This is the famous India Gate in Delhi.  It was a bitter hot and humid day and the water nearby somehow seemed to make everything hotter!

Found in the streets of Delhi…

Cindy and I had an hour between meetings in Delhi. We ended up going off through the random streets here and there to see what we could find. She was looking for rugs and I was looking for antique chess sets. We found neither, but we did find a lot of interesting and chaotic activity…

I textured this, as part of my upcoming textures tutorial.  This thing is so overdue that I am SURE you guys think I am TEASING you now about it.. but it really is coming. The video tutorial and the textures are huge – it will be almost a 1 gigabyte download, so it takes awhile to set up all the logistics. Actually I am not doing anything – Ken is helping me out over at FastSpring. I just made the video and he is doing all the hard work of setting up the download processes!

Humayun’s Tomb which was built in 1570. Humayun kept busy conquering Kabul and Delhi for the Mughals.

This tomb, built by his wife after he died, served as an early architectural influence of the Taj Mahal. He probably left her some cash and paid off her Nordstrom’s account, so the least she could do was build him a nice tomb.

I took over a hundred pictures of thousands of poor and destitute around India. I usually gave 100 rupees after I took the shot, but the tough part is was when dozens of kids descended on me whenever I pulled out the money.

Two Sari-laden beggars guard the door at Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi.

Later, while I was walking around Delhi, I was photographed by another Indian photographer that recognized me. He sent them along and it was kind of strange to see myself like that… but not as strange as when I was listening to Pink Floyd on 11 on my iPod while inside the tomb.

This is a photo of the Tomb of Humayun in Delhi. I arrived during Diwali, the biggest annual festival that involves a burning a lot of things. Most of the tombs, mausoleums, temples, and the like were surprisingly empty, giving me clean access to cool places like this without dopey tourists getting in the way of sweet photography.

The news broadcasts are filled with showing families celebrating Diwali along with non-stop live on-the-scene action reporting from the grand opening of Om Shanti Om, the Bollywood film of the year starring the unconquerable Shahrukh Khan. From the previews I have seen, the movie seems to involve a lot of Shahkrukh with his shirt off in huge musical numbers and copious amounts of slow-mo water exploding off his coppered abs.

It is the next morning now and the air in Delhi is covered with the smoke from last night’s festivities… There is this acrid smell of stale carbon and it’s not exactly like a trip to Sedona. Luckily, I am getting out of the city today because my hosts have been kind enough to give me a ride up to Agra to visit the fort and Taj Mahal… more pictures coming soon, so stay tuned! 🙂