money like those photographers who live at the Kumbh for weeks , they have professional assignments I have other responsibilities ,, photography is not my source of income at all .. I am a blogger first a photographer later .. i shoot to share my pictures and my eyes my soul my mind becomes Hindu till I am shooting the Kumbh Mela ..I block all other myriad identities of mine ,,perhaps I allow the poet and the beggar in me to accompany me on my shoots such as this.I become a beggar with the beggars and I become a poet because photography is visual poetry ,,its not about shooting cocks of the Naga Sadhus ,,
And now I am revisiting my Ramkund set picking up a few images tweaking them adding words where words did not exist,.. I like BW .. though the Kumbh is versatility exuberance of color ,,I mean shooting the cutting of heads during Moharam makes an impact in color rather than BW....but at the Kumbh both works fairly well.
I would love to shoot the Shahi Snan at Ramkund it is huge ostentatious and grand I shot it in 2003 .. but I hardly know anyone at Tapovan or Ramkund ,, so I rather shoot Trimbakeshwar hassle free with my Naga Guru and I am not young , its tough to shoot the Kumbh Mela walk miles with my age and my leg injury that because of my diabetes refuses to heal.
So if I go back again to shoot the Kumbh it would surprise me the most .. miraculously too.
