Robert D. Stephens is a Principal at RMA Architects, Mumbai. His passions include the art of building and constructing beauty through visual, literary, and cinematic imagery. In 2013 he co-produced a feature film with India's first You Tube star, Wilbur Sargunaraj, entitled "Simple Superstar".
The most unique feature of the photos is that they come with an index of the pollution levels in the city on the day that each picture was shot.
For this particular photo taken on January 2014 below were the details of the pollution level:
SO2 - 30 μ/m3
NOx - 267 μ/m3
RSPM - 131 μ/m3
About Mumbai Articles: Contemporary Aerial Photographs of Mumbai
ARTISANS' presents Mumbai Articles a collection of twenty-four black and white urban portraits of Mumbai taken by Robert D. Stephens from 15,000 ft above sea level . The idea was birthed at the window seat of flights over Mumbai, and on the footpaths of Flora Fountain. Ranging from wide-angle views that poetically capture the former island’s geographic context, to micro views of the dense metropolitan fabric, the collection offers a rare aerial perspective of the mega city. Shot over nearly six years from 2009 to 2014, the pictures are, for Stephens, a spontaneous exercise in documenting the contemporary geography of a port city that he has come to love.
Click links below to see his other collections:
Madras Transit Mumbai North Stephens’ aerial photos, taken 15,000 feet above sea level, are stunning in themselves, but this collection has more grounded perspectives to offer.
He chose to caption his photos with quirky historical excerpts from a host of books about Mumbai, from the 1909 Gazetteer and the 1914 Land Revenue Act, to a 1983 book on the Bombay Dockyard and even a 1973 guidebook for tourists.
“I had bought all these books from Flora Fountain and when I read them, I got the impression that some things in the city have changed completely, but many other things have remained the same, “ said Stephens.
The most unique feature of the photos is that they come with a certificate documenting the pollution levels on the corresponding date - an atmospheric condition which creates a rich and varied visual texture.
“When I first printed my photos, I couldn’t figure out why they were so grainy - some more than others, “ said Stephens. “Then my wife pointed out that it could be because of Mumbai’s pollution.”
Sure enough, when Stephens looked up pollution levels in the city on the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board website, he found his answer: the higher the pollution on a given day, the grainier the picture.
Stephens took note of three hazardous pollutants in Mumbai: RSPM (respirable suspended particulate matter), which has a permissible limit of 100 micro grams per cubic metre (µg/m3); SO2 (sulphur dioxide), which has a permissible limit of 80 µg/m3: and NOx (nitrogen oxide), which also has a permissible limit of 80 µg/m3.
On most days, says Stephens, the presence of RSPM and NOx in Mumbai is well above these limits. He decided to weave these readings into this collection, as a reminder of the sordid reasons for photos that appear strikingly beautiful.
About the Artist
Robert D. Stephens is a Principal at RMA Architects, Mumbai. His passions include the art of building and constructing beauty through visual, literary, and cinematic imagery. In 2013 he co-produced a feature film with India’s first You Tube star, Wilbur Sargunaraj, entitled “Simple Superstar.”