CHANDIGARH – THE CAPITOL COMPLEX

 

The Open Hand Monument

So here we are on the last day of our trip, on the road to visit the Capitol Complex; the heart of Chandigarh, designed (partially) by Le Corbusier in the late 1950’s. An ode to modernist architecture that we have been longing to visit for years.

Palace of Assembly

Well not quite; aside from the bad planning (in my own opinion) of our travel agent, visiting Chandigarh is a bit more complicated than we thought. So apart from the 3 sites cited in my last post, there is nothing organised to visit the habitations buildings and finally you have to go through a guided tour to visit the Capitol Complex.

The Shadow Tower

This is not quite all : the two main buildings on the Capitol, the High court and the Assembly are in use (why should they not be after all?). So you cannot enter the High Court and you are lucky (we were) to enter the Assembly ( but no photos inside).

Punjab and Haryana High Court or palace of Justice

Add bye the time the guide assembled the small crowd of tourists we started our visit by mid morning, time was starting to be short and the light was quite bad for taking pictures.

As you can see above the high court is in use with layers in their work outfits.

Palace of assembly

In the opposite site of the plaza from the Hight court, the Palace of Assembly has a better lighting. It is overseeing a large pond and offers a spectacular view.

The holes in the front walls give nice perspectives and see through views.

Patterns on the assembly walls, reminding that man is the scale of the construction.

Getting out of the Assembly House the inevitable Ambassador car, now a civil servant official car, which used to be common taxis.

Mister Mohan

Our visit was accompanied by Mister Mohan, from the tourist Police who turned out to be a friendly person.

A few more things:

• For the habitations buildings there are no restrictions to go and visit them, ask inhabitants,… we met some passionate french people who were spending a full week there. But Chandigarh is a big city so you better plan for what you want to see.
• You can “pass by” on a road at the back of the Open Hand monument, in  a certain distance, without getting into a tour and then be able to take picture at better moments (I did not)
• The tour of the Capitol Complex is a bit rushed through, you are not welcome to wander around or take too long with your photography nonsense,
• You do not see on the pictures, the parking lots, the vans, the 20 Spanish tourists of our tour, the barriers,…
• How did I manage to take so poor pictures of a site I longed to visit for decades? It shows (if needed) that some skills need working on.
• Camera geekerry : color shots Leica M262, black and while Leica M6, Summicron 28 and Summicron 50

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Chandigarh – first approach

Chandigarh was supposed to be the highlight of our trip to Punjab with the Golden temple of Amritsar, but it turned out it is a bit more complicated that it looks. We have been longing for years to visit the building designed by Lecorbusier, and finally they were in reach.

But Chandigarh has a few more things to visit, the first one we head to was the market of Sector 17. The market is in fact a vast open space where people gather at night and have a stroll, meet and have fun rather than an actual market.

Of course there are actual stalls selling food and shops in the arcades of the modernist buildings. But for our firs glimpse of Chandigarh we were not very impressed.

Ok this was the night, we spent the day on the road, and I thought it was not a real market, so I was a bit upset. Also talking to our guide I realized ( a bit late) that the next day we will be out to visit an important Gurudwara and will only be back again in the evening to Chandigarh.

So the next day after our day trip we visited the next two attractions : the rose garden (there were no roses at this time of the year, or maybe we just spot one) and the Sukhna Lake.

The Sukhna Lake is an artificial lake made after the city was constructed by one of the city benefactors, the same that did the rose garden.

It is another popular spot where locals and tourists went out for a walk at night and enjoy fresher air.

But I started being in quite a bad mood : I wanted to see concrete modernist building not an expanse of water in the dark.

As a bonus we tested the delicacies above.

And tomorrow we have only 4 hours to visit the legendary public buildings of Lecorbusier.

2017 – A(nother) year in film

Here we go again, here is my new year message to the world : happy new year to all go out and keep shooting film.

Camera n.1: Leica M6 with Cinestill 800T

I think 2017 has been another very good year for film photography; the medium is getting more and more momentum. We saw a lot of new films released :Cinestill finally delivered the 120 version of 800T and 50D, Rollei gave us the Vario slide, Kodak is working on reviving Ektachrome, Japan Camera Hunter made more street pan and now has a second line, and more niche brands are creating or reviving special films. Of course Fuji keep on thinning his product line and Film Ferania is still not able to deliver its products. All in all the future of film is bright and it looks we are living more than just a fad. On the down side film camera prices are going up, but for most of it probably just from insanely low to still acceptable. The most expensive gear, Leica like, has not gone up much. Only the lenses that can be used on DSLR or four third cameras has seen unreasonably hikes.

Camera N.2 : Leica IIIC with Ultrafine Extreme 400

As in the past (2015, 2016) lets see how I plaid my part this year.

Camera N.3 : Hasselblad 500CM with Cinestill 800T

I managed to beat my own record once again by shooting 65 rolls this year, 1 more that last year. With both 120 and 35 mm format that should be close to 2000 pictures. I would say that 1 roll per week is a good average, as I also shoot digital.

Camera n.4: Leica M4 with Polypan PF50

Below is breakdown of the rolls shot by camera:

Rank	Camera	Number of rolls	Last year rank
1	Leica M6	25	1
2	Leica IIIc	13	5
3	Hasselblad 500CM	10	3
4	Leica M4	9	2
5	Agfa Isolette III	3	7
6	Kodak Autographic Jr 3a	2	–
7	Nikon F	1	6
8	Heineken Toy Camera	1	–
9	Dacora Digna	1	–

Clearly the Leica’s are the star of the year, now I shoot Leica digital, I always carry the M6 on holidays. Apart from a small issue on the winding side, this is a perfect image making machine and I now have a good set of lenses (28, 50, 90) that are foolproof and cover most situations. The Leica IIIc, is still my most used “lesser” camera, I invested in a beautiful 35mm F3.5 Summaron this year, and despite maybe a small intermittent curtain problem I can now use it without second hesitation.  I still love the M4, but lacking meter it stayed home most of the year, until I dig it out this autumn, this one is faultless. I still love the Hasselblad, but I hardly carry it with me on holidays anymore, pity because my fridge is loaded with 120 rolls ,I have a long standing project of portraits that I may finally launch this year… The rest is done with my older cameras which for most have issues now, so I managed to make some odd nice shots but I would think twice before using them again.

Camera N.5 : Agfa Isolette with Rollei 80s

This year again I offer you a breakdown of the films I shot :

Row Labels	Count of Film No
Polypan PF50	9
Rollei Retro 400s	7
Cinestill 50D	5
Kodak TMY 400	4
Kodak TRI X	4
Cinestill 800T	4
Fuji Fuji Xtra 800	4
Kodak Portra 160	4
Ultrafine 400	3
Kodak TMX 100	3
Rollei Retro 80s	3
JCH 400 pan	2
Bergger Pancro400	2
Kodak Portra 400	2
Rollei Superpan 200	1
Fuji Superia 400	1
Fomapan 400	1
FilmNeverDies Shirokuro 400	1
Fuji Velvia 50	1
Rollei  Retro 80s	1
Ilford Delta 100	1
Rollei ATP 32	1
Rollei CR200	1
Grand Total	65

This is a big variety; but as last year majority is 35mm, back and white; but there are about 20 colors rolls (10 last year) and a total of 16 120 format films (7 last year). The surprise may come at the Polypan 50 iso coming first with 9 rolls, these (and more) were given to me by my friend Ray, I like how it goes out and enjoy shooting at iso 50. Kodak and Rollei are still high up in the list.

Camera N.6 : Kodak Autographic Jr 3a with Cinestill 50D

The news was the Bergger Panchro, the Cinestill 50D and 800T in 120 format, but I did not made anything outstanding with them.

Camera N.7 : Nikon F with Polypan PF50

I confirmed this year my attachment to Leica systems, I nearly did not shoot any Nikon, apart on digital for some events. This year I plan to stick to the same program, camera and film wise, I have  a bulk roll of Ultrafine Extreme 400, so this will give me 20 roll of 36 shots more or less, and the fridge is still stocked (around 50 rolls in there). I plan to upgrade my scanner, I have the Epson 500 for 8 years now, it served me well, I may have scanned, 300 rolls with it so that’s 1.5 $ a roll for scanning, I think it paid well for itself.

Camera N. 9 : Dacora Digna with Bergger Panchro 400

Happy shooting in 2018 !