The first time i visited Taj Mahal was in 1997. I was a fledgling journalist and was lucky to be sent to cover the Yanni concert at Agra. The concert was on the banks of the Yamuna with the Taj Mahal as the backdrop. It was a major musical event of the year especially since it raked up a lot of controversy. This was the first time something of such a large scale was being done near the Taj Mahal. I was not impressed at all when i went to see Taj Mahal on the morning of the concert. It did not live upto my expectations of it. But i realise the more i visit the monument the more i begin to appreciate its beauty, its scale, its architecture and its metaphotic importance. In the october of 2006 i was in Agra and on my 4th visit to the Taj Mahal. And this time more spellbound by it than ever. I shot the monument for two consequent days. I went across the Yamuna and shot it from the banks of Yamuna where i sat one evening over 9 years ago among the glitterati listining to the strains of Yanni's music with Taj Mahal standing out as a silhouette against the sky.
Sanjay Austa is an award-winning photographer based in New Delhi.
He started his career as a journalist and the switch to photography was gradual. His photographs and his choice of subjects however reflect his journalistic pedigree.
He has shot myriad subjects in diverse geographical climes including the wild in the African Savannas, the life in the Arctic and the deserts in the Middle East. He has a penchant for human-interest issues for which he travels extensively in India. His photo-essays are published regularly in the Indian and the International Media. His photo-feature on the 1984 anti-Sikh Delhi riots was exhibited in California and UK by various human rights groups in 2009 and 2010 respectively.
More recently he has done four picture books on World Heritage Monuments for Penguin Books. He is a guest faculty at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication(IIMC), New Delhi. He was awarded the prestigious Karamveer Puraskar Award in 2010 for his photo-essays on social and cultural issues.
www.sanjayausta.com
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e-mail: sanjayausta@gmail.com