India in Black and White by Michal Huniewicz

About this shoot

This completes my Indian galleries - it took me absolute ages to get around doing that, mostly because I underestimated the complexity of Indian culture, and how much effort would the research take. Some of the previous galleries became quite popular and were translated into many languages. The Hindu cremations gallery was published on the digital front page of a large Polish daily.

I did some reading on Jainism, and wrote a brief introduction to it in my temples gallery. I don't necessarily recommend you become a Jain, but I do recommend you read about it (it's even more hipster than Buddhism, ha). As for Indian literature, I enjoyed the ancient Garuda Purana, a very psychedelic and [not literally] apocalyptic Hindu text on afterlife. In terms of music, I did not discover anything better than the sitars, which is somewhat disappointing - I nevertheless recommend Anoushka Shankar.

Since the trip, which was last year, I haven't been to a country with a more wealthy and impressive culture, with better food, and most of all, more friendly people. Before going on that trip, my friend Stuart (a great traveller I met in the Middle East) told me that India was like "nothing you have ever experienced; it's just something else". And he was right!

This gallery and the night shots one are not so richly described any more, as I wanted to focus on the photos themselves. For an intro to India please check out my Highlights from India gallery.

Uploaded on: 2013-12-22. Updated on: 2026-01-08.