Looking around Kanheri Caves - The desolate landscape

As with most places Maharashtra before the monsoons, there are looming clouds along with dry and dead dead vegetation all around, so much unlike the landscape of the monsoons. Kanheri caves in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park is no exception to this.

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Sitting on the fence

Spotted this fellow on the Sanjay Gandhi National Park walk back to the main gate. This was the closest I could get to him before he jumped onto the camera lens and began weaving his web. What followed was arachnid acrobatics…

Looking around Kanheri – Descent into greenery

Looking around Kanheri – Flame of the Forest

We visited Kanheri on an overcast day. The clouds loomed around, threatening to rain. In July or August, it would have meant that I was walking around with an umbrella in the hand, the camera carefully wrapped to avoid the stray rain drops or the sudden downpour.

One of the challenges of a bright, yet overcast sky is that any photo you take looks gloomy with a white sky, and no polariser can help you add some blue to the dull sky. You could use a graduated Neutral Density (ND) filter, but you need straight horizons for that, and I don’t have one to begin with. So instead, I opted to try High Dynamic Range (HDR) instead.

The Buddha at Kanheri Caves

Stepping out side the stupa of yesterday, is the Buddha of today. This statue towers over the entrance, and while there are other, more intricate sculptures around the place, this one takes the cake because of his sheer size.

The stupa at Kanheri Caves

I am a regular at the Stuck in Customs website, and one of his recent posts caught my eye. And so at the visit to Kanheri caves at the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, I And that was the inspiration behind this attempt. There was hardly any light coming in, which became a bit of a challenge with me not carrying my tripod.

Just after cursing myself a couple of times, I thought that maybe its time to try out the bagpod. So I swung off the backpack, squished the top so that it got a depression, and then balanced the camera on it. The 2-second timer helped. That kept the camera steady enough for this picture. If I had carried the tripod, I think I would have ended up with a higher point-of-view, but I like this PoV’s effect.