The Power Of Celebration

“People of our time are losing the power of celebration.
Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained.
Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation.
To be entertained is a passive state–it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle….
Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.”
(From “The Wisdom of Heschel” by Abraham Joshua Heschel)

This was shot from the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras) during the celebrations of Dev Diwali on the occasion of Kartik Poornima.
The festival of Lights is a mark of welcome to the Gods as it is believed that they descend on earth on that special day.
In the evening under the full moon reflecting in the holy waters each ghat is performing Ganga Aarti with vedic hymns chanted by priests in order to please and welcome the Gods.

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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.

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Sacred Moments

“A ritual becomes the match that lights the kindred celebration candle of sacred moments long ago… tantalizing these entombed spirits to surface again.”
(Wes Adamson)

This was shot from a boat on the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras) during the celebrations of Dev Diwali on the occasion of Kartik Poornima.
The festival of Lights is a mark of welcome to the Gods as it is believed that they descend on earth on that special day.
In the evening under the full moon reflecting in the holy waters each ghat is performing Ganga Aarti with vedic hymns chanted by priests in order to please and welcome the Gods.

Join the photographer at 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.

A Second’s Encounter With Eternity

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.
And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”
(From “Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho)

This was shot from a boat on the Ganges in Varanasi (Benaras) during the celebrations of Dev Diwali on the occasion of Kartik Poornima.
The festival of Lights is a mark of welcome to the Gods as it is believed that they descend on earth on that special day.
In the evening under the full moon reflecting in the holy waters each ghat is performing Ganga Aarti with vedic hymns chanted by priests in order to please and welcome the Gods.

Join the photographer at 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.

A Solitary Tear

“The Taj Mahal rises above the banks of the river like a solitary tear suspended on the cheek of time.”
(Rabindranath Tagore – Indian Poet, Playwright and Essayist. Won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, 1861-1941)

There is nothing left to take away to this solitary tear which reflects on the Yamuna river.
In this cruel and imperfect world, the Taj is the proof that Love can still create perfection…”Dilruba”…

For all the Taj Mahal lovers, this is the new commercial by Guerlain for “Shalimar”, the unforgettable scent since the 20’s…
youtu.be/vL6XJw8Oe5M

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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.

“Clash of the Titans”

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Please do not use any photographs without permission (even for private use).
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“We enjoy playing with each other, which I think is a pretty important part of this.
If we didn’t, we’d have given it up a long time ago.
The idea when we started was to take five people and keep ’em together no matter what and see what we could get out of it, and we’ve pretty much stuck to that plan.”
(Tom Petty – American Rock star, Guitarist and Singer (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers) b.1950)

Tom Petty facing Steve Ferrone while performing on stage.
Those legends of Music gave an outstanding concert…

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Dedicated to Music

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“It’s very easy to be cynical about the hall of fame.
But on the other hand, it’s really a beautiful thing for someone like me.
I dedicated my entire life to this music.”
(Tom Petty – American Guitarist and Singer, b.1950)

This is a portrait of Tom Petty, the legend of rock, while performing on stage with “Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers”.
It was an evening to remember, an outstanding concert with brilliant musicians…

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The King Bows Out

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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.

This picture belongs to a series of portraits of Jagjit Singh, the Ghazal King, shot four months ago.
That evening the legendary star gave an amazing performance as usual and I couldn’t think that he would leave so fast…
The singer with a soul-stirring and velevet voice died this morning over a fortnight from a brain haemorrhage, he was 70 year old.

The words below come from BBC News.
“Renowned Indian singer Jagjit Singh has died in Mumbai (Bombay), aged 70.
Mr Singh, who was famed for his semi-classical ghazal songs, suffered from a stroke last month and had been in a coma in hospital ever since.
Popularly known as the “Ghazal King”, Singh sang in a number of languages.
He is survived by his wife, Chitra Singh, who is also a leading ghazal singer.
They had commercial success with songs recorded together in the 1970s and 1980s.
Singh’s admirers say he revolutionised ghazal music and made it accessible to the wider public.
He also sang tracks for a number of popular movies, including Sarfarosh.
He was the first prominent ghazal singer from India in a genre dominated by Pakistani singers.
“He was the first real ghazal singer from India. Before him there were clones. The poetry in his music was beautiful,” actor Anupam Kher said in a tribute.
“His music was gentle, soothing and went to your heart.”
Ghazal singer Pankaj Udhas said that Singh had made ghazal so accessible that his audiences “could sing along with him”.
Jagjit Singh recorded more than 50 albums, many of them major commercial successes.”

This is a link to another shot, https://designldg.wordpress.com/2011/05/20/the-ghazal-king/

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The Ghazal King

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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.

“Nemidanam che manzel bood shab jayi ke man boodam;
Be har soo raghse besmel bood shab jayi ke man boodam.
I wonder what was the place where I was last night,
All around me were half-slaughtered victims of love, tossing about in agony.”

This picture belongs to a series of portraits of Jagjit Singh, the Ghazal King, shot a few hours ago.
Jagjit Singh is one of the most talented artist of India and a legendary name in the field of Ghazal Singing.
His ghazals do a wonderful job in delivering tranquility (where “mai-khana” is involved), passion, serenity, pain (“sweet pain” in love), deepness, grief, love and a reminder of one’s own personal past.

The gazal is a poetic form consisting of rhyming couplets and a refrain, with each line sharing the same meter.
A ghazal may be understood as a poetic expression of both the pain of loss or separation and the beauty of love in spite of that pain.
The form is ancient, originating in 6th century Arabic verse.
It is one of the principal poetic forms which the Indo-Perso-Arabic civilization offered to the eastern Islamic world.
The ghazal spread into South Asia in the 12th century under the influence of the new Islamic Sultanate courts and Sufi mystics.
Although the ghazal is most prominently a form of Dari and Urdu poetry, today it is found in the poetry of many languages of Indian sub-continent.

Ghazals were written by the Persian mystics and poets Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (13th century) and Hafez (14th century), the Azeri poet Fuzuli (16th century), as well as Mirza Ghalib (1797–1869) and Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938), both of whom wrote ghazals in Persian and Urdu.

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