Happy Holi

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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.

 

“Holi Mubarak to all of You”

“Holi hai – होली”
“Let the colors of Holi spread the message of peace and happiness.”

होली (Holi), the Festival of Colors, is a spring festival mostly celebrated by Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs, it is observed in India and countries with large Indic diaspora populations.
The main day is celebrated by people throwing coloured powder and coloured water at each other.
In Varanasi (Benaras) and in the villages around everyone is playing with colours, it gathers people with different faiths, it is a happy moment where everyone dance and sing specific songs, it’s Holi (Holi hai).
The playful throwing of natural coloured powders has a medicinal significance, the colours are traditionally made of Neem, Kumkum, Haldi, Bilva, and other medicinal herbs prescribed by Āyurvedic doctors at this time of the year when the weather changes and causes viral fever and cold.
Usually people start using fans after Holi, from now the heat will start rising up untill it will become “unbearable” again…

 

With Heart and Soul

© 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.

“Give me love
Give me peace on earth
Give me light
Give me life
Keep me free from birth
Give me hope
Help me cope, with this heavy load
Trying to, touch and reach you with,
heart and soul”
(George Harrison – Member of The Beatles, 1943-2001)

I didn’t upload any picture of me since a while even though I used to do it in order to celebrate each time you were 10 000 new more viewers on my photostream.
Today you have been 301,546 Flickr viewers, 204,622 Worpress viewers and 79 033 Ipernity viewers to visit my photostreams.
Once again I want to thank you all for your kind comments and mails.
I really appreciate your support even if I can’t answer you as much as I would like because of the bad internet connection in Benaras, the many power cuts that we have to handle during summers and the lack of time due to all my activities.
However I read everything you write which gives me an amazing energy to carry on my work in photography and which brings me strength to fulfill my commitment to those causes for Human Rights where I am involved.
Thank you all for those gifts.
Thank you, Dhanyavad, Shukriya…

This picture was shot recently by my brother Manish Gupta in the ruins of a Madrasa from the fourteenth century which stands at Hauz Khas village in South Delhi.
It was at the end of the afternoon and the weather became cool with a few raindrops, auspicious signs of the end of summer and the forthwith begining of the rainy season.

200 000 Celebrity Bites…!!!

Thank you so much for passing by so often. Today your are 200 223 Flickr viewers, 71 057 WordPress viewers, 61 770 Ipernity viewers and many form Facebook to have been visiting my photostreams.

Your precious comments and your kind support are my energy to carry on this work.

I am not the photographer of this picture, it was shot a few decades ago, I was a kid then biting a “Elle” cover magazine with Liz Taylor on it.

It says in French “Liz se fait une beauté à Paris” and “Comment défatiguer votre écolier?” which means in English “Liz comes to prettify herself in Paris” and “How to untire your schoolboy?”

All this is about celebrity bites but for me YOU are the celebrities right now…!!!

Thank you for your words and for reading mine.

Namaste to all of you.

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

© 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.

 

007 versus 170 000

 

This week I had 10 000 more viewers on my photostream and I always celebrate this with a picture of me.
I hate to do my self-portrait, it is becoming more and more difficult and I can’t really explain why.
So it was easier to open my photo album and to pick any picture there.
This one is funny, I was a teenager pretending to be 007 at the side of the most famous “Bond girl”…
However this was not shot on the set of Dr No, I was not born at that time (!), but in the begining of the 80’s.

Thank YOU all, you have been 171,918 Flickr viewers, 54 666 Ipernity viewers and 43 394 visitors on my Worpress photo-blog.
I really appreciate your support, kind comments and mails.
Enjoy the end of summer.
Namaste, Salam…

A Candid picture for 160 000 views

 

I had 10 000 more viewers who visited my photostream and the tradition is to celebrate this uploading a picture with me.
This picture was shot a few weeks ago in front of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the holiest city in Sikhism, located in the state of Punjab (India).
I met those kids a while before as they were bathing in the holy tank, they didn’t mind that I took a few portraits of them.
Later I realized that they were following me around the temple, we took a few shots of all of us, like this candid picture and they kept on asking me so many things about photography, sometimes I couldn’t even find any answer, it was amazing to see how full of enthusiasm they were.
Maybe one day they’ll become photographers…

One more thing, after uploading another picture at Golden Temple, I had funny comments concerning the scarf I was wearing.
In order to clarify, I don’t try to become a pirate (!) but being head covered is compulsory for both men and women when visiting a Gurdwara or any other holy Sikh place, it is a sign of respect (like in many other religions). 
You also have to remove your shoes if you enter a place of worship.

Thank you again to all of you for your supportive comments and mails.
Thank you, Dhanyavad, Shukriya…

Thx to my 150 000 viewers…!!!

 

Once again I want to thank you all for your kind comments and mails as 10 000 more viewers saw my photostream.
This morning you are 150 320 Flickr viewers, 49 460 Ipernity viewers and 25 522 visitors at my Worpress photo-blog.

The tradition is to celebrate this uploading a picture with me.
This one was shot by Manish Gupta, mere bhai, in front of a Tibetan temple located in Leh, the capital of Ladakh in the Himalayan hills.
I was showing to this Buddhist nun and to the other lady who came to meet her son that she didn’t see since a long time, a few pictures that I took of them.
It was a happy moment, we shared many things and we almost forgot how cold it was.

Namaste and Thank you all (140 000 views)

 

This evening you are 140 012 Flickr viewers and 47 052 Ipernity viewers, I also had 18 780 visitors on my photo-blog on Worpress.
The tradition of having 10 000 more viewers here allows me to upload a picture of me.
This one was shot a few days ago at Hemis Gompa which is a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayan hills of Ladakh.

Thank you again to all of you for your kind comments and mails.
I really appreciate your support even if I can’t answer you as much as I would like because of the very bad internet connection here in Benaras and the many power cuts that we have to go through during summers.

Namaste all the way from Benaras where monsoon has reached tonight..

The Roaring Twenties

 

“The Roaring Twenties”

This is an edition of a self-portrait with my friend Francesca taken at Lacoste (Vaucluse – France) in 1982.
It was part of some series titled “The Roaring Twenties”.

At that time we were young Art students involved in a program which was connected to Cleveland Institute of Art (Ohio) and to Sarah Lawrence College (NY).
We had teachers who were amazing artists, we had the freedom to create, to discover things by our own.
We were having endless parties till dawn, trying many things, experimenting life, the world seemed to be ours…
We became a little group of friends and I kept in touch with a few of them in Paris and later in New York.
Some of us became painters, sculptors, teachers, actors, producers, some left the Art world, some vanished from our lives…

I lost contact with Francesca in the 80’s, a few days ago she found me back through Facebook telling me that she has been searching for me for years and that India is the last place she would think to look for me.
Francesca was, is and will always be a great genuine artist, you can see some of her work there, www.fspille.com and on Flickr at www.flickr.com/photos/fspille
We have so much to catch up now…;)

Renée is the artist who gave the background laying,
You may visit her site, www.flickr.com/photos/playingwithpsp/

Let’s play होली (Holi)

 

Holi (Hindi: होली), or Phagwa (Bhojpuri), also called the Festival of Colours, is a popular Hindu spring festival observed in India. 
On the first day bonfires are lit at night to signify burning the demoness Holika, Hiranyakashipu’s sister.
On the second day, known as Dhulhendi, people spend the day throwing colored powder and water at each other. 
The spring season, during which the weather changes, is believed to cause viral fever and cold. 
Thus, the playful throwing of the colored powders has a medicinal significance: the colors are traditionally made of Neem, Kumkum, Haldi, Bilva, and other medicinal herbs prescribed by Āyurvedic doctors. 
A special drink called thandai is prepared, sometimes containing bhang (Cannabis sativa).
Rangapanchami occurs a few days later on a Panchami (fifth day of the full moon), marking the end of festivities involving colours.
As per the Hindu calendar, it falls on the Phalgun Purnima (or Pooranmashi, Full Moon), which will occur on March 10th in 2009. 

Holi is a festival of fun, romance and brotherhood.
It’s a day of peace where people celebrates even with those with whome they can have problems.
It reminds me Carnival as it also occurs during the same festival season and it involves as well public celebrations and street partys where people masquerade.

My friend Rajiv took this picture of me on the bank of river Ganga in Varanasi (Benaras) and I added some PP work on it.
www.flickr.com/photos/rajpic/

Happy Holi to all, Holi ki shubhkamnaye …!

So Close To Heaven

© 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.

Namaste everyone,

I am uploading little by little some of my pictures from several websites and this might be the reason why the words might not fit to the right moment in time.

It has become a kind of tradition that each time I have 10 000 more viewers on Flickr I celebrate this with a picture of me.

In fact this is not an easy game for me, I don’t like much making self-portraits and I find very uneasy to allow other photographers to do my portrait.

Anyway this picture was displayed once in order to thank those who kindly took the time to watch my photostream.

It was shot recently by Manish Gupta, mere bhai, in front of Golden Temple located in the city of Amritsar in Punjab (India).
I wrote already many things concerning this place under several pictures of my photostream but each time I come to Amritsar, when I am along the samovar, I truly feel that I have never been so close to Heaven…

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