Subject and Form

© All photographs are copyrighted and all rights reserved. 
Please do not use any photographs without permission (even for private use).
The use of any work without consent of the artist is PROHIBITED and will lead automatically to consequences.

 

“You are asking me what makes a good picture.
For me, it is the harmony between subject and form that leads each one of those elements to its maximum of expression and vigor.”
(Henri Cartier-Bresson – French photographer, 1908–2004)

In 1948 Henri Cartier-Bresson took several pictures of the old observatory in the city palace of Jaipur where shades of grey and captivating combinations of geometric forms blend in an amazing rhythm.
This picture is a tip of the hat to the Master, it was shot at sunrise at the Jantar Mantar overlooking Dashashwamedh Ghat along the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras).
This observatory was built by Jai Singh, the Maharaja of Jaipur in the year 1737 who was a great admirer of science and technology.
This place was built to measure the local time, the Sun’s declination, altitude, the declination of stars, planets and to determine eclipses, it has several masonry instruments to record the motion, speed and properties starts and planets and study astronomy that are accurate and can still be used efficiently today.
This Jantar Mantar in Varanasi was built in line with Delhi, Mathura, Ujjain and Jaipur observatories.

Join the photographer at www.facebook.com/laurent.goldstein.photography

In Your Light

© All photographs are copyrighted and all rights reserved.
Please do not use any photographs without permission (even for private use).
The use of any work without consent of the artist is PROHIBITED and will lead automatically to consequences.

“In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.
You dance inside my chest
Where no one sees you,
but sometimes I do,
and that sight becomes this art.”
(Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi – Poet and Sufi mystic, 1207-1273)

This red sari was drying under the sun along the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras).

Join the photographer at www.facebook.com/laurent.goldstein.photography

That Overwhelming Existence

© All photographs are copyrighted and all rights reserved.
Please do not use any photographs without permission (even for private use).
The use of any work without consent of the artist is PROHIBITED and will lead automatically to consequences.

“Who if I cried out, would hear me among the angel’s hierarchies?
and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:
I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror which we are still just able to endure.
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.”
(From “Duino Elegies” by Rainer Maria Rilke – Austro-German lyric poet, 1875-1926)

This was shot from the main room leading to the Tomb of the Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great (1555–1605) which is in Sikandra, a suburb of Agra, in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Whenever my brother Manish and I drive from Delhi to Benaras we often stop there or at the Taj Mahal for a break.
The fun is to try to take pictures of those places with a new angle.
That day the heat was almost unbearable, I went inside the mausoleum hoping to find some freshness, Manish sat at the door surounded by jali screens and I took this picture…

Join the photographer at www.facebook.com/laurent.goldstein.photography

The Style of an Epoch

© All photographs are copyrighted and all rights reserved. 
Please do not use any photographs without permission (even for private use).
The use of any work without consent of the artist is PROHIBITED and will lead automatically to consequences.

“Our own epoch is determining, day by day, its own style.
Our eyes, unhappily, are unable yet to discern it.”
(Le Corbusier – French Architect and city planner (born in Switzerland), 1887-1965)

This was shot in Chandigarh, the capital of the Indian state of Punjab.
Commissioned by Nehru to reflect the new nation’s modern, progressive outlook, the city was designed by the French (born Swiss) architect and urban planner, Le Corbusier, in the 1950s.
It was the first planned city in India and is known internationally for its architecture and urban design.
Those geometrical structures made of brick and boulder stone masonry exposed in its rough form produce unfinished concrete surfaces which are the real style of an epoch.

This man was bringing the human touch to the wall and it was fun to play with him and those shapes.

Join the photographer at www.facebook.com/laurent.goldstein.photography

The Gardens of Eden

© All photographs are copyrighted and all rights reserved.
Please do not use any photographs without permission (even for private use).
The use of any work without consent of the artist is PROHIBITED and will lead automatically to consequences.

“Hail, blessed space happier than the garden of Paradise
Hail lofty buildings higher than the divine throne
A paradise, the garden of which has thousands of Rizwans as servants
A garden of which has thousands of paradise for its land
The pen of the mason of the Divine Deeree has wrotten on its court
These are the gardens of Eden, enter them and Live Forever.”

This is a Persian poem on the third Mughal Emperor’s tomb complex’s entrance gate located in Sikandra in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh from where this picture was shot.
This visual metaphor is a reference to paradise.
It was designed and written on the north facade, the side facing the tomb, by Abd al-Haqq Shirazi who was later known as Amanat Khan when he became the designer of inscriptions on several major Mughal monuments including the Taj Mahal.

Join the photographer at www.facebook.com/laurent.goldstein.photography

Into Light

© All rights reserved.

All photographs are copyrighted and all rights reserved.
Please do not use any photographs without permission (even for private use).
The use of any work without consent of the artist is PROHIBITED and will lead automatically to consequences.

“Allah is the Protector of those who have faith: from the depths of darkness He will lead them forth into light.”
(From the Holy Quran – 2.257)

 

Tow lamps are the only furnitures inside the mausoleum complex of the third Mughal emperor Akbar the Great (1542 – 1605).
Therefore it was easy to connect this picture with those symbolic words found in the Holy Quran…
It is located in Sikandra in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

 

 

Abode of Paradise

© All rights reserved.

All photographs are copyrighted and all rights reserved.
Please do not use any photographs without permission (even for private use).
The use of any work without consent of the artist is PROHIBITED and will lead automatically to consequences.

“Eden is that old-fashioned house we dwell in every day Without suspecting our abode, until we drive away”
(Emily Dickinson – American Poet, 1830-1886)

 

This is the main room leading to emperor Akbar’s burial place inside the mausoleum located in Sikandra in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
In the Akbarnāma (the official chronicle of the reign of Akbar the Great, the third Mughal emperor) this monument is mentioned as Behistan or Behistabad which literally means “Abode of Paradise”.

 

 

Blessings for Every One

© All rights reserved.

All photographs are copyrighted and all rights reserved.
Please do not use any photographs without permission (even for private use).
The use of any work without consent of the artist is PROHIBITED and will lead automatically to consequences.

“You are invited to the festival of this world and your life is blessed”
(Rabindranath Tagore – Indian Poet and writer, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, 1861-1941)

This was shot before sunset at the tomb of Mohammad Ghaus in Gwalior in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh as I was walking in the galleries surrounding the Sufi saint mazaar (tomb).
The building, built in the late 16th century in the typical Mughal style, is enclosed on all sides by delicately carved lattices over which rises a large dome.
This place is a pilgrimage centre for both the Hindus and the Muslims and this is why I selected this picture in order to celebrate the happy coincidence which makes today Eid-ul-fitr, Ganesh Chaturthi and Rosh Hashanah happen in the same time.
This place of devotion is a symbol of brotherhood to my eyes, this is where anyone can express his faith.

- Eid Mubarak, I wish you all a very happy and peaceful Eid. May Allah accept your good deeds, forgive your transgressions and ease the suffering of all peoples around the globe.
- Om Sri Ganeshaya Namah! I wish good luck and good fortune to every one on Ganesh Chaturthi.
- Shana Tova, wishing you all a New Year blessed with new biginnings, new hopes and joys…

© All rights reserved.

All photographs are copyrighted and all rights reserved.
Please do not use any photographs without permission (even for private use).
The use of any work without consent of the artist is PROHIBITED and will lead automatically to consequences.

“While the Unbelievers got up in their hearts heat and cant – the heat and cant of ignorance,- Allah sent down His Sakina – tranquility (sakīnatahu) to his Messenger and to the Believers, and made them stick close to the command of self-restraint; and well were they entitled to it and worthy of it.
And Allah has full knowledge of all things.”
(The Qur’an [48:26])

Sukaina is the Spirit of Tranquility, or Peace of Reassurance it’s also a shortened form of the original word “Sakina” which is mentioned in the Quran as having descended upon the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the believers as they made an unarmed pilgrimage to Mecca, and were faced with an opposing military force of the Quraysh, with whom the Prophet struck the Treaty of Hudaybiyah.
“He it is Who sent down the sakina into the hearts of the believers that they might add faith unto their faith”.
(The Qur’an [48:4])
The sakina is related to the Hebrew Shekhinah, the term for God’s presence in the world.
The root of the word is sa-ka-na which means “dwelled” or “remained in place”.
This further supports the association with the Shekhinah as “indwelling”.
Sufi writings, in expounding the inner peace of Sufi contemplation, which dwells in a sanctuary or in the heart, confirm the association with both Sakina and the Shekhinah.
Sufi reference to sa-ka-na as meaning both stillness and habitation adds to the identity with Shekhinah’s indwelling nature.
Another Quranic association with the concord of dwellings in peace coincides with the attribution of the Shekhinah to matrimonial concord under the tent of Sarah:
“And God gave you your houses as a quiescent place (sakanan).” (The Qur’an [16:80])

This is a close-up of the bulb roof of the Chhota Imambara, also known as Hussainabad Imambara or the Palace of Lights, located in Lucknow, the city of the Nawabs in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.Built by Muhammad Ali Shah, The third Nawab of Avadh in 1838, it was to serve as his own mausoleum.

Over All Things

© All rights reserved.

All photographs are copyrighted and all rights reserved.
Please do not use any photographs without permission (even for private use).
The use of any work without consent of the artist is PROHIBITED and will lead automatically to consequences.

“Surely those who believe and those who are Jews and the Sabeans and the Christians and the Magians and those who associate (others with Allah) – surely Allah will decide between them on the day of resurrection; surely Allah is a witness over all things.”
(The Qur’an [22.17])

“Surely those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians, whoever believes in Allah and the Last day and does good, they shall have their reward from their Lord, and there is no fear for them, nor shall they grieve.”
(The Qur’an [2.62])

Islam is not a new religion, but the same truth that God revealed through all His prophets to every people.
According to those verses of the Qur’an, mentioned above, if you are Jewish or Christian you are Muslim as long as you do God’s will.
A Muslim is an adherent of Islam, it can be translate by “one who submits (to God)”.
Muslims believe in a chain of prophets starting with Adam and including Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, Elias, Jonah, John the Baptist, and Jesus, “peace be upon them”.
The ten commandments from the Torah are in the Qur’an, and Islam holds the belief that Mohamed was the one Jesus predicted would finish the prophesies (temple and Kaaba) that where expected of the Messiah, himself, although Judaic prophesies disagree with any mesiah who performed miracles.

For a fifth of the world’s population, Islam is both a religion and a complete way of life.
Muslims follow a religion of peace, mercy, and forgiveness and the majority have nothing to do with all events which have come to be associated with their faith.

This is a close-up of a wall painting at the entrance of the Chhota Imambara, also known as Hussainabad Imambara or the Palace of Lights, located in Lucknow, the city of the Nawabs in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.